Partner In Adventure

Finally I have a chance to write again. But instead, I asked Leroy to post his views. Enjoy!

Here's Leroy. As some of you know I'm writing a journal about my experiences. Here's the "working" title page: (I'm including it because of one line that Teri seems to think is funny):


PARTNER IN ADVENTURE

A day by day account of one man’s time during one year spent in Piura, Peru as the partner (spouse) of a Fulbright Teacher Exchange recipient.

She taught English and I goofed off—my right as a retired mechanical engineer. Or as I said to her a week or so after our arrival: “This is just like vacation except you have to work.”

(This is my first post so please bear with me as it's not working quite the way I thought it would. Anyway, here's Day One:) by LLC

DAY ONE

Saturday 9 Aug 2008

We arrived in Piura about 9:42 PM after flying from Lima on Lan Peru Airlines. We clambered out the rear door of the plane into balmy cool night air that whispered optimistically of finding a paradise lost. Teri and I were dragging after having traveled from Washington DC to Newark to Lima the day before—the three days previous to that having been run ragged by an intense but information-packed Fulbright orientation in DC.

We immediately perked up after seeing all the smiling faces waiting for us outside the airport arrivals door. I heard “Lay-roy, Lay-roy” and saw a small pretty dark-haired woman in front of a small group behind a rope about twenty feet away waving at us and then I heard “Tay-ree, Tay-ree” and the woman began jumping up and down, smiling so broadly she lit up the night. Teri was quickly engulfed in the wide open arms of Cecilia and when she was finished with Teri, I tried to shake hands with her but she would have none of it and greeted me with a cheek to cheek air-kiss. She smelled delightful, a tropical flowery aroma.

As we made our way out of the roped area we were soon shaking hands and/or air kissing with Gina, Cecilia’s niece, and her novio (boyfriend), Ivan, then with Katia, Teri’s mentor teacher at the Colegio, and her husband, Marco. We had been told by Cecilia’s husband, Jorge, in DC before we left, that she would meet us at the airport in Piura and we were thinking while in flight that it better be her only because we each had two large hard suitcases (45-48 pounds each) as well as one carryon, all filled with clothes and books and shoes—enough appurtenances (we hoped) to last the year. So when six adults greeted us I was curious how we were going to manage.

No problema. Three taxis (when I say taxi please envision a bright yellow car smaller than a British Mini); one with all our luggage, some in the trunk and the rest in the back seat and with one person in front to guide; one with three people in the back and one in front and the other would carry Cecilia, Teri, and myself. There were only two taxis parked and waiting for passengers so Cecilia told the jammed first two taxis to take off together and the three of us would follow. Teri and Cecilia jabbered away in Spanish as we wound our way through the noisy chaotic streets filled with what appeared to be purposely zigzagging headlight-blinking horn-honking cars while I was agog at a whole new world out there—our home for the next year.

We soon found ourselves moving through a quiet neighborhood under a canopy of large graceful trees hanging over cracked and often-broken paved narrow streets. What a surprise awaited us when we disembarked in front of a wrought iron gate, behind which was a large wooden door the size of a single-car garage door, and behind that a hacienda style two-story house with adobe-colored walls and a pink-tiled roof. Gina, Ivan, Katia, and Marco were waiting for us on the sidewalk. Ceci (she had told us to call her that on the ride from the airport) unlatched the metal gate on the house side of the sidewalk, ushered us through, and we made our way ten feet on a stone walkway with a small green lawn bordered by ground-hugging flowers on each side. We each in turn ducked under and stepped over a sill in the small man-door cut into the garage door where we immediately turned left, maneuvered by a beat up pickup in the carport, and finally, after a few more steps, stepped through an open door into a well-lighted room that was expected to be our home for our first month in Piura.

The room was a tad larger than a walk-in closet; it was furnished with a single-sized bed with two pillows spilling over the side (my, that is going to be cozy, I thought), a 3-feet by 2-feet table, an 18-inch by 18-inch night table, and two plastic stools about one foot square—the space was over-flowing with our six pieces of luggage. The others hovered in the carport and door-way behind Ceci, Teri, and I as we three occupied what was left of the floor space in the room.

It must have made for a comical sight when the three of us tried to maneuver around the little bed, little desk, little night table, little stools and our big pile of stacked luggage in order to get out of the room. But our new Peruvian friends were much too polite to laugh after Teri and I had stepped into the room, took the four or five steps necessary to get to the other side, turned around, and Teri had swiveled her head the fraction of a degree needed to see it all and exclaimed: “muy bueno (very nice)!” Quick thinking woman because I’m sure I was standing there with mouth agape.

Cecilia soon lead us down the sidewalk past three other houses to her home where she pressed a button next to a security box on an 8-feet high dark-wood wall beside a gate that was just past a garage door similar to the one in front of our new tiny little room. In a flash we heard a quiet voice from the other side of the fence, Ceci responded, and the gate slowly came open. A very small dark-haired woman wearing a short jean-skirt and white peasant blouse peeked out of the gate. This was Giavani, we were told, their maid (soon to be our maid, of course—which I had mixed feelings about having never had a maid before). We had known about her because we’d been communicating by email, telephone (via internet), and in person in DC with Jorge, Teri’s Teacher Exchange partner and Cecilia’s husband, and had reached an agreement to keep her on for our year in country. They had told us that their “la chica (the girl)” was too good to let go and we were to find out in only a few days how true that was.

After we sat down three brown-eyed children were ushered in looking very much as though they had been asleep. They were introduced to us as Jorge, age 11; who politely air-kissed Teri and shook my hand; and Ariana, age 9, who politely air-kissed us both. Sofia, 3, clung to Giavani’s hand watching us wearily. After a few uncomfortable moments of all of us sitting around looking at each other and trying to fill any voids in conversation, Katia and Marco departed, Katia saying she’d see Teri Monday morning.

The rest of the night was a fatigued blur.

Ceci asked if we were hungry and even though we said no we soon found ourselves and the entire family tucked neatly into two little taxis headed for a Chinese restaurant. There was one dish called something like ‘kalua won-ton’ and it was delicious; it had large chunks of pineapple, some kind of meat, I think pork, covered with a sweet & sour sauce, and crunchy fried won-ton. The family had ordered Inka Cola to drink, the omnipresent Peruvian soft drink we knew from previous visits to Peru—it tasted like cream soda, which is good for me because I liked cream soda, but bad for Teri because she didn’t like cream soda. Teri and Ceci had hot tea.

After the restaurant, ride home, and a bit more of the kind of conversation that comes when people are wary and weary—lots of smiling and nodding of heads about nothing in particular interspersed with heart-felt, but clumsy words—they wanting to be welcoming—we trying hard to be liked—all of us were relieved when we called it a night; we needed to leave the getting to know each other for the following day.

Gina and Ivan walked out with us and waited by their gate to watch us safely negotiate the 40 feet or so of sidewalk. Neither I nor Teri could figure out how to open the gate in front of the two story house that contained our tiny little room. We stood there clumsily fumbling with the mechanism and muttering under our breaths until Ivan came trotting down the sidewalk to show us how—it had a flat lever attached to a round bar on the fence that slid inside a small round pipe on the gate. To open it he grabbed the lever and swiveled it up, slid the bar out of the pipe and it swung open. Ah! I see, I thought—now!

I bumped my head hard as I forgot to duck when I went through the little man door. Not too bad, I thought, I remembered to step over the sill, so I was batting .500. Once inside we explored our new little room and in seconds we discovered the small bathroom with a little sink, a little WC, and a little shower all lined up like little toy soldiers along one wall. I immediately noticed the single little faucet on the sink and shower and pointed them out to Teri. We looked at each and said together, “no hot water.” It turns out we were wrong—there was hot water (we were told) in the form of a little tank on the roof that was supposed to absorb a little heat during the day, but neither of us noticed.

We managed to get what we needed out of our carryon bags and found that we could, with teamwork, fit the four big suitcases under the little bed. Suddenly the room seemed almost spacious except for our carryon bags taking up a quarter of the floor space. We might be able to make this work, I thought, as I climbed into our little bed in our little room and hoped for a little sleep.