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

Experiences by Suzie Wright

I was born in Callao and grew up in La Oroya in the 40s and 50s. My Dad, Ted Wright, went to C de P in 1924, straight out of Berkeley, and stayed until 1956. My Mom, Margie Wright, married my Dad in 1937, and I came along in 1939. We lived in Chulec 53, my sister Chris (Tinky) was born and we moved to Chulec 4 (?) several houses down from the hospital, and then to Mayupampa, where my sister Stephanie spent her first two years before we all packed up in 1956 and moved to "the States". Growing up in La Oroya was full of adventure, but safe, all ages played as a group, everyone was your parent, but they were all Mr. and Mrs., we took it for granted that there were servants in the house, but somehow we all knew that we lived a different life than those in "The States", and respected it.

Pat Vandel Simon and I were the only two in the eight grade in the Chulec school, and were the second class to graduate there in 1953. Mike and Richard Bemis and June Chancellor had preceded us. We both took off for the states, came back summers, and boy did we think we were the most sophisticated and grown-up teen-agers on earth! Of course, Leah's ...Mrs. Higg's, summer dance lessons helped, so we could look cool at the Inca Club parties. Pat and I have remained in close contact ever since, but I have had little contact with anyone else from La Oroya.

Now 50 some years later, three children and three grandchildren later, retired from a 30 year banking career, I am living in a gold mining town (fancy that!) in Grass Valley, Ca. with my companion of five years, Richard Fernandez. We had planned to go to Peru in 2002, and with all of this reconnection and resulting conversations, we did go back in July with both of my sisters and their husbands. It was wonderful! Unfortunately we were advised not to go up to Oroya due to political reasons. CdeP gringos aren't looked upon with great favor, and I guess the town has become quite sooty, grimy, and run-down. However, we went to Lima (a bit seedy, and has lost its luster), Paracas (still the same!), Cusco (wonderful), Machu Picchu (fantastic) and many small towns, like Pisac, Urabamba, and Pisco that had not changed. It brought us right back to our childhood. It was a very moving and wonderful trip.

What is really remarkable, after all of this time, are the many reconnections that Valerie's project has brought to my life. Valerie found me through my sister in Colorado, whom she found through Mark Mills, who had found my sister through a fellow who worked with her and was Mark's friend.

Whew...now, to top if off, it turned out that Valerie and I only live about 15 minutes from each other! Getting together with Valerie and her folks resulted in thinking of other possibilities, and since last February I have had dinner with Don Koropp, Mike Bemis (came out from WI and stayed a few days), Craig Wadke, and Dixon Clarke. I've talked to Johnny Moses, Margaret Moses Gat, and June Chancellor McConnell. Reliving childhood experiences with those you actually experienced them with has been a real gift. Reliving life in La Oroya with those I never knew while there, has been another joy. To really top this off, I received an e-mail one day from a gal I had hired to work for me about four years ago, who had just received "the" CdeP list, and found my name. This was Renee Walker Laffey, who had lived there, and we had never made the connection until this fall! I hope that 2003 will bring more reconnections and sharing of common experiences. Thanks to all of you who have contributed to this project, especially Valerie. Feliz Año Nuevo!

Suzie Wright Bergesen

Experiences by Susy Visser

Those were the days weren't they. I moved around the Cerro camps with my parents from 1961 to 1976, so that makes it from the age of 3 to the ripe old age of 18. There isn't a camp I can forget. The wonderful people I met along the way. A youth filled with so many memories, my wish today that I could give my son now what I had then.

Remember the golf clubs, the reunions there on Sundays!! Moms playing cards, dads out hitting the ball, and us kids playing our own rounds of golf! The freedom we had, this worry free youth. Movies for us kids once a week, no discos just memorable parties at home. No TV, just memorable times outside with our friends. Horse back riding, hiking, building club houses, scaling mountains, what else did we not do, never a dull moment.

I now have a son he is 4. When he plays outside I sit and watch and sometimes my mind takes me back to those days and I get nostalgic. I don't remember mom having to sit outside, I don't remember hearing stay where I can see you, all I remember is be home before dark!!!

I wish I could remember all of my teachers names but I can't. Mrs. Muir my first grade teacher I will never forget. Mr. Rosenburg and Mr. Fitzgerald from Cerro de Pasco I will never forget (mainly because all us girls had a crush on them!). I can remember many others but not their names.

People that had a great influence on me were Mr. and Mrs. Ali Fraser and Mr. and Mrs. Jimmy Cowper. Spend many weekends with them to learn my english so I could go to kindergarten. Mimi Harris whom I only knew in first and second grade whom I could never forget because she told me such an outrageous secret, I am now 44 and still have not forgotten or figured it out. To all of you who were a part of my life in those wonderful years I will never forget you and thank you. I was going to name each and everyone of you but I am afraid I might overload the website!!!! I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Paul van Nijmwegen for helping me out of a terrible constipation problem when I was 10. Mrs. Dixon for brushing my hair in the mornings for school! (mom was in Lima awaiting the birth of my sister Tanja). I also always remeber Brent McFarlane's sister I think her name was Deborah. She would only come for the holidays and was older than I but she had the patience to sit there and let me play with her barbies and when she left she gave me her whole collection! I was so happy!!! John Kitakawa for helping me with my multiplications. Johnny Broadly who always made me laugh. Mrs. Riet Jansen who got me addicted to hot dogs with mustard. Tony Jansen for the two scars on my forehead!! Johnny and Pamela Simpkins for letting us play in their playhouse and telling on me when I snuck into the school room and copied the answers to the next days test!!! My biggest thanks goes to my mom and dad Arie and Tanja Visser for taking a job with Cerro de Pasco coorporation and giving me these unforgetable friends and memories. I love you mom and dad.

Susy Visser