Bill Winter
chapter 1
Walking up the coast.
A few days further along in my multi-day stroll up the Pacific Coast, I came to a small village. It had a ruin of a cement house, and around it a few palapas. I walked by it. I met some small boys, maybe nine to twelve years old, maybe four of them, coming the other way. They paused and I paused for some friendly chit chat.
Where was I from? From the United States. What was I doing here? Going for a long walk to learn something of your country.
They had a few questions, and then I had a few questions. What is the name of this village? We don’t have a name, we just live here, there are just a few people. What do people do here? Our families fish in the laguna, and there are some farms on the other side of the laguna and some people work there. How far are we from the next town? Ask Don Pedro. Who is Don Pedro? He is the smartest man in the village. Where can I find him? He’s coming! He’s following! He’ll be here soon. How long has this village been here? Ask Don Pedro! How many families live here? Ask Don Pedro! OK, then I guess I should wait for Don Pedro, do you think? Yes, yes! Don Pedro knows the answers to all the questions!
Lagunas along the Pacific
So we chatted and joked a bit more and then one boy pointed down the beach, in the distance. There he is! There he is now! Don Pedro!
I looked, and in the distance I saw a young man, maybe 18 or early twenties, walking quickly along the beach in our direction, driven by some purpose, it seemed. He was too far at first to make out his face, but his highly springy step, evident even at a distance, established his youth. As he got a little closer, I could see that he had a palanque across his shoulders – a long wooden pole for carrying things - and on either end was hanging something – a bucket – and it appeared, as he got a little closer, that those buckets were laden with something heavy, the way they hung on the pole.
As he got a little closer, I realized, oh, Don Pedro is older than his twenties . . . he must be in his thirties – somehow I could get a different sense of his age as he slowly came into focus.
And then, every 50 metres he approached, years added onto my guess of his age. Fifty; sixty; seventy.
Finally Don Pedro was with us, and I greeted him, and we talked. He still had some wisps of white hair, but he was mostly bald. He had the appearance, close up, of a serious body builder. His face wasn’t lined, instead it had deep, deep gullies. He had some worn down yellow teeth. His eyes were alert, nonchalant, and calmly, moderately cheerful, and with some formation of cataracts. Somehow it seemed rude to ask him his age. I can say that I would have been surprised were he not at least eighty. Maybe he had lived a hard life, but the totality of him projected physical and emotional health. Many details argued for lots and lots of years. I can say that I feel quite certain he was over 80 – I just could not guess at an upper limit to his age. Ninety seemed possible. Maybe more. Time had been working on him for a very great deal of time. It was as though wind and water had been working on him for many ages – and yet somehow they missed his muscle and bone and brain function, and in spite of the cataracts his vision seemed quite functional. He seemed to be doing very well. I had never seen anything like this, and I never have since.
I asked him a few questions. He was a little hard of hearing but his mind was sharp. He was inclined to help, but the children were wrong – although he was intelligent and alert, he didn’t know everything. And I did not think to ask him the right questions – who was he, and how was he possible. Maybe he was in a hurry and I did not want to detain him. The me of nowadays would ask questions and take notes. I would have noted what was in the buckets! I can’t remember that at all. But I observed the strange mystery that was this strong durable human, connected with him in passing, and let him go on his way – he was focused on accomplishing his mission. All that was really required of me was awe.