Sue in Suwanaku (click for stillshot)

Grad students celebrated International Mother Language Day yesterday with theater, dance, poetry and song – and cast me as the protective mother in a video of a traditional Andean courtship ritual called Suwanaku in which a young man comes to steal a woman away from her family.

The most enjoyable aspect of the day`s events was hearing everyone speak more than just a few words in their native languages. Truly beautiful – Mapudungun, Weenhayek, Aymara, Quechua, Bésiro, Yuracaré, Náhuatl, Zoque, Tojolabal, Chinanteco, Purépecha, Nasa, Ashanika – revealing the hidden identities of people who had spent the past couple of weeks together speaking Spanish.