The angry dog
This time there’s no difference. From the first moment we met you didn’t like us. Was it the stroller? The white skin perhaps? Do not laugh my dear reader, because I’ve heard that white people get more often bitten then darker strangers here. There could be more reasons to that. Well lets not guess.
You start growling, barking and come to close to my opinion. I pick up a stone. Just to make you feel I could throw it, though, I am not planning to. It seems to work. You create some distance between us.
My girl hardly seems to care and just looks around like nothing has happened.
Sometimes someone you know gets angry at you, helping me out. Maybe you are tiny, like I am in human size, but I know we have strength.
And then... one day… suddenly... The day I have been waiting for. Daydreaming I would throw some food your way to make you finally like us. But none of all that. You just stay lying there and look at us as if anybody could be us.
I feel a relieve, but confused of this day that I also decided to leave Fonavi soon. Do you know somehow? Do you smell my fear of being ´alone´ with my girl again?
The dog has barked her last bark and I have given, him, the one I love, all my last energy. I will leave. Goodbye angry dog and if we do meet again I hope you will bark me a welcome.
The old men and the key
He sits in the corner of his small wooden shop. Under a roof that connects all the shops of the mercado. “Buenas días”, I say. He seems to wake up. With a half aware look in his eyes he looks around. Not sure where he is and who is there. Finally he seems to notice who has spoken to him.
I am doubting if I could better just walk away. Instead I show the two keys and tell him I need an extra of both of them.
He is measuring with his trembling thin old hands the key with the to be key. He tries to put them on top of one another to check if it’s the right size. After doing this over and over I gesture him to give it to me. I help him.
My intuition says, the key will not work anyway. The machine does not work automatically and he hardly seems to rememember how to handle it all.
Time passes and my girl starts to feel heavy in the carrier. I am starting to get really restless, thinking of still going or coming back later. I feel sorry for or him. I decide to stay and not leave the keys out of sight.
My girl is making clear she wants to crawl. The floor is a bit dirty, but I put her down. She gets the usual attention from the people. Nothing new there!
When finally one key is ready and he tries to measure the next I withhold him from doing so. I say that one is fine. Even if it’s money what he needs he seems happy his painful trying can finally come to an end.
When back I try the key, which of course doesn’t work. My former host says they, the people who work at the market, have a drink in the early morning, making them sometimes a bit tipsy. I thought he maybe had dementia, but the other, or maybe even both, would explain a lot.
So, after much effort I still can’t open the door to his house. Well, I guess it is just a metafoor for not being able to open his heart to me.
A Peruvian birthday party
All the chairs and couches are put as close as possible next to one another against the wall. Forming a big circle and leaving the middle empty. We seem to be waiting for something to happen. The first drunk to dare to dance perhaps?
One big light seems to put us all in the spotligt. The light is so bright that no one looks classy in it. All is shown, too much make-up, bad skin and tired faces.
The birthday boy looks ready for a new time around the sun. His hair cut, his shirt ironed. Many times he seems to be gone, somewhere outside. The gossip goes: with a girl!
Almost and I will leave towards Lima. This is for me also a goodbye of some of the people I met here. Also the guy who comes into the door now. I was thinking maybe it would be a new flirt, but his behaviour made that feeling soon disappear.
He walks to the two foreign girls who are sitting on the couch, avoiding me, and starts talking. When one of them seems not to responds to his obvious tactics to score, looking way to desperate, he goes and sit on the other armrest next the other girl.
I feel like avoiding him too. His atmosphere tells me I was right in the first place, he just wants to score, besides really liking or not liking someone. He seems lost in his own behaviour.
My great beautiful friend next to me, she distracts me and we are in conversation again.
Dancing! Yes, I did it again… not drunk even if I was one of the first going for it. Oh boy, those photos will tell enough. I am enjoying myself but watching the clock closely. My girl will need me soon, though she’s fine with the one she is with. He who has been closest to what you can call a dad, another parent, to her.
I change the music. They let me. Time to dance some more!
I look at my friends. I will miss them! However, I am ready to say goodbye. Say goodbye to the barking dog, the old men and his bad keys, to my friends, even to him I love.
Me, myself and Niamh, we will be fine, accompanied by many memories, many good ones.
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