Lost in Lima

We are in Lima, Peru. We are in Latin America. We were taken to our place of accommodation in the Almirante Guisse area in Lima, where the IYCS-IMCS Latin American Secretariat was located. The Latin American office was in a large white building with a wall around it. Luis Maria, a priest from the Basque Country in Spain, was the chaplain. And there were others, including Julio from Ecuador, Nerize from Brazil, and Patricia Cespedes, the local person assisting the organizers. Most of them did not speak English, and especially Luis Maria did not speak a word of English. When Victor and I first met his eyes, he looked at us with a lot of suspicion, as if he knew we were about to unleash a series of illegal activities. We would move in and out of this house. We would later break all the rules to be free in this beautiful city.

Having joined the international coordination dynamics of YCS, Victor and I were utterly lost. Fr. Joe Naliath was lost too, but he did not show that he was lost. There were a few of us in the group in Lima who belonged to the youngest among the others. One of them, Etienne, had an 18-year-old daughter and he was still in the student-youth movement! Among the youngest were Victor, Linda from Hong Kong, Susanne from Australia, and me.

We had an unforgettable exposure/immersion program in the slums on the outskirts of Lima prior to our study session, which is described in the article Canto Grande.

However, the study session was a complete disaster for Victor, Linda, possibly Susanne, and me. Most discussions were taking place in French and Spanish. We wore headphones through which we heard the beautiful voices of young and amateur Peruvian translators most of the time, and also of Cathy and Pablo, two more experienced interpreters who had flown in with us from Europe. Some would speak for 10 minutes or so to come to the point of his or her intervention. By the time we heard 10 minutes of translation of an abstract-style Spanish or French intervention, we were hallucinating! We were jet-lagged and tired. We also realized that the intellectual content of the discussions was far removed from the realities we were living in. But we were young and inexperienced and did not know what to do. We listened in and, from time to time, made some brief but sharp and concise interventions. We don’t think anyone took us seriously. We were the youngest among the so-called young, and we were the most inexperienced. Soon, we needed a distraction and found ourselves looking at the pretty and young faces of the Peruvian interpreters.

When night fell, dinner was always more like a fiesta, with music from Peruvian pan-flutes and drums. We all drank pisco and danced. The Peruvian interpreters joined in, and whenever I tried to avoid dancing, they looked at me strangely and said, “In Peru, everyone dances!” So, even if you did not know salsa, you had to dance salsa, in your own way. Those evenings were the best part of the days during those study sessions.

Gradually, we, the young group, began to build a friendship and a bond with this group of beautiful girls from Lima who were assisting with interpretation at the study session. They voluntarily took us to Centro Commercial, the city plaza, and other places in Lima to show us around. They introduced us to local delicacies like ceviche. They invited us to parties at their homes, the birthday of Rommy de los Rios and a party at the home of J. G fell in love with another student, S, from Sri Lanka. But S tried to tell G that he had a girlfriend. She gently let him go, quite painfully.

I was getting attracted to one girl, J, a Chinese Peruvian girl, but there was one big issue. It was apparent that my teammate Victor was also interested in J! That was a hell of a problem. I could not even come close to J because Victor’s hand was always over J’s shoulder. What could I do? I just let myself be the usual passive observer. I am not sure whether I told Linda in Lima how I felt about J. But later on, I did tell Linda, as I needed someone to know. I remember one evening, Linda told me she wanted to give a present to J. Linda and I went shopping, and she chose a large pair of silver hoop earrings. When Linda gave them to J, she immediately wore them, and they looked perfect on her. Right then, when we wanted to take a photo, here came Victor, putting his hand over J’s shoulder. He kept adding to my suffering.

These nights out continued beyond the study session. When we had to move back to the house where the Latin American office was, there was a serious issue. They closed the gate at around 10 p.m. or so. So, we had to climb over the wall to sneak into the compound in the early morning hours when we were returning from partying in Lima. Last year, in 2015, when I met Lawrencia, she would disclose the other side we did not know. Lawrencia, a Korean, was part of the International Team. She told me that there were crisis talks among the organizers, especially the International Team and the Latin American Team, about our group and what to do with us. They knew we were disappearing into the night in Lima and did not know what we were up to. Of course, we were also skipping some official gatherings, dinners, and parties, so our absence was quite obvious to them. The problem for them was that we were the youngest, and they did not know where we were or what we were doing. Not to forget that Peru was also under attack by Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path guerrillas.

Our friendship with the Lima girls grew day by day during our last days in Lima. To set the record straight, there was nothing more than friendship involved. That friendship continues to this day. I am connected to J, Rommy, and G on Facebook. And I was able to meet J briefly in June 2015 near Charlotte, North Carolina, where she now lives with her family.

Soon the day for us to leave Lima arrived. J told us that she would come to see us off. G told S that she would come to see him off too. I was waiting for that moment to see J for the last time. We went to the Lima airport. G was there, but not J. I was quite sad, and my heart was pounding so fast with a kind of sorrow. Finally, just before we went in, J arrived, and we could bid our farewells. I boarded the flight with the heaviest heart I had had up to that day. I sat next to Victor quietly.

Victor noticed something was wrong and asked me, “Hey Sanjee, are you OK?”

I said, “Yes,” and looked away.

He did not give up and asked again, “Hey, you seem not well! Are you OK?”

At that moment, I realized I had let go of what I was holding inside. I told him, “Of course, I am NOT OK! I am in love with a girl, and unfortunately, you like that girl too.”

At that point, Victor asked, “Which girl?”

I was kind of shocked. “Which girl? You don’t know?” I was thinking to myself and had an angry look at him.

Then I told him, “Don’t pretend you don’t know! It’s J!”

Victor lowered his head and placed his hands over his head. “Sanjee, you misunderstood! Why did you not tell me? I had no such feelings!” And he went on and on.

I could not believe what I was hearing. But I trusted him. And I started regretting not telling him earlier. How could I have told him? I had only known him for a month, and we had not bonded enough to share those kinds of feelings. Anyway, right after that, Victor changed dramatically and went very quiet. It was the first time I had seen him go quiet like that! He then gave me a postcard and asked me to write something to J. He told me that he would pay for the stamp and post it in Geneva. I did not know what I wrote, but I wrote something, nothing serious, on the postcard and gave it to Victor. Victor now had a mission in hand to remedy the situation, and the first step was to make sure the postcard was posted.