Christmas in Huaycan and The Start of More Travels

I was back at the family home in Huaycan by noon, I had somehow found all the right buses back - it was the first time I had done it on my own and I was proud of myself.  Nothing much was going on, other than massive food preparation in the kitchen, so I took a shower and then a nap.  When I woke up David and I went into the commercial area to get some fireworks and have lunch, all the kitchen effort was going into the evening meal. When we returned I tried to help with preparations for what looked like it was going to be a massive Christmas Eve dinner, they wouldn't let me do much but I managed to help a little.  Much of the rest of the afternoon and evening was spent hanging out and talking, we drank a little beer as it got later.  Dinner wasn't going to be served until around 11 PM so there was lots of time to talk and take Christmas pictures, also friends, but especially relatives kept stopping by to say hello.  When dinner finally came it was massive, I can't even remember all we had but there was so much food that one plate wouldn't hold even a little of everything.  We ate and ate.  Before we knew it it was 11:45 PM and the fireworks were starting, so we all made tracks up to the roof top where we could see for miles around.  This was no organized fireworks display, it was all individuals who had bought them in shops and on the street.  But it was massive and went on for over an hour.  It was among the best I have ever seen.  We set off what we had bought but it was measly compared to what was going on around us.  Afterward, there was some more beer drinking, which I joined for a while, but soon was to sleepy to continue. 

The next day, Christmas, was surprisingly quiet compared to Christmas Eve, especially since the beer drinkers were still a bit hung over, as they had talked away much of the night.  David made it to the end and because he stayed around he heard many family stories and had discussions he might not have heard otherwise.  Christmas in Peru does not involve much, or in this case any,  gift giving, so there was no sitting around the tree, which they had, synthetic, opening presents. Just a lot of Felice Navidad greetings and smiles.

There had been much talk the preceding days about the new Star Wars movie, David was especially enthusiastic to see it, so around noon we all piled into a relatives' van and headed to the movie theatre in the nearby district of Ate.  The theatre, it turned out, was in a new small mall there and since the movie didn't start for a few hours, but we needed to get there early to buy tickets, we hung around the mall looking into the shops and trying out the ice cream and other snacks that were very available.  A relaxed and fun family time.  Soon it was time for the movie and rounding up everyone from the stores they were exploring was a bit of a project but we got into the theatre just before the movie started, so all went well.  We watched the movie, dubbed into Spanish, David and I had expected it to be in English with Spanish subtitles, and afterwards had a lively discussion of how good we thought it was.  David and I gave it a neutral, but most everyone else thought it was great.  It was starting to be sunset when we got out of the movie, so we piled back into the van and headed back home to Huaycan.  There we prepared  and ate pleasant Christmas dinner and had a quiet night at home.  

The next day, which was to be my last in Huaycan for a while was quiet, I did some laundry, packed and cleaned up a bit in the room David and I had been using.  

The next day David, Jesus, Raul and I would go into Miraflores to meet Jerry and Lizzie for lunch and then I would stay with Jerry and Lizzie to begin our travels around Peru.  I left the house with mixed feelings, I was excited to begin traveling with Jerry and Lizzie and seeing more of Peru, but I was also sad to be leaving a family that I had grown very fond of.  But I knew that if I stayed in Huaycan it would eventually become boring, as everyone else had either school or work every day and I had nothing to do but to wait for them to come home.  I knew myself well enough to realize that I needed more direction and activity than that and, besides, I had promised Jerry and Lizzie, before I had any idea if we were going to find David's family or not, that I would travel with them and I really wanted to see more of Peru.

So the next morning the four of us and my baggage found a cab that would take us to Miraflores, a nearly one hour trip in light traffic.  There we had a little trouble locating the monastery where I had left Jerry and Lizzie a few days before but eventually found it and within a few minutes located them.  

Jerry had arranged to have breakfast that morning with a Peruvian friend of a friend from New York City. Gonzalez is a playwright and screenwriter who grew up in Peru, studied some in the US and then returned to Peru to practice his craft, with occasional trips to the states for work.  So, we all joined in for breakfast at a nice breakfast place in Miraflores.  It was great fun listening to Gonzalez explain that his writing for the stage had to be subsidized by his screenwriting, Three or four movie scripts a year paid the bills and allowed him time to write for the stage. He said that he had established himself enough that last year he was able to write four movie scripts and already had three scheduled for 2016.  It seems that he was one of the lucky and talented once that can actually make a living in a very competitive craft.  It was a very pleasant morning, with everyone joining in the conversation.  

When breakfast ended, Gonzalez went off to a meeting, Jerry, Lizzie and I prepared to take a taxi to the bus station and David, Jesus and Raul were ready to take a series of buses back to Huaycan.  It was a mixed goodby for me, I had become very fond of the family and wasn't sure when or if I would see Jesus and Raul again on this trip.  And David had decided to stay with the family rather than travel, both to get more time with them and to conserve his dwindling cash supply.  At the same time I was anxious to see more of Peru, a land that has an often severe but deep beauty, and spend some time traveling with Jerry and Lizzie.  

So, emotional goodbye's were said and Jerry, Lizzie and I hailed a cab bound for the Cruz del Sur bus station and a bus to the southern coastal town of Paracas.

Back to Lima, Visiting Relatives, Jerry and Lizzie Arrive

On any trip it seems that so much happens every day and my default is always to be part of what's happening rather than stepping back and writing about it, good thing I never choose to try to make a living as a writer.  Anyway, I left off as the five of us, David's Father and stepmother, his brother Ali, David and I were waiting at the Andahuaylas airport for the plane to Lima on the 17th of December.  It is now more than a month later and I'm finally getting time, I hope, to update this blog.  This month has been challenging, interesting and exciting with times of boredom, tension and fear, mostly on the bus rides, in other words just another month of life.  Thank goodness that pictures are now dated so I have at least some clue of what happened when.

We had had such a great time in Huinchos that no one really wanted to say a final goodby, and, so, saying goodby went on till the very last moment, when we just HAD to go through security and board the plane.  The flight back to Lima was blessedly shorter than the bus ride up to Andahuaylas had been and it gave us an very different view of the Andes, and explained a lot about why the bus ride had taken so long.  There are virtually no east-west valleys and so the only way across by land is up one mountain and down the other side, repeated endlessly.  

Upon arrival in Lima we were picked up by an extended family member with a car.  It was a packed ride back to Huaycan with all of us and baggage but we made it, arriving tired and happy to reunite with the rest of the family at the house.  The next two days we spent mostly at the house doing laundry and settling back into a routine.  

That didn't last long however, in the morning of Friday the 20th two other cousins of David's, who lived in another part of Lima, called Sirco, stopped to meet and visit with David, and before the visit was over we had agreed to go back with them to Sirco for the afternoon to meet the rest of their families.  Ali, whose cousins they also were, was assigned to go with us to be sure we could find our way back.   It took several bus transfers and about three hours to get to their neighborhood, but we arrived safely and began to meet their families.  It soon became obvious that we would not get back that evening, they were cooking and it was already late.  After some hesitation they asked if we would stay the night and we agreed.  It was a relief to me as I was already to tired for another three hour bus trip back.  So the dinner became a party, complete with beer, dancing and lots of conversation that lasted into the night.  We were led back to another relatives house where we slept the night and were fed breakfast in the morning before heading back to Huaycan.  We would probably have stayed longer but I was scheduled to meet Lizzie, my friend from NYC, at the airport late that night and her boyfriend Jerry the next night.  So I had to get back to the house, change and head into the hostel in Lima where we would all stay when they arrived.

It was a quick turn around at the house, I took as shower, packed a bag, ate lunch and was back on a series of buses, this time with Raul as my guide, in about two hours.  Somehow we got on a bus that took the long way and it seemed to take forever to reach central Lima, but we finally got there about 5 PM, at which point poor Raul had to get back on a bus and head back to Huaycan while all I had to do was walk the few blocks from the bus to the hostel.  After I got to the hostel and checked in, I connected to their wifi to see if I had any important email, and it was a good thing I did.  Lizzie's plane had been so delayed that they put her on the same flight the next day, so I didn't have to go to the airport that night.  I realized that I would have a full day to rest up, so I ate an early dinner and went to bed with nothing to do until late the next evening.  

The next day was as laid back a day as I'd had since first arriving in Peru, I slept in, ate leisurely, took a walk and a nap before taking a taxi to the airport that evening.  The arrivals area of the international airport in Lima was a bit more chaotic than usual as the arrivals board which announced the scheduled arrival of the planes was not working, so there was no way of telling if the plane you were waiting for had arrived and you had missed the person you were looking for or if the plane had been delayed.  Lizzie, who was to be the first to arrive, was on a flight that was about 2 hours late, but I didn't know that and was a bit worried that I had missed her but I still needed to be there to meet Jerry who was scheduled to arrive just after midnight.  So, I tried not to worry and just kept looking at people as they emerged from customs.  Finally, about 1 AM I saw Lizzie emerge, she explained that her plane was very late and that Jerry would be out in minutes, she had run into him going through customs.  Soon we were in a cab back to the hostel, to check them in and get some sleep.  At this point I was not the only one who was tired.  

The next day was Monday, December 23 and I had promised to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with David's family.  At first we had hoped that we would be able to have Jerry and Lizzie there as well but it turned out that there would be over twenty relatives for Christmas Eve at their small house so there was no room for them.  Instead they ended up staying at a Carmelite Monastery in the Miraflores district of Lima.  This happened because a college friend of Jerry's had entered the Carmelite Seminary in the US and when he heard we were going to be in Lima made arrangements with the priests there for us to stay.  So the next afternoon we took a cab to Miraflores and moved into the monastery.  That evening we had a pleasant walk around Miraflores, an upscale residential and business district of Lima, and then dinner at a small Italian restaurant.  We walked back to the monastery after dinner and retired for the night.  I got up early the next day, Christmas Eve, and took a series of buses back to Huaycan to be with David's family.  I later learned from Jerry and Lizzie that they met several very friendly, but busy, it being Christmas, priests that day who showed them around a bit, answered their questions and arranged for them to visit one of their parishes in the slums.   When I next saw them, apologizing for having abandoned them, they said that they had had a wonderful holiday

Our Last Days in Huinchos and David's Birthday Party

It was Sunday already, where had the time gone?  Was there anything left to do?  Every time we asked that questions it was answered with another flurry of activity.  Sunday was no exception.  It turns out Sunday is the major market day in Andahuaylas, they turn the entire main street into a market with stalls selling almost anything imaginable, except for tourist stuff, which I assume isn't around because Andahuaylas doesn't get a lot of tourists, especially this time of the year.  We also needed to get to Andahuaylas to buy our plane tickets back to Lima.  We left Huinchos mid morning and got down to town to find the airline office closed, everything else in town seemed to be open on the market day, but not the airline office.  So, after some coffee we walked down to the market and spent a few hours walking around, buying little but groceries for the house, but enjoying the experience.  After that Ali and Victor decided that we should try a local drink called Chicha, which is made from blue corn and seems to be lightly alcoholic, though I'm told it is not - not sure what I believe - but it was tasty and refreshing.  By mid afternoon we were again on a Combi headed back to Huinchos.  We arrived and rested a bit, but soon were visited by a primary school English teacher who some family member had asked to visit us to help with our talking to each other.  It was great - she made it so easy for us to communicate, and both sides were able to tell longer, more complicated stories and have them understood.  She stayed for several hours and then left to go back to town before she missed the last Combi. 

Meanwhile, an extended family football (soccer) game was in the works.  It turns out that the largest building in Huinchos is a covered football pitch and the way you got your time on the field was to get there, put in your name and wait.  The game, featuring David as the visiting, low altitude player, started at 8 PM and went for an hour.  David did well despite the altitude, but had to drop out about 10 minutes before the game ended and waking back to the house wasn't easy on his cramping legs.  We got back to the house, ate a little  and were soon in bed.

Monday was a quiet day, this time really.  We went back into Andahuaylas to get the airline tickets in the morning, walked around a bit, used the Internet at the hotel we had stayed in a few days earlier and headed back fairly early.  We had the usual houseful of visitors at meal time and until going to bed but, all in all it was one of our quietest days in Huinchos, which was good because the next day, Tuesday, Dec. 15 was David's birthday and quite a celebration was planned.

All seemed calm when we got up for breakfast but soon after the preparations began.  Huge kettles of potatoes were cleaned and prepared for cooking, veggies were cleaned and cut, pots of water were put on to begin the preparation of the soups and the meat was prepared.  We helped when they would let us but unless it was pretty clear what was going on we weren't much help.  I'm always in awe of level of organization that goes into such preparations and how those that have done it before just know what needs to be done, even if they have not worked together before. Soon there were four cooking fires going and four huge pots on those fires.  A little after noon people started to show up, it started with a trickle but soon there was a crowd of thirty or forty.  David was told to go into his room before the ceremonies started and after a short while he was introduced as the birthday celebrant with speeches by his father, stepmother and brother.  He was presented with some presents, local weaving and a wall hanging.  Then the food began and it seemed like it would never stop, everyone ate way beyond satiation.  During and after eating, as usual, the talking and asking questions about life began and continued into the afternoon.  A lot of time was spent trying to explain to David how everyone was related, some progress was made but, like everywhere, family trees are difficult.  Then when people had wandered away to walk or just digest lunch a young American and two Peruvians showed up, the American and one of the Peruvians were dressed in white shirt and tie, a sure sign they were Mormon missionaries.  I thought, how ironic, that another American would show up unannounced in such a remote place.  However, as I learned as I talked to them, it wasn't accidental, someone from the extended family had contacted them and asked them to help us translate.  They had just neglected to tell David or me.  As soon as everyone realized what they were there for, they could hardly finish their lunch for all the translation they were providing.  The whole history of David's early life and the events that led to his adoption were explained from many different angles.  These guys were great - they kept at it for almost four hours and because one was American and one Peruvian, one or the other understood the cultural contexts.  At times they had tears in their eyes translating heartfelt statements that had been waiting almost 35 years to be said.  Finally, it was almost 6 PM, and they didn't want to miss the last Combi back to Andahuaylas, so after group pictures they left.  While they were translating, the primary school English teacher who had translated for the immediate family on Sunday arrived.  She and one of her former students, a family member, had prepared a family tree for David,  which helped immensely in understand the family.  We never finished the count but David has between  80 and 100 first cousins!  

Shortly the dancing and beer drinking began - the short of it is that at 1 AM the music and drinking finally stopped.  It had been a long and heartfelt celebration, but needless to say the next day would be quiet - nursing hangovers and sore legs from hours of dancing.  

It was a good thing that we didn't decide to return to Lima on Wednesday, the next day.  No one would have made the plane.  Things were quiet, with lots of naps.  

The next day, Thursday, we were all up very early, some of us at 4:30 AM to get packed and ready of the flight.  Fortunately, the airport was walking distance from the village, there was no space flat enough closer to Andahuaylas for an airport.  So by 6 AM we were walking to the airport with our bags and packs.  There were 5 of us leaving: Victor and Mama, David, Alejandro and me.  Ali would come with us to spend Christmas in Lima with his brother.  It was a bit sad to leave a place that seemed strange to us when we arrived but which, by the time we left had become a home.  As we boarded the plane I looked around at the beautiful Huanchos landscape and felt  that I must come back to this special place again.  I'm sure David felt a similar, and I'm sure stronger emotion - if not for his adoption, this might have been his home. 

Time at Ali's, the Doctor and a Trip to Puna

Though the original plan was to only spend a few day in Huinchos, that plan was soon out the window, David wanted to celebrate his 35th birthday, Dec. 15th, there and when we discovered that he was actually born in the village of Puna, some 14,000 in the Andes and maybe and hour and a half away by truck, we wanted to visit there as well.  Then there were all the relatives who wanted to spend some time with David and learn about his life, and this is not even to mention the pastoral beauty of the village of Huinchos, located on the side of a wide valley at about 11 to 12,000 feet in the Andes.  It is hard to describe the place because as soon as the altitude is mentioned the mind reaches for pictures of rocky peaks and barren landscapes and in some ways, despite the lack of a lot of trees, the landscape is better described as bucolic.  So, anyway we were there for at least a week.

The next day was filled with visiting relatives and with David encouraging them to help him build a family tree, people came and went and meals were served by Bertha, but it was never quiet and one was never alone.  This day, Wednesday, also featured a visit from Aunt Victoria, a force of nature of a woman.  She lives at 14,000 feet,in the village of Puna, which is above the line where agriculture is possible and where herding is dominant.  Her husband has passed away but she still, in her late 60's or older, continues running a heard of over 100 animals, including sheep, alpaca, llamas and cows.  She does this with a few dogs and sometimes some help from young relatives.  She spent the day with us and we were able to learn a bit about her life and she about David's.  We also now knew that we would be able to visit Puna, where David was born, over the weekend.  

Wednesday was also a day of adjusting to life in an Adobe house in a rural village.  The floors of the first floor were packed earth, the walls of course were packed earth, the cooking was done over a clay, wood fired stove in the kitchen, there was one source of water, a pipe in the courtyard and the roofless Adobe latrine was a little ways up the hill.  Ali and Bertha have three kids, a girl and three boys.  In order of age they are: Sayori (the girl), Juan Manuel, Erik Leo, and, the baby, Jhon Edu.  Erik and Jhon Edu were always around, while Sayori and Juan were in school for part of the day, all of them were a joy to be around and fascinated by us and how we lived and what we did.  The day was, like most of our days there, idyllic, a blue sky day, that  clouded over in the afternoon for a bit of rain and then cleared up in the early evening.  During the day the temperature went up to the mid 60's and at night down to the mid to low 40's, or, at least, that is what it felt like to me.  Still a little sleep deprived, I went to bed early, David a bit later, not because he wasn't tired but because he was still the center of conversation and had a harder time getting away.

By Thursday morning, David was starting to get a bit sicker, it had started the day before, with an intestinal reaction to the food or water or both.  By late morning we decided to take him down to Andahuaylas to a clinic to get examined by a doctor.  As is usually the case it was a bacterial dysentery, for which the doctor prescribed a few days of antibiotics and some probiotics.  By the time we left the clinic it was mid afternoon so we got some food and then David and I checked into a small local hotel while Victor and Mama went to her daughters house where they stayed the night.  Late that afternoon, when David was already feeling a bit better we met up with a cousin of his and toured some parts of the city we had not seen before.  We were back to the hotel fairly early, I treated myself to a hot shower, the first in a week and a half, and then a restful night.

The next day we had breakfast with Victor and Mama at the hotel, walked around town, seeing the sights of Andahuaylas, including the church where Victor and David's mom were married.  Later we went to Mama's daughter's house for lunch and to hang out a good part of the afternoon before heading back to Huinchos in the late afternoon, getting back in time for a beautiful sunset, time with Ali's family, supper and with David already feeling much better.  

Saturday was the day we were going to Puna, all of us were excited about the trip, and I was a little apprehensive about how we would manage with the altitude.  A while after breakfast we all piled into the back of a friend truck, with David driving, and headed up the road toward Puna.  The road first went through a larger neighboring village that was heavily agricultural and had irrigated fields, but as we moved out of the upper limits of the village the fields dropped away and the land became primarily natural pasture for sheep, vicuña, alpaca, llama and cattle, all of which we saw along the way.  The road wound relentlessly up through the arid pasture land, dotted, here and there, with lakes until we entered a large spectacular altiplano valley, we were in a pastoral valley surrounded by peaks of the Andes.  Simply amazing!  

Part way through the valley we pulled over, parked and set up cooking equiptment in what looked like it had been a large old stone corral.  Off in the distance we saw a large herd of sheep and alpaca, part of Aunt Victoria's heard.  Some ran, a chore at this altitude, over to greet here and soon she walked over to greet all of us.  She had an Andean slingshot with her which many of the men in the group showed their prowess, or lack of prowess, with.  We settled in, talked, walked around a bit and just enjoyed the day.  A group of us, including David, walked toward the area where we were told Aunt Victoria lived, we never got all the way because, part way there, we met another of David's uncles, Mariano.  Again, it was another of those amazing meetings, two people who knew of each other but never really thought they would meet.  They both looked amazed and touched - they couldn't stop looking a each other.  Another homecoming, this time at nearly the top of the world. We all walked back to the old stone corral, sat down and began to talk, to get to know each other.  After a while it was decided that we needed meat for lunch, Aunt Victoria offered a sheep and thus began one of the more astounding shows of competence I have ever seen.  Within an hour and a half a sheep had been wrestled to the ground, tied up, brought back to camp, slaughtered, butchered and cooked.  At times there were five or six people working on the sheep, everyone knowing what needed doing and no one getting in another's way.  Lunch was delicious.  But by the time we finished eating it was getting toward late afternoon, storm clouds were building up and we were in a open truck.  So, we quickly cleaned up, packed everything in the truck, bit goodby to Victoria and Mariano and started back.  Somehow we dodged the storm, though at times I was sure that we were about to be soaked, and got back to Huinchos, tired but happy.  Another chapter in David's search for his birth family completed.

To Andahuaylas and Huinchos

It was about 1 PM when we left the house on our way to the Molino Bus Terminal to catch our 4:20 bus to Andahuaylas, and it was a good thing we left early, traffic was terrible and we didn't get there any to early.  We checked in, greeted some relatives who came to see us off, once again, we weren't clear who they were due to language difficulties.  Soon we were on board a very new and quite comfortable bus, wide seats and plenty of leg room, and were wending our way through southern Lima, picking up passengers at Molino substations as we went.  Finally, we broke free of the city and began moving along the coast south of Lima.  There were many villages and towns and not a few large factories and warehouses along the way, but the most dominant feature was the aridness of the landscape.  I had read that much of coastal Peru was dessert but the landscape we were moving thru really made the point.  Except for areas that were irrigated everything was a shade of brown and in most areas the hills came right up to the ocean.  This was the last thing we saw as the light slowly faded into dark.  Within an hour of nightfall we turned east and started up the hills into the mountains.  It was easy to tell in the dark that this was happening, as the road was a series of sharp curves and hairpin turns, which kept us sliding from one side of our seats to the other and before the night was over created a good deal of motion sickness in the bus. Not so pleasant.  For David and I it was a long mostly sleepless night, though it seemed that most people on the bus despite their motion sickness did not have trouble sleeping not even waking up for stops in a few big Andean cities..  Finally and slowly dawn broke and we began to be able to see a beautiful mountain landscape full of adobe houses and small farms.  

After dawn it still took us several hours to pull into the bus station in Andahuaylas, but we had finally arrives and we stumbled out of the bus in a sleepless daze and faced the day.  Soon relatives of Victor and Mama greeted us at the station, bundled us into a taxi, driven by a relative, and we were off first to the central market to buy supplies, then to the house of Mama's daughter to say hello and finally, towards noon we started out of town, up the hill, toward Huinchos.  As we traveled the road, which was under major construction, Victor kept getting calls from the family in Huinchos, we thought it was only that they were worried about our trip, but as we pulled up to a corner in the town, just off the highway, we discovered the reason.  There were at least 50 people, mostly relatives, a band and fireworks waiting for us.  They had been waiting there for several hours, but that didn't dampen their enthusiasm to see us as we pulled up.  As soon as I realized what was going on I hopped out of the car so that I could get pictures.  David got out of the taxi and was immediately embraced by his older full brother Alejandro.  They were both in tears, unable to believe that after nearly 35 years they were again together.  What followed was a stream of hugs, smiles and tears, accompanied by music from the band, as nearly all the people gathered were relatives or close friends of the family.  Also there was David's paternal grandmother, who was in her 80's and still spry.  After a time of greeting the crowd starting walking the three or four blocks to Ali's, what everyone calls Alejandro, house.  The parade was led by David, his father Victor and his grandmother, sometimes joined by Ali, while the band played and people laughed and cried.  It was quite a sight.  (Soon I will upload pictures , but if you want to see them before that, check out Katie Huffling's page on Facebook - she is David's sister.)

We arrived at Ali and his wife Bertha's house to lunch and a celebration that went on and on, pictures were taken, conversations, such as they were with our seriously broken Spanish and the fact that many only spoke Quechua, and just adjusting to the new surroundings kept us occupied and somewhat unaware that we were seriously sleep deprived.  Toward evening we went to the town cemetery where David's mother, Simona, was buried.  It was another touching moment in a day of them, first David knelt at the grave alone his head bowed, then he was joined by his brother Ali and his father Victor - a family reunited.  Then, other relatives joined them for pictures and after a time a tour of relatives' graves in the cemetery.  And the band was still there, playing local music - at one point they handed their instruments to David, Ali and I, and we faked it as best we could.  After a time we began to leave the cemetery and assembled for family and friends pictures just outside.  Then we walked back to Ali house, a two story adobe building where we would be staying, and continued learning about each other, eating and listening to the band playing.  It turned dark out but things just went on, at times waves of tiredness engulfed us, remember we hadn't slept on the bus, but it was hard to break away.  Finally sleep came with the band still playing.  

Time With the Family.

After a late lunch with David's family, it was decided for us that we would be staying at their house in Huaycan, which was fine with us, and that David's half brother, Jesus, would go with us to the hostel to pick up our backpacks and check out of the hostel.  We were soon on our way in a taxi which, by the way, cost us about half what it would have cost had we rented it.  We once again had a tour of Lima from the window of our cab, got to the hostel, checked out, and were quickly on our way back.  We got back to Huaycan before dinner, were shown the room where we would stay, we are pretty David's dad and Mama moved out of the room to give it to us, but there was no fighting that, so we accepted it and settled in.  The house was pretty simple, as you entered the front door you came into a sitting room/dining room area, behind that was the stairs to go upstairs and a corridor that led to a bathroom, a small bedroom and the kitchen area.  In the sitting room/dining area the walls were finished and painted and it was furnished with a large couch and a large dining table and chairs, the table sits at least 10.  The back sleeping room was furnished and the kitchen area had a stove and refrigerator, but was not like a typical western kitchen.  Upstairs there were three finished bedrooms, including ours, a small common area and two rooms that were still being finished.  Of the three bedrooms, one was ours, one was used by a couple, the husband of which was one of Mama's sons, Richard, from a previous marriage and a room in which Jesus and Mama and Papa's son Raul slept.  The steps went up another flight to the mostly open roof, which served as the laundry, a common area and,in a roofed over part, a room for Uncle Felix.  It took us a while to find out exactly who everyone was, and every now and then, we still aren't sure we have it right,  So here they all are:  Mama and Papa: Victor and Dionescia.  Their children: Raul (16), Monica (14) and Jeremy (a girl) (12).  Mama's two children from a previous marriage who live there: Jesus (25) and Richard (?) with his wife.  And Uncle Felix, our guess to his age is somewhere in his 60's.

Just the information above, when the commonality of language is small is hard to get, and to be sure it is correct.  So, everything we learned was very slow going, that is until, late on our second day there, we learned that Richard had wifi and it was ok for us to use it.  We got the password from Jesus and now we could use Google Translate as well as check email.  

In thinking about how to tell the story of our time in Huaycan I decided not to do it chronologically, because that would take away from both the intensity of the learning we, especially David, were doing and the fact that there were few activities that were significant.  Mostly, we hung out with whoever was around, asked questions, were asked questions and all of us tried our best to answer what we thought the questions were.  There was always talk around the table, there was especially always talk when Raul was there, he has this insatiable curiosity that wont stop.  If we weren't talking at meals we were talking on the rooftop while doing laundry, or sitting on the couch in the living room, or one or two or three would come into the room to talk.  The whole thing got a lot easier when we discovered we had access to the internet.  Using translation programs or online translators made it easier but it still was tough in some situations, where we were not sure what they were asking or they didn't understand our  answers because that lacked knowledge of US social customs.  The growth in all of our knowledge was slow and incremental but it did happen, slowly we began to understand at least the outer level of each other.  Sandwiched between all this were activities, like the day Monica and Jeremy took us for a walk around town, including a local animal park, and the central market, which was fascinating for me and really a new experience for David.  Or, the day I was doing my laundry on the roof when David, Mama and several others came up and we got to talking about the Guinea Pigs, a local delicacy, that they were raising on the roof.  We also talked about Huaycan, which had been described to us as a slum but which they described, and I observed to be, a sometimes dangerous but generally safe community transitioning slowly from poverty to lower middle class.  It climbs hills so steep that you wouldn't believe they could be built on and parts of the area seem to blend into the dunn colored landscape, except for a few brightly painted buildings.

All along one of David's hopes was to visit the place of his birth which is in a village in the hills above the town of Andahuaylas, a Andean town at almost 10,000 feet.  This was one of the first things he mentioned when he met his family in Huaycan and they immediately agreed that it was a good idea, so planning began quickly, mostly arranging for Victor to take some time off from work.  By Sunday it had been decided that we would leave late Monday afternoon on a bus from Lima, a trip that turned out to be 14 hours.  So during the day on Sunday we rode a minibus to the cross country bus station to get our tickets, they needed to see our passports to sell us the tickets.  That evening there was a spirited hour long family soccer game at a pitch across the street with nearly everyone in the family participating.  David family and he had moved a long way toward each other since we knocked on the door three days before.  Though the time was short the intensity was amazing - both David and I agreed that it seemed more like a week or two had gone by since we arrived.  

The next morning was more talking, packing (the trip was planned to last three or four days) and then goodby's to the family members who weren't coming along.  It was only Victor and Mama, David and I who were going.  The rest had to stay behind because of school, jobs or just to take care of the house.  

Finding a Family.

Friday morning we were up just after 6 AM, washed, dressed and out the door of the hostel before 7 AM.  We walked the familiar route to the Metropolitano, found the boarding area for our bus, pushed on and were soon speeding our way to Barranco.  We arrived at the station near the missionary compound, walked the few blocks to their gate and rang the buzzer, and rang it again and again, finally it was answered and we were told that the priest was not there, we were not about to give up and rang it again and in our broken Spanish tried to explain that we had an appointment, no luck.  We tried again and this time also knocked on the gate, the knock was heard by a priest walking in their garden and he came to the gate, let us in and directed us to where we could find Father Adrian.  After a few other false starts Father Adrian finally heard us talking and came out to greet us - it turns out there is a new cook who was answering the door that morning and she hadn't been well trained.  It didn't matter to us we had found our guide and he was willing to go with us to the parish in Huaycan where David's father lives and there turn us over to a parish priest who might be able to find the address in the maze of streets that is Zona J in Huaycan.

Soon Father Adrian, an Irish priest who was both good humored, determined and knowledgeable about Peru, where he has served for almost 40 years, had us in a taxi and then a series of buses as we wound our way across Lima.  We could have never figured out the buses we had to take to get there unless we had lived in Lima for a long time.  Finally, we left our last bus and switched to a minibus, and in15 minutes exited in front of the parish church compound of Huaycan.  Father Adrian led us inside and within a few minutes we were talking with a French missionary who worked there.  As soon as he made the transfer Fr. Adrian was off  to a parish where he assisted about 40 minutes back.  The French missionary, whose name unfortunately we never got or forgot, excused himself but was back in a few minutes with the parish registry which contained the name of David's father.

Minutes later we were in a combi, a van minibus, which we rode a few minutes up the hill, Huaycon is built on steep hills, really the foothills of the Andes, just outside Lima.  At a spot the priest recognized we jumped out and started walking up and down streets checking address plates on the houses, after about five minutes of this we found a plate that matched the return address on a letter David had gotten from his father.  There was nothing else to do but knock on the door.  The door opened and a teenage woman, David's half sister, Monica, opened the door and the priest began to explain why we were there. Halfway through the priests explanation she realized who David was, you could tell by the shock on her face and she said amazed "David".  David said "Si", the priest backed away with a smile on his face, and what followed was an extended series of hugs, with Monica then David's stepmother, who we have called "Mama" since that first meeting, and David's stepbrother, Jesus.  The rest of the family including David's father were away, either at work or school.  The priest left with our effusive thanks and we all went inside.  We sat around their dining table and began to try to talk to each other.  David, thank goodness, had high school Spanish which began to come back quickly, I had very little Spanish but an ability to communicate in some kind of sign language that sometimes works but cant go very deep, and David's family had bits and pieces of English.  After a half hour or so the door opened and David's father, Victor, walked in quickly.  David and he saw each other, David jumped up, they hugged, held each other at arms length to look at each other, hugged again and continued this for several minutes.  The whole room was full of people with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes.