What a singular day this turned out to be. I still had not contacted either of my young university friends, mi amigo, Anthony, o mi amiga, Mariela.
I ate breakfast in the attractive, open hotel restaurant. Finally, I took my MP3 player, which I had loaded with some photos of family and of Peruvian acquaintances, and showed the waitress a picture of Anthony.
She took the device and showed the picture to someone at the desk, and they knew him. If he came looking for me, they would tell him where and when I could be found. Before I left the hotel after cleaning up following breakfast, Anthony had come in and was waiting to say hello.
We talked for a half-hour, then he had to go to class. We arranged to meet back at the hotel around noon.
I walked down the hotel steps, turned left, and a mototaxi driver started talking to me, soliciting my business I thought. Then I heard him call out my name, a heavily accented `Mick Farrell.`When I turned, he pushed a piece of paper at me with my name and email address on it...in my handwriting!
It was the note that I had given Mariela when I met her while stuck in Pongo last year due to road construction. The mototaxi driver was Mariela`s brother, and she had sent him to find me and to arrange for us to get together later today.
Wait. It gets better. Only minutes later I was walking around Yurimaguas`Plaza de Armas (GPS coordinates 05 53.703S / 76 06.270W) before going to an Internet business. A nicely dressed man with a briefcase approached me. Uh-oh, I thought, what`s he selling?
He introduced himself as Miguel and said that he thought he knew me. Yeah, right. But we talked. Had I been to Lagunas last year? Had I used the ESTYPEL guide agency there to arrange for a trip into the jungle (selva)? Why, yes I had.
Trust me, you can`t get a lot more remote than Lagunas, Peru, a small town on Rio Huallaga between Yurimaguas and Iquitos that serves as a jumping-off point for trips into Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria.
At that point I brought out my MP3 player again, asked him to join me at a table in the shade where we could actually see its tiny screen. I showed him some pictures that I took on that trip last year.
He knew my guide, Esteban. The cook at the remote camp that was our destination on the two-day canoe trip was a woman named Zorella. She was Miguel`s sister!
I could hardly believe the set of coincidences that we discovered while talking this morning. I stayed and talked with him and a friend for awhile. They gave me some advice on places to stay and eat in Iquitos, my destination upon leaving Yurimaguas.
Miguel said that he would phone ahead and have an English-speaking guide meet me at Iquitos even though I told him that I would not be taking any of the jungle excursions that were his bread-and-butter. Then I had to excuse myself to get some work done, but I`d not soon forget this meeting.
Nor would I soon forget the afternoon I spent with Anthony. We had a nice lunch at my hotel, talking at length as I picked at my meal.
He is 21 years old now and is less than a year from graduating as a teacher with a prized endorsement to teach English. He was immaculately dressed and well-mannered. Soft-spoken, slight of build, a nice looking young man. Twenty-one years old and he had never driven a car or even a motorscooter, I mused.
I had brought him a couple of gifts, one for his schooling (audio cassettes for his English textbook series) and one personal item (a tee-shirt). He was clearly overwhelmed though he knew that I was looking for something to bring prior to leaving home. And I was kind of overwhelmed by his reaction and heartfelt thanks.
Anthony told me that his family knew of me and my family through him and our emails and some photos I sent last Christmas. Would I like to meet them?
So, after lunch and knowing that I had an appointment back at the hotel with Mariela at 4, we got into a mototaxi in front of Hotel el Naranjo and set out for the barrio and calle each called Las Americas.
The sights and sounds of a vibrant, exotic city are always memorable. Within a block of the hotel we added an assault on another of the senses--smell. We drove through streets crowded with vendors selling produce and meat. Rotting organic matter, and perhaps open sewage, contributed to a stench as we passed through the streets.
Anthony had told me last year about his circumstances. University fees are almost laughably small, less than $30 per term. His grades reduced that amount significantly. Still he copied pages from classmates´ English language books because he could not buy them. I knew that he came from an impoverished background.
Las Americas was a mile or two from my hotel in centro Yurimaguas. Avenida Las Americas is a busy paved street, but side streets are dirt. We had our driver turn on one of these and stopped in front of his grandmother´s home.
I believe that she was sitting outside in the shade when we arrived, or perhaps she was just inside the front door. I was introduced to Elsa, a small, pleasant old woman who spoke probably not one word of English. Anthony sat between us in case either of us got hung up in a language snare.
I didn´t go into the house at first, but I could see through the open door that it was spare, clean, and had a concrete floor. We enjoyed the surprisingly pleasant breeze on Elsa´s tree-shaded front porch.
I showed her pictures of Anthony and of my family on my MP3. She smiled and nodded appreciatively.
The pace started to pick up when Anthony´s two sisters rode up on a motorscooter. Sissy was driving her scooter, and Miluska was riding behind.
Both sisters were older than my friend´s 21 years, but neither had passed 30 either. Miluska seemed to be more reserved, perhaps self-conscious of some unfortunate dental work. Sissy, on the other hand, might fairly be described as ´hot´by someone inclined to utilize that term, which I am not.
We all continued sitting on the porch talking and taking pictures when I had the idea that Sissy could take me for a ride on her scooter. When I convinced them that I was serious, off we went, up the side street and down Av. Las Americas.
When we returned to Elsa´s home, the group had been joined by a couple of middle-aged neighbors. Betty was a handsome, thin woman who enjoyed mellow conversation and looking at my pictures.
Gloria was rather more outgoing. She was a large woman who wasted little effort disguising an even larger libido. Cynical and funny, Gloria was the neighbor you love and love to be shocked by.
It was getting to be late afternoon. I had an appointment at 4 and told the group that I had to leave. Before I got away, Anthony asked if I´d like to meet his brother and mother who lived nearby.
I had the idea that Anthony lived with his grandmother although I knew that his mother was living. Of course I´d like to meet them. And off we went walking a couple of blocks down Av. Las Americas.
There was a point where a certain unnamed ´street´ connected to the thoroughfare. Not a street, really, but more like a widened path that was unsuited for vehicular travel. Deep ruts had to be negotiated carefully even by pedestrians. We walked up the hill past shanties on our left and right.
Dogs and small children roamed freely. Idle adults sat on stoops in front of their homes. Laundry dried on lines. Near the top of the hill we veered off to the right to one of the homes.
Anthony´s niece was outside playing. We went in where I was introduced to his brother, Marco, who offered me a Coca Cola from a decaying refrigerator. A second niece was asleep on the concrete floor, nothing under or over her.
A television played. I sensed a lack of warmth emanating from the older brother. He appeared glassy-eyed to me, and indolent. It was a fine day out: could he have been working? Does he resent Anthony´s attending university? Who knows.
Only a wall separated Marco´s living space from his mother´s. Her living conditions were much meaner than her older son´s. There was no concrete floor on her side: her floor was dirt from the front porch on.
Sheets or curtains partitioned of a couple of rooms to the side that we passed by, stooped over, walking through the dark home. We found Anthony´s mother in back of the house in a covered area otherwise open to the elements. There was a cookstove of some kind, but no appliances of any kind. A hammock hung listlessly.
I was introduced to the old woman, Martina, who was in fact likely younger than me. Bad teeth were prominent features of her craggy brown face. I had been told that she was enferma (sick), that she was basically always sick. I saw some medicine on the table that indicated it was for the treatment of parasites. Little wonder.
There was a toilet and shower outside, across the compound on the brother´s side. I assumed that the primitive arrangement was shared.
So this is where Anthony lived. He told me that he had a private room and bed on his mother´s side. He´s within a year of graduating from the university and becoming a teacher with a coveted English-language endorsement. What are the odds that a kid would make it out of this environment? But Anthony clearly will.
It was 4 o´clock and I should be meeting Mariela at my hotel right now. I bade Martina goodbye. Marco was sitting on his small front porch, legs splayed, as he grudgingly acknowledged my farewell and thanks for the Coke.
Anthony and I negotiated the street back down to Av. Las Americas where I searched for a passing mototaxi. Not yet...I had to say goodbye again to the clan back at Grandma Elsa´s home.
Four gals were playing cards at a table with a couple of kibbutzers adding their two cents. I initiated some farewells, but Sissy said to wait, she had something for me.
I was offered a small, low chair where I should sit. Sissy was quickly back with a glass cup or bowl filled with a purple liquid called mazamorra morada. It was sweet, cool, as thick as heavy cream, and was served with a delicate little spoon.
