The Invitation: Camila's Next Big Adventure

I sit at the top of the ridge amongst cactus spines, dirt, and dust. The view is spectacular with a crisp, blue sky and mountains dotted with eucalyptus trees as far as the eye can see. We were sent here to dig a ditch for the water pipe leading to the cemetery and the work has been hard and frustrating. Given only shovels and rakes, what we desperately need are pick-axes to break the hard, dry earth. I had hiked back earlier to bring two pick-axes and of course within minutes of my return one lies on the ground with its point already broken. I now sit by my co-asesor , both of us chugging water from my worn Nalgene and staring down at the town below us. We are too tired to speak. I turn when I suddenly hear my students shrieking. On the opposite side of the ridge they can be seen chucking rocks towards the river far below. The enthusiasm they show for rock throwing is a far cry from the limp hands that listlessly pushed at dirt five minutes ago. I forget my frustration at th...

The sun sets on me for the last time. I spot the panadería on the narrow street, the tienda on the highway with its typical two customers drinking beer at the table outside. I sit in the back of the bus, the window blessedly open. It's the best place to be so that I can watch both the passing scenery and the other passengers.   A phrase   my mother said to me comes like a lighting strike: “You don’t know if you’ll ever go back.” These words might seem sad or pessimistic, but it’s true — she has lived this reality as have so many other migrants of this world.   I find myself thinking of all the things I have done and worse, all the things I promised myself I would do: a sunrise hike on the dunes, a basketball game in the neighborhood next to ours, saying goodbye to my nine-year-old neighbors. My list goes on and on and as the bus jostles its way to my house, one last time, I am overwhelmed by the reality of endings. Who was the Camila of two years ago? W...

Señor Vildoso cuts the little moto-taxi’s engine as we careen down the curving hillside towards Estique Pampa.   Once again, I have returned to the mountain region of Tacna, accompanying my students on their summer service trip. One of my students, in a moment of poor teenager-induced decisions, cut himself in the eye with some wire and it is now up to me to retrieve the antibiotic eye drops that can only be found a few towns over.   I’ve resigned myself to a dead-silent trip in this vehicle whose austere owner ties my tongue and makes me forget the Spanish I have learned over the last two years. I expect the only thing to break the silence to be the the chug-chug of the pungent engine, but the minute we start on our journey to Tarata, Señor Vildoso launches into a one-sided conversation that I am inexplicably drawn into. All I can see are his broad shoulders hunched forward, his hat with wide brim and crooked top. I find myself leaning forward to try and ...