Donkeys, Dylan and more

I'm really very fond of Pamela and wish I had more time to spend with her and Heber and Gareth, who is such a beautiful and happy boy. But at least now I've got to know her and Gareth and have an idea of how their lives are together and will be in the future. For this I am very grateful. It will mean so much to me in the coming years (hopefully it will be years, let's not go into that right now) as I approach the end of my life.

I am so impressed that she loves books and enjoys reading just as much as I do. Well done Heber for telling me, and for remembering how much books mean to me. Maybe some day he will catch up on his lost education and develop a love of books for himself. Meantime it's good that he encourages Pamela and in turn they will pass on to Gareth a love for books and who knows, one day, he will become a famous writer himself. Right now he likes to eat books and tear them up. I've bought him one but he won't get it into his grasping hands on his own, they will read it with him, though I guess it's maybe bit early, but never too young to start as they say.

I was in a bookshop with them the other day and was debating with myself what to buy her. It eventually came down to a choice between two books by Gabriel García Márquez, Love in the Time of Cholera or One Hundred Years of Solitude. They are both equally good books and I wouldn't want to say that one is better than the other, I wonder which one Gabo liked best? I chose the former as I think it's a little easier to follow in terms of plot and multiplicity of characters. She hadn't read it. However I was not much surprised to hear that she had read Chronicle of a Death Foretold ( Crónica de una muerte anunciada), which I think she was introduced to by her school or one of her teachers. I saw a dramatised version of it here in Lima some years ago and the book is an excellent little read. So she knows the author, which is great as he is one of the best and writes in Spanish.

She tells me that her parents were born and brought up in the Puno region of Peru, beside Lake Titicaca, in the Altiplano, and came to live in Lima to improve their living standards, as did so many others, although many of them also left to get away from the deadly activities of the Shining Path organisation. I think she's visited there one time and hopes to go back to see her grandfather who still lives there, along with some uncles and aunts.

Her grandfather has a little farm which he still keeps going, with some forty sheep, four cows, two bulls and other animals. So a bit like a croft I guess. But bigger maybe. He also has a donkey which he needs to get about his farm and which he rides into town every so often for supplies.. and he's going blind. I can't help but think of RLS on his donkey in the Cévennes, one of the first examples of travel writing and worth an hour or two of your time, or Sancho Panza on his donkey with Don  Quixote. And of course Jesus himself rode into town on a donkey, if memory serves. I would love to see this old man on his donkey, but probably won't manage that now, so I just have to feel close to him through Pamela.

Her father went to visit him last week to try to persuade him to move into Lima so he can look after him, but the old man refused to come as he doesn't want to leave his animals and he can hardly ride his donkey up los cerros or even less into Lima. Maybe if he does go blind he will have to accept the offer. 

I often go to a little cafe nearby called Cafe Literario. The coffee is good and the staff are friendly and chatty. I was sitting there reading a review of a book about Puno called La Batalla por Puno, which is looking at the history of that part of Peru and why it's politically and socially different from the rest of the country. I wish my Spanish was up to a better understanding of the book and the review.

I was most surprised to find in the middle of this review four long paragraphs about the Dylan song All Along the Watchtower which the author claims Dylan could more or less have been speaking about the Altiplano, and that the song can be used to understand the book. " ya pensaba que este libro podía ser observado, evaluado y comprendido con la ayuda de una gran canción suya: All along the Watchtower". He goes on to do and to explain why the song is appropriate and says the theme of the song is the possibility of liberation. Couldn't agree more.

The thing is that I was reading this the day before Dylan was awarded his Nobel Prize and had asked Miguel who works in the cafe what he thought about it. He read the article with me and was quite impressed by my Spanish, he himself being fluent in English. Turns out that he is also a big Dylan fan, so I was very pleased to have spoken to him. Naturally I called in the next day to say hello and ask him what he thought of the award. Like me he was delighted.