Went down the Port Musasa to catch a boat to Pucallpa. Found one that was departing at five thirty in the evening, bought my ticket, and strung my hammock. I was swinging comfortably as the day gave way to darkness, the shadows overlapping and finally consuming the last vestiges of light over the port, the rich reds of the sunset fading first to purple, then to grey. The laborers of the harbor where loading large trucks full of wood into the hold of the boat as I ate the sandwiches I’d bought earlier, listening to the hectic, flamboyant music of Peru. These men loaded all the boards before moving on to the saw dust, stored in seventy pound bags which they carried two at a time on their backs, arms splayed behind them. They wrapped their shirts around their heads, the torso part draped down their backs, to avoid the inevitable detritus each trip left on their bodies.
The largest man on the boat, Moses, with the word ‘boxer’ tattooed on his right arm, decided to befriend me. He, like a famous boxer from America, had an incredibly high-pitched voice. As I passed him on the lower deck at one point he quickly pulled a chair up next to him and motioned for me to sit. Sitting, I was suddenly engaged in an exploration of the very music I’d been listening to minutes before. With each song the large man exclaimed something incomprehensible in slurred Spanish, the high notes of his words causing me to smile, though their meaning was quite inscrutable to me. It was a test of that particular ability one gains when traveling, an obtuse, uncertain agreement. It could be called the head-nodding skill, though there is often much more to it. I nodded and laughed on cue, hoping I was responding in an appropriate fashion, not wanting to disregard his words though it was impossible for me to understand them.
We began a conversation about love, and somehow made ourselves understood to each other. Both of us missed someone far away, and since this was the theme of every song on the D.V.D. of music videos he was sitting inches away from, we came to a kind of brotherly camaraderie. After the music ended I returned to the upper deck where my hammock was calling, followed by his enthusiastic squeaks.
Over the course of the next seven days I learned that he was a rather simple man, the butt of all the other boatmen’s jokes, ever assigned the dirtiest jobs the lancha had to offer; he performed these with an constant joy that was inspiring. I’ll write his story.
After a few minutes in my hammock I began to wonder why we hadn’t left yet. It had been dark for a few hours, I knew, and despite the usual vagaries of tiempo peruana, I figured I should ask before getting comfortable again. It was at this point that I was informed that due to some kind of paperwork jamb, we would be leaving the following day. I began to get irritated, wondering what I was doing on a boat that would sit in the harbor all night. Before the feeling overwhelmed me I realized that this was exactly why I was here.
The rain came again, with thunder and lightening, and I sat in my hammock enjoying the chance that always brings us what we really want, whether we have the wisdom to realize it our not.
From ‘Travels with Herodotus’:
‘..Was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man? And yet, does not that monumentality owe its existence to some conviction that what is negative and weak in man can be vanquished only by beauty, only through the effort and will of his creation? And that the only thing that never changes is beauty itself, and the need for it that dwells within us?’ 153
‘…one knew one’s fellow not only as one who would help them gather food and defend against the enemy, but also as someone unique and irreplaceable, one who could interpret the world and guide his fellows through it.’ 179
‘…a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others.’ Thomas Mann
‘…until that awakening I had been searching for spectacular imagery, laboring under the idea that it was compelling, observable tableaux that somehow justified my presence, absolving me of the responsibility to understand the events at hand. It was the fallacy that one can interpret the world only by means of what it chooses to show us in the hours of its convulsions…’ 225
The largest man on the boat, Moses, with the word ‘boxer’ tattooed on his right arm, decided to befriend me. He, like a famous boxer from America, had an incredibly high-pitched voice. As I passed him on the lower deck at one point he quickly pulled a chair up next to him and motioned for me to sit. Sitting, I was suddenly engaged in an exploration of the very music I’d been listening to minutes before. With each song the large man exclaimed something incomprehensible in slurred Spanish, the high notes of his words causing me to smile, though their meaning was quite inscrutable to me. It was a test of that particular ability one gains when traveling, an obtuse, uncertain agreement. It could be called the head-nodding skill, though there is often much more to it. I nodded and laughed on cue, hoping I was responding in an appropriate fashion, not wanting to disregard his words though it was impossible for me to understand them.
We began a conversation about love, and somehow made ourselves understood to each other. Both of us missed someone far away, and since this was the theme of every song on the D.V.D. of music videos he was sitting inches away from, we came to a kind of brotherly camaraderie. After the music ended I returned to the upper deck where my hammock was calling, followed by his enthusiastic squeaks.
Over the course of the next seven days I learned that he was a rather simple man, the butt of all the other boatmen’s jokes, ever assigned the dirtiest jobs the lancha had to offer; he performed these with an constant joy that was inspiring. I’ll write his story.
After a few minutes in my hammock I began to wonder why we hadn’t left yet. It had been dark for a few hours, I knew, and despite the usual vagaries of tiempo peruana, I figured I should ask before getting comfortable again. It was at this point that I was informed that due to some kind of paperwork jamb, we would be leaving the following day. I began to get irritated, wondering what I was doing on a boat that would sit in the harbor all night. Before the feeling overwhelmed me I realized that this was exactly why I was here.
The rain came again, with thunder and lightening, and I sat in my hammock enjoying the chance that always brings us what we really want, whether we have the wisdom to realize it our not.
From ‘Travels with Herodotus’:
‘..Was not the monumentality of past epochs created by that which is negative and evil in man? And yet, does not that monumentality owe its existence to some conviction that what is negative and weak in man can be vanquished only by beauty, only through the effort and will of his creation? And that the only thing that never changes is beauty itself, and the need for it that dwells within us?’ 153
‘…one knew one’s fellow not only as one who would help them gather food and defend against the enemy, but also as someone unique and irreplaceable, one who could interpret the world and guide his fellows through it.’ 179
‘…a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others.’ Thomas Mann
‘…until that awakening I had been searching for spectacular imagery, laboring under the idea that it was compelling, observable tableaux that somehow justified my presence, absolving me of the responsibility to understand the events at hand. It was the fallacy that one can interpret the world only by means of what it chooses to show us in the hours of its convulsions…’ 225
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