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.