Heber and Cienciano

Heber came out with me today. He has arranged for his day off this week to be on Sunday so that he can come to the airport with me. Today he was working but his pal agreed to cover for him so that he could come to see me. I skipped my Spanish class so that I could spend the afternoon with him, which seemed like the least I could do in the circumstances.

We went to the market to buy a few things he needed. We bought a sim card for my old phone which I gave to him. Needless to say he was delighted, and it cost me less than $5.00. My UK phone works fine here with a local sim card so I had no need for my old peru phone. They call it re-cycling.

I took him to MacDonalds, at his request I hasten to add, as he had never been before. They have a prime site in the Plaza de Armas, as you would expect. He enjoyed the meal.

We had a nice long chat. My spanish is good enough now for us to talk about everything of importance to him, plus he helps me a lot more too. I took some nice photos of him in his new gear looking very cool and grown up.

We talked about his education and he has agreed to go back to school on Thursdays which is his day off. I´ve agreed to pay the first month and his matriculation fee and he will pat from his wages thereafter. He agreed that I could leave the money with Jeremy to pay the school. I´m really pleased he,s goingback to school and also that he will be back in touch with Jeremy and Elim.

But he was so tired. I felt so sorry for him and then I had to walk him back to his work at 6.30 pm. But he´s a fighter the boy and has indomitable spirit, like so many of the boys. He´s going to phone me on his new phone when he gets home from work at 11.30 pm. He´s 15!!! He will go home to a cold house, cold bedroom, no hot water and no mummy´s welcome. Great. I bought him pyjamas today as he complained about how cold he was at night. The temperature here drops a lot at night.

To cap it all Cienciano lost 3-0 in the Copa SudAmericana. They were playing some Argentinian team called San Lorenzo. Watched second half at Maximo, with a small crowd. Poor stuff. We will beat them here in Cusco, as they won´t like the altitude.