I went with Sergio and La Senora Delia today to drop off the last orders of bread and buy some last-minute supplies.
To get eggs and lard, we went to a very dark, scary street and knocked on a unassuming metal door. Out came a well-dressed woman with two crates of eggs. I didn't understand what she and La Senora Delia were talking about. As you can imagine, this sometimes happens to me.
But this time, I realized it wasn't just that I didn't understand, it was that the two senoras weren't speaking Spanish. They were speaking Quechua!
La Senora Delia can speak Quechua and Aymara, the main indigenous languages in Peru.
And this isn't a small thing. Indigenous peoples, mainly Quechua and Aymara, make up 45% of Peru's population. Most Peruvians don't speak either language.
Actually, when I told Sergio that the number was as high as 45%, he didn't believe me at first.
This little video from Latin Pulse (25 minutes) gives some perspective about the indigenous peoples of Latin America:
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