Wednesday, January 1, 2003

Experiences by Pat Dowd II


I can still hear the birds chirpping in the early morning, while the smells of sweet sirup, freshly brewed coffee, toasts made from home-made bread mixed together with that unforgetable and unmistakingly Yaupi jungle smell.


We travelled to Yaupi many times while we lived in Peru, but I guess the first and the last are the ones I remember the clearest. I was three the first time we went with my parents, my baby sister and the maid (of course).


I remember crossing the river in "la oroya" and walking in the jungle holding tight to daddy's hand. But the adventure I remember the clearest, was going on a ride in the cable-car that transported material from the road, high up in the mountain, to the electric plant which was right by the river.

I remember the feeling of climbing and climbing until the car was nearly vertical!! It was a slow climb, which made it even more frightening.

But the worst part of the story was that once you got on, you couldn't get off, and that meant you had to travel all the way down in the cable-car AGAIN!! Now mommy and I didn't let go our hands one minute (I needed reasuring too!) and I think the best way to make you all understand how we felt are the two pictures I am attaching here.

Love, Pat

p.s. But I'd do it again!

Pat Dowd


RECONNAISSANCE

Pinning down the relevant people-points,
One contact leading to three, to fifteen, seventy ...
Is less the leisurely gathering of a bouquet
Than the grasping at leaves in a gale -
At that whirlwind mosaic of scattered lives -
In an effort to connect them to an original tree
When only the ghost of it remains.
But, seeking anew the comfort of those shadow-branches,
We grace them with the qualities of our metamorphosis.
Achievement and deadwood have added their layers
To the bilingual and carefree children
Who played against the backdrop of the Andes
And knew it later for a privileged kingdom.

Lark Burns Beltran

(Sent by Wilfredo Beltran)

(In Chulec 1953-56)