Mexico Day 4 - Live concert on the radio

Despite the excitement of last night, everyone had a good night's sleep and gathered happily for breakfast. Before the buses left again at 10 o'clock, everyone went to the supermarket to buy food for the picnic at noon.

Just before eleven o'clock, the buses dropped us off in Xochimilco. Xochimilco is one of the 16 boroughs of Mexico City. Together with the historical center of the city, Xochimilco is a UNESCO World Heritage site and is particularly known for the floating gardens of the Aztecs from the 14th century.
Divided into five groups, we boarded the so-called 'Trajineros', small colorful boats that have a long table with chairs in the middle.
We sailed on the water for two hours. After the first turn, our boatmen steered the Trajineros next to each other with their long wooden poles, so that they could connect the boats with chains and create a large boat. During the ride, we could walk from boat to boat, have a picnic together, sunbathe, and of course sing.
However, we were not the only ones singing. We were accompanied at times by a Trajinero with some musicians who eventually came on our boats and sang two Mexican pieces for us. And our companions from the choir 'Staccato' also performed a few songs.
During the trip, we were also approached by small boats with vendors who wanted to sell us corn, jewelry, scarves, flower crowns, or ponchos, for example.
Our boat tour ended around 1:15 pm and we docked again on the shore.

Fifteen minutes later, we continued with the buses. We drove for about an hour to the IMER radio studio. There, from 5 to 6 pm, we would give a live concert including an interview on the classical music station 'Opus 94'. The rehearsal gave us the opportunity to get used to the rather dry room and determine the selection of pieces. The editorial staff specifically requested that we sing the spiritual 'The Battle of Jericho' by Moses Hogan at the end.
Shortly before the start of the concert, the audience arrived, about 100 people who would watch the concert in the recording studio.
After about half of the pieces, Mr. Kammel and his daughter Cosima, who speaks fluent Spanish, were brought to the back for an interview with the moderator. Emilio, a former Mexican exchange student from the Schiller-Gymnasium, translated both the questions for Mr. Kammel and his answers. After the interview, there was another musical part, which ended as desired with 'The Battle of Jericho'. When the audience demanded an encore, we sang 'Didn't My Lord Deliver Daniel', also a spiritual by Moses Hogan, which the audience seemed to enjoy even more :)

After the concert, we drove back to the hotel. Together with our guest choir 'Staccato', we ended the evening with a delicious buffet. After dinner, there were, of course, singing performances from both choirs and many photos. As a farewell gift, each of our singers received a small figurine called 'Catrinas'.
Then it was time to say goodbye, as we all had to pack quickly for tomorrow's departure.