The Divine Comedy and other reading

As most of you reading this will know books are very important in my life and continue to sustain me through some very difficult times.

My old primary school headmaster had a selection of abbreviated classics on the classroom shelves which I worked my way through. This was Tong Primary School which some of you will also remember and know well. I wonder what Old Fury would make of me sitting here in Peru writing about him. He would be delighted I'm sure. One day he asked the class if anyone knew the name of the ship in which Christopher Columbus made his first voyage. He was surprised that I should know the answer. No one else did. I was quite annoyed with him for not believing in me. The ship was called Santa Maria. He was very holy was old Cristóbal. Or so he claimed. Guided by God all the way to many killings.

Anyway I knew the answer because I had read about Columbus the night before in the brand new 10 volume , red-covered set of encyclopedias our father had bought for us some time before. The Wikipedia of the day I guess, not that very many other families round about had one. I still remember reading it and also enjoying the pictures and my hopes of visiting all of them some day. Didn't quite make all of them unfortunately.

You may well wonder why I bring this up right now, and indeed I wonder myself too. But here I am in Lima, renting an apartment in a street named after Columbus, Calle Colón, which is the Spanish version of his name, Cristóbal Colón. So life has taken me a full circle from Tong to Lima. Who would have thought?

When I was with Heber and Pamela and their wee boy Gareth at the weekend, as I was getting to know Pamela for the first time, Heber told her that I also liked to read. It turns out that Pamela is a lover of literature and an avid reader. I was even more pleased to discover that she especially likes old  man Shakespeare. Especially comedies and romances. We will discuss this more hopefully this weekend. There's a Spanish version of Hamlet on in Miraflores and I would love to take her, but that might not be possible unfortunately.

But the most surprising thing of all was her love of The Divine Comedy which she told me was her favourite reading and which she was able to summarise for me. There aren't many nineteen year olds of my acquaintance who do this kind of reading. I don't even know if its taught in our schools. But it's certainly a credit to Peru's schools that they've introduced this girl to literature and turned her into a lover of books. It's an even greater achievement considering the poverty in which she was born and brought up. She must have had some brilliant teachers. So thank you whoever you are. Maybe some day she will read the recent Clive James translation, which I hope will eventually be produced in Spanish. Maybe it already has been. I shall check it out. I must let Clive know, he will be impressed.

I'm sure my good friend John L will be impressed that I'm discussing Shakespeare and Dante in a cafe here in Lima with two young people. Just keeping our honourable tradition from Caffe Nero going here, John. Mind you Pamela seems to know more about Dante than I do, but it's good to be taught by her especially in Spanish. She loves talking about it. I have to slow her down sometimes even though my Spanish has come back to me quite quickly.

That's all for now. I will add a couple of photos later. My health is as good as I could hope for.

Meeting Gareth for first time

Well here I am in Peru at long last. A distant dream for the past three years and more. I remember asking Mr Speake before he operated on me in late 2013, whether or not I would ever get back and him telling me that  he would have me back in Peru within a year. It's taken a little bit longer than he thought but thanks to him and Dr McLean I have survived and here I am just as he said. I will have to have a word with him about his timings. But I plan to make the most of it.

My principle reason for being here is to spend time with Heber and Pamela and their son Gareth, who needless to say is a beautiful wee fellow an seems to like me just as much as his dad does. That the boy I knew all those years ago in La Policia de la Familia and in various orphanages in Cusco is now a father himself here in Lima is a matter of wonderment and delight. Despite all the obstacles placed in his way by so many people, despite the many people who didn't believe in him, he has grown up to be a delightful young man and a huge credit to himself and his determination to be a good person and succeed in life.

I spent the day with them yesterday. They make a lovely couple and obviously very much in love. Heber is such a kind person and in Pamela he has found a real soulmate. They are loving parents for Gareth and I have no doubt about their ability to give him a good life even though they are so young themselves. Pamela is 19 years of age. I understand now why Heber didn't want me to meet his girlfriend four years ago!

I've managed to explain my situation health wise to them without causing undue distress, but they are both intelligent young people and were both quite upset. I've left a slight possibility open for a return visit next year as I'm not quite ready to say the worst to them - or to myself for that matter.

Being with them yesterday and spending time with Gareth totally justifies my decision to come here even if I were not able to do anything else. Though I will of course.

They came round to my apartment for a couple of hours. A few minutes after I'd invited them and told them a bit more about my health, and that I'm here for six weeks only, Pamela asked if they could spend every weekend with me. How could I refuse such a beautiful girl. I walked them to their bus after we'd eaten and I noticed that Pamela was crying when I gave her a cuddle.

I love them.

Some pics of my favourite boy in Lima

A baby boy is born in Lima on Xmas Eve

Those of you who have been reading my blog over the years will know a little bit about Heber whom I met with his brother Robin when they were being held by the police in a police station in Cusco where I was working. They were taken in for being street kids and doing shoe shine in the main square, La Plaza de Armas, which the mayor didn't much like as the claimed it upset the tourists. Crap of course but the cops did regular round ups and I saw the same boys back and forth at the police station. Some of the boys were, of course, a bit more naughty than being shoe shine boys but the worst they seemed to be guilty of was a bit of shop lifting or picking the pockets of careless tourists.

Anyway I got to know the boys really well and saw them every year I visited Cusco, sometimes twice a year. I was with them the day their mother/grandmother came to tell them that she would not be taking them back again. She of course had her reasons for this which the boys didn't  or couldn't understand, but we mustn't be hard on her. They had spent the day waiting for her and, as one can imagine were devastated by the betrayal, as they saw it. I had to comfort them as best I could. After that they were in a couple of children's home but their restless spirits never allowed them to settle.

I kept in touch with them in their various wanderings and saw them every year. Eventually Heber moved to Lima to live with an aunt there in  Villa Maria where I was working. I carried on meeting him in Lima and doing my best to support him. He came to my work in Villa Maria but the kids there were not his age group so he only came the once. I saw him most weeks I was in Lima over the last two years there, shopping with him and taking him for meals, which he loved. He told me he had a girl friend called Pamela but I didn't get to meet her.  I last saw him in November 2012 when I last visited Peru. But we've kept in touch online since then with some gaps when he disappeared. He is now 22 years old.

In  January this year Pamela began chatting with me online and told me she knew all about me and how much Heber loved me and that she was his wife; she then sent me a photo of a baby and told me that it was of their son, Alexiz Gareth, who was born on 24 December 2015. Heber then came in - he'd been at work driving a moto taxi, a very dangerous activity which I know having taken a ride in one in Villa Maria - we spoke on the phone for a while, and he brought me up to date on his life. I realised how my Spanish has become somewhat rusty, which I guess is inevitable given it's now four years since I was last in Peru.

They are living with Pamela's mum and dad in Villa Maria, who seem to be very good to them, though I don't imagine they have much themselves, living as they do in Villa Maria, which is essentially a shanty town built in the hills above Lima. It's their version of a favela, of which there are many in Lima. Millions of people live in them. I'm happy for Heber as he now has a family to be part of so I'm hoping it continues that way for him.

He means the world to me and I am very fond of him, as I know he is of me. He knows I have cancer but I've not yet told him that I'm unlikely to recover from it. I'm not looking forward to having that conversation with him. My consultant says I have to tell him the truth, but  she doesn't say what that truth might be. And of course I will tell him the truth painful as it may be for both of us.

I reminded him how we had sat in a cafe in Lima and he told me that he was going to call his first son Donald. He said he did remember but that he will now definitely call his next son Donald. I hope to live long enough to see that happen. Not that I think them having another baby so young is a very good idea.

That's his story brought up to date in so far as I know it.  I'm really looking forward to seeing him again and meeting his child and wife. Incredible that the wee boy I held in my arms, as his mother walked out on him in that police station in Cusco all these years ago is now a father himself. I am very proud of him and of myself for continuing to believe in him and sticking by him as so many left him to fend for himself. He's lost a huge part of his education over the years and this will hold him back. I don't know that there is much can be done about that now, but we will talk about it. I'm pleased to hear from him that Pamela is still in education and he looks after the boy when she is at college.

Is it not amazing that Heber and Pamela had a wee boy on 24 December and a few weeks later Kieran and Kerry had their wee girl on 30 January? As my own life draws to an end (slowly I hasten to add) it makes me very happy to know that a wee boy in Lima and a wee girl in Edinburgh will grow up to know all about me and may benefit from my having met and loved their parents.

That's all for now. I will post some pics on my blog of the wee Peruvian lad soon.