The guardian angels in one's life: 01 (The Peruvian boy who adopted me)

[This story was first published as Cuzco chico (https://piccola-chinita.blogspot.com/2011/07/cuzco-chico_15.html), but I cannot do a series on guardian angels without him leading off the collection, so here he is again, in case you haven't already read Cuzco chico.  Re-reading it myself still brings tears to my eyes, as when I first wrote the story.]

Being one who always gets in the wrong queue, trust me to go and choose to be the adventurous traveller at the wrong time in Cuzco in November 1987, and go on standby for a plane to Lima.

    There had been a spate of train robberies, even on the Pullmans where carriages could be locked up to ensure robbers couldn’t get in — yet, somehow they did.  So, everyone decided to fly.

    On top of that, I had also gone and set up a domino effect by building up onward flights practically back-to-back:  Lima to London — arriving about 8pm, stay the night, then London to Zurich on the first plane the next day.  This meant that I could not afford to miss the mid-day flight out of Lima.  I also had to fly in from Cuzco the day before and stay the night in Lima, as there were no flights from Cuzco to get me into Lima before mid-day.

    When I got to the Cuzco airport, the queues for the (only) two airlines were at least 50 deep, with two flights per airline to Lima.  Gulp.

    David the Canadian and I decided to take a queue each, and call each other over when we got to the counter.

    Airline A’s flight 1 filled up, then Airline B’s flight 1.  Double gulp.  Two down, two to go.  Then that’s it for the day.  Eek.

    I thought I’d talk to the blonde gringa in front of me to make me feel better — you know, “fellow sufferers in the same boat”kind of thing.  She turned out to be an off-duty KLM stewardess, and would therefore get preferential treatment as airline staff.  Oh dear.  I could see myself scrambling for another flight to London, and another one to Zurich.  And she had her husband with her, which meant one more seat taken.  Groan.

    I’d put my name down for Airline B’s waiting list for flight 2, and saw that I was number 129.  Fat chance of getting on.

    As I stood in Airline A’s queue, about 20 behind, telling myself I just wasn’t cut out for the last-minute standby style of travelling, my quiet panic was interrupted by a voice, in Spanish, “Señorita, is this your bag?”

    I found myself looking down at the face from which had emanated that question — it belonged to a boy of about 8.  I nodded mutely, not twigging what it was about.

    The boy spoke again, in Spanish:  “Give me your passport and air ticket.”  I handed them over.

    Picking up my soft bag, he marched past the other 20 people in the queue, and went straight up to the counter, where the clerk was checking in a gringo passenger whose luggage was already on the weighing scales. 

    The boy slapped my documents onto the counter and said to the clerk, in Spanish, “Hola, Juan.  This is my señorita friend’s passport, plane ticket, and here is her luggage.”

    Juan pushed aside the items he was in the middle of processing, dealt with my case, handed over my passport, plane ticket and boarding pass to the boy, then went back to the previous passenger (who, surprisingly, did not protest, probably because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening, as it’d all taken place so quickly).

    When the boy came back to me, I was still standing in the queue, stunned by what my eyes were witnessing.

    He said, in Spanish, handing over each document as he called them out, “Señorita, here is your passport, here is your plane ticket, here is your boarding pass.  Now follow me, quick!  The plane’s leaving soon!”

    I followed him in a daze through the crowds in the main hall.

    At the departure lounge gate, he greeted the burly guard with cheery familiarity, in Spanish, “¡Hola, Pedro.  This is my señorita friend.  She’s catching the flight to Lima that’s leaving very soon.”

    Pedro let me through with only a cursory glance at my boarding pass — any friend of the boy’s was good enough, it seemed.

    The boy pointed out the plane on the tarmac, saying, in Spanish, “That’s your plane.  Quick go!”

    Then, he solemnly shook my hand, said, “Adios, señorita,” and turned to leave.  He wasn’t even expecting to be paid!

    I recovered in time from my dazed state and pulled out all the Peruvian notes and coins I had in my trouser pockets, calling out, “Chico!” and put the lot into his little hand.

    He looked taken aback.  I closed his fingers around the money and gave him a bear hug, blinking back the grateful tears.  (Crying now as I re-read this.  I shall be forever moved by the memory of it, however many times I recall it.)

    I got on the plane very shortly before it took off for Lima.

    To this day, I have no idea why the boy singled me out.  I was standing there minding my own business — even if panicking inwardly.

    The only explanation I can think of is that I was the only one in the queue who looked local, as the rest were all gringos and gringas.  I’d been mistaken for one everywhere I went in Peru and would get — without asking for — lower quotes for things like camping equipment than those for gringos fluent in Spanish. 

    He probably adopted me as I looked like a Peruana.

    The boy was my heaven-sent guardian angel.

(Peru, Nov 1987)

Decongestion Peruvian-style? (Peru)

When the Lima-to-Pisco bus was in the outer suburbs of Lima, about to leave Lima altogether, we suddenly heard the bus conductor shouting out “Pico, Pico!” to the clusters of people by the road surging towards the bus, hoping to embark.  We sat bolt upright in our seats and went into a momentary panic:  Had we got on the wrong bus?!?  With this being the outer border of Lima, how were we to find our way all the way back to the centre of Lima to catch the right bus to Pisco?  A quick check with a fellow passenger told us that “Pico” and Pisco are the same thing.  When, three days later on the Ica-to-Nazca bus, we heard the conductor shouting out, “Naca!  Naca!”, we had the same instinctive moment of panic, then thought, “Ah, maybe another Pico thing,” but checked with a fellow passenger all the same.  

Maybe, just like the wildly shifting advertised departure times of long distance buses, and the discrepancy between the advertised departure time and the actual departure time (cf. the Pisco-to-Ica bus in blog Peruvian ways), this is yet another way to filter out overcrowding, with tourists leaping off in a panic, thinking they’d got on the wrong bus.

(Peru, 1986)

Chifa (Peru)

Going away on holiday is always stressful for me, because tasks cannot be left for finishing off the next day or week, so I found myself reading the guidebook only on the 21-hour flight out to Lima via Bogota.  This speed reading was to have hilarious consequences after my arrival. 

Whenever people asked me in Spanish, “Japon?” I’d answer firmly, “No.  Chifa.”  I couldn’t quite interpret the look on their faces each time in response to this:  a startled look would accompany the rising eyebrows, then they'd go quiet.  Perhaps they were surprised they’d been wrong in their assumption of my racial origins, as if they felt I should be Japanese instead of Chinese. 

One day, after this had happened a number of times, I decided to check out the word chifa in the guidebook where I thought I’d seen it said to mean Chinese — it turned out to be “Chinese restaurant”.  Then the penny dropped: the Mandarin Chinese for “to eat a meal” = chifan. 

So I’d been going around Peru happily identifying myself as a Chinese restaurant.

(Peru, June 1986)

Cuzco chico (Peru)

Being one who always gets in the wrong queue, trust me to go and choose to be the adventurous traveller at the wrong time in Cuzco in November 1987, and go on standby for a plane to Lima.  

There had been a spate of train robberies, even on the Pullmans where carriages could be locked up to ensure robbers couldn’t get in — yet, somehow they did.  So, everyone decided to fly.

On top of that, I had also gone and set up a domino effect by building up onward flights practically back-to-back:  Lima to London — arriving about 8pm, stay the night, then London to Zurich on the first plane the next day.  This meant that I could not afford to miss the mid-day flight out of Lima.  I also had to fly in from Cuzco the day before and stay the night in Lima, as there were no flights from Cuzco to get me into Lima before mid-day.

When I got to the Cuzco airport, the queues for the (only) two airlines were at least 50 deep, with two flights per airline to Lima.  Gulp.  

David the Canadian and I decided to take a queue each, and call each other over when we got to the counter.  

Airline A’s flight 1 filled up, then Airline B’s flight 1.  Double gulp.  Two down, two to go.  Then that’s it for the day.  Eek. 

I thought I’d talk to the blonde gringa in front of me to make me feel better — you know, “fellow sufferers in the same boat” kind of thing.  She turned out to be an off-duty KLM stewardess, and would therefore get preferential treatment as airline staff.  Oh dear.  I could see myself scrambling for another flight to London, and another one to Zurich.  And she had her husband with her, which meant one more seat taken.  Groan.  

I’d put my name down for Airline B’s waiting list for flight 2, and saw that I was number 129.  Fat chance of getting on. 

As I stood in Airline A’s queue, about 20 behind, telling myself I just wasn’t cut out for the last-minute standby style of travelling, my quiet panic was interrupted by a voice, in Spanish, “Señorita, is this your bag?”  

I found myself looking down at the face from which had emanated that question — it belonged to a boy of about 8.  I nodded mutely, not twigging what it was about.  

The boy spoke again, in Spanish:  “Give me your passport and air ticket.”  I handed them over.  

Picking up my soft bag, he marched past the other 20 people in the queue, and went straight up to the counter, where the clerk was checking in a gringo passenger whose luggage was already on the weighing scales.  

The boy slapped my documents onto the counter and said to the clerk, in Spanish, “Hola, Juan.  This is my señorita friend’s passport, plane ticket, and here is her luggage.”  

Juan pushed aside the items he was in the middle of processing, dealt with my case, handed over my passport, plane ticket and boarding pass to the boy, then went back to the previous passenger (who, surprisingly, did not protest, probably because he wasn’t quite sure what was happening, as it’d all taken place so quickly).

When the boy came back to me, I was still standing in the queue, stunned by what my eyes were witnessing.  

He said, in Spanish, handing over each document as he called them out, “Señorita, here is your passport, here is your plane ticket, here is your boarding pass.  Now follow me, quick!  The plane’s leaving soon!”  

I followed him in a daze through the crowds in the main hall. 

At the departure lounge gate, he greeted the burly guard with cheery familiarity, in Spanish, “Hola, Pedro.  This is my señorita friend.  She’s catching the flight to Lima that’s leaving very soon.”  

Pedro let me through with only a cursory glance at my boarding pass — any friend of the boy’s was good enough, it seemed.  

The boy pointed out the plane on the tarmac, saying, in Spanish, “That’s your plane.  Quick go!”  

Then, he solemnly shook my hand, said, “Adios, señorita,” and turned to leave.  He wasn’t even expecting to be paid! 

I recovered in time from my dazed state and pulled out all the Peruvian notes and coins I had in my trouser pockets, calling out, “Chico!” and put the lot into his little hand.  

He looked taken aback.  I closed his fingers around the money and gave him a bear hug, blinking back the grateful tears.  (Crying now as I re-read this.  I shall be forever moved by the memory of it, however many times I recall it.)

I got on the plane very shortly before it took off for Lima. 

To this day, I have no idea why the boy singled me out.  I was standing there minding my own business — even if panicking inwardly.  

The only explanation I can think of is that I was the only one in the queue who looked local, as the rest were all gringos and gringas.  I’d been mistaken for one everywhere I went in Peru and would get — without asking for — lower quotes for things like camping equipment than those for gringos fluent in Spanish. 

He probably adopted me as I looked like a Peruana.

The boy was my heaven-sent guardian angel.

(Peru, Nov 1987)