Reminiscences of a Strange Welcome

09Oct09

My tiny hand looked out of place in his:  a small 9-year old hand in his bronze, callused, 50-yr old hand.  I ran my fingers over the deep grooves in his leathery skin. He held on gently but firmly.

I didn’t know where my uncle Luis, affectionately known as Lucho, was taking me.  He gazed at the ground and remained silent, except for the measured huffs breaking through his pursed lips.  My steps hustled behind his long strides.  We cut through the dusty landscape like a freight train, leaving a twisting contrail behind us.

He wore his usual faded blue jeans, scuffed black work boots, and buttoned cotton plaid shirt.  With coarse dark hair and swarthy lined skin, he looked like an older version of my father.

Tio Lucho was unmarried, had no children. His coal-black eyes harbored a remote regret, a bygone tragedy too complex for my young mind to untangle, so I only focused on his smile, a charismatic beam of a smile that made me feel safe.

“Tio, where are we going?” I asked.  The swirling dust entered my mouth and made my tongue feel like wood.

“Hush and walk, chola,” he said.  Slang for “mixed-breed”, chola was the nickname both he and my father used for me.

The paved roads of San German, a suburb in Lima, Peru, disappeared in the distant haze behind us. We were now in the provincial territory of pueblos jovenes or shantytowns. I squinted at the sunlight that filtered through the dust around me.  Everything looked overexposed and grainy.

A zigzag of rooftops bisected the horizon, giving way to rows of uneven homes contrived of corrugated metal and scraps of plywood. Muddied plastic containers full of water lined the outside walls of homes. Emaciated dogs trotted in every direction. The odor of rotting fruit and burning refuse punctuated the air as we passed by the community landfill.  My eyes watered.

This was a far cry from abuelita’s house, I thought.  Even without hot water and an indoor shower, my grandmother’s modest one-story cement home was still modern enough for flush toilets, electricity and television. All the houses in the neighborhood were painted in varying shades of white or pastel, an attempt to whitewash the filth and poverty creeping in from the north.

I never saw anything but the outside of these homes, however.  After two weeks in San German, I had befriended most of the neighborhood children, who seemed to think I was cool and exotic, like a Spanish-speaking Martian. But this friendship invariably led to invitations into their homes, an idea that was out of the question.

“No, m’ijita,” my grandmother warned.  “It’s rude to impose.”

The refusal had to do less with imposition than with her general distrust of the world.  And perhaps it was even her desire to convert me.  If she had it her way, I would sit inside and read the Bible all day, “como una señorita,” instead of running around outdoors playing soccer with philistines.

My aunt was more direct in her disapproval.

“Engreida!” She would always decry my privileged existence, my maldito birthright, my American ’stink’. “Why do you get to play outside all day long while I slave away in the kitchen?  Is that what you’re used to?”

Her words defeated me, stung me, until I felt the back of my neck burn with shame. Like many kids my age, I spent most of my vacation playing outdoors. I was exploring. I was enjoying. I was living.

My new friends had been instrumental in my learning how to ride a bicycle, teaching me, encouraging me, showing me a resolve I’d never seen before, cultivated from years of hardship.

I was too naive to understand that my aunt had no real concern about my moral make-up.  She merely knew that she was poor, and I was not. I had no words to counter her. No way to save her. No way to reverse my parents’ emigration and join in her misfortune.

Today my aunt’s barbs had taken on an abusive tone. And it was during this commotion that Tio Lucho arrived for his daily visit.

He was a massive presence, standing in the doorway, darkening the living room, and my aunt soon squirmed under the weight of his glare and its implied threat. He calmly asked me to go outside. I scampered away.

It was difficult to hear the ensuing argument from outside, sitting on the curb.  My uncle’s booming baritone drowned my aunt’s plaintive voice.  I soon stopped eavesdropping because this new side of him unnerved me.  The knot grew in my stomach, and I felt as I did at home on so many nights, listening to my parents feud and struggle and live the American dream.

My uncle had always been a man of quiet words, one who melted into the backdrop of my days, who feigned interest for the mundane details of my 4^th-grade vignettes, who smuggled candy treats my way and taught me how to hide them from my brother.

Now he emerged from the house transformed, eyebrows furrowed, and asked me to accompany him. No warm smile that echoed my father’s.  No kind eyes.  He took my hand and we marched into the outskirts of town together.

Finally we stopped in front of a dilapidated shack made of thatch sheets and plywood planks.  There was no door, just a gaping hole where the material had run out. The brisk winter wind whistled and hissed through the loose boards. I hesitated for a moment before I followed him inside.

A rusty metal cot stood on the left side of the single room.  The mattress, no thicker than a comforter, lay on top, and a black and white Alpaca-wool blanket neatly covered it.  Next to the cot was an overturned milk crate that served as a makeshift night table.  At the far end of the room I saw rickety chair and table, neither of which rested on the dirt ground properly.

Then my eyes drifted to the wall next to his bed. Beside the frayed prayer card of La Virgen rested a wallet-sized picture of my family.  It was a studio portrait, vivid against the gray wood wall. I was 5-yrs old in it, with my stupid Dorothy Hamill haircut and white frilly dress. I hated that dress, and it looked even more ridiculous now in this austere setting.

A single photograph in this home. My uncle is one of six siblings yet this was the only picture he displayed. I looked out of place there, my world of frilly dresses and JC Penney poses and ESL classes and Double Stuf Oreos and basic cable and swelling anxiety. My eyes met his, and he finally smiled.

Slowly, I was led back outside to meet his neighbors. To visit the insides of homes. To learn about this peculiar world of simple necessities, humility, and unexpected acceptance.

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