Word: quechua
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...Gordon understands many languages. Fluent in Spanish and proficient in French, she has also studied Russian, Gaelic, Quechua (the second language of Peru), and she is currently learning Portuguese...
...actually lived in Morochata, the village served by the church. They were, instead, from the surrounding campo, the countryside, where they lived and farmed in small communities of clustered huts up in the mountains. Their full dark-skinned faces and thick skull and cheekbones showed that they were pure Quechua Indians, unlike the people of mixed blood who lived in the town. As they entered, the men took off their traditional woolen caps and held them timidly in their thick-fingered, beaten hands. The women entered behind their husbands, a number of them carrying babies in a type of backpack...
...missionary who had lived in the village for almost 10 years. From a small speaker on the wall an organ version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" was playing. As the padre walked to the modest altar, his assistant passed out to the peasants sheets with prayers written in Quechua. This service was for those who spoke only that Indian tongue; in the previous hour the padre had said mass for the Spanish-speaking inhabitants of the village. Almost none of the campesinos spoke Spanish...
...distributed and the silence was broken only by a dog barking in the plaza outside, the padre began to read in Spanish, his monotone voice dry and perfunctory. After he had read a few lines, his assistant, who, stood to the left of the altar, read the lines in Quechua...
...gulp. The taste of the liquor in my mouth turned my stomach, but there was no escaping it. El amigo del padre has to join in too if he did not want to be rude. So I took the glass, spilled a little out in the customary Quechua gesture of thanks to Pachamamma, or Mother Earth, closed my eyes, and drank. "Que bueno!" How good! I said through my teeth as I handed the cup back to the peasant...