June 20, 2017 - Lessons in Samaipata

Lessons in Samaipata

The other day I was having coffee in Montero and looking at Facebook.  I saw my friend Fernando, who has a house I have borrowed in Samaipata, was working on the stairs to a second-floor apartment.  On the spur of the moment, I wrote and asked if he would be there on Saturday. 

“Yes,” he replied.  “Why?”

“Would you mind if I stopped by to see your stairs?”

“No, of course not.”

“Good.  See you Saturday.”

I’ve got the business of getting to Samaipata down to a tee!  I know where to get the trufis and how much they cost.  I am even beginning to get the route in my head.  I think the next time I am going to make a timetable of what I see or what towns we pass.

I arrived at 8:30 and the trufi was about half full.  While waiting, I had a moment that gets me emotional trying to describe it.  A man, not ten feet away, started digging through the trash.  He was a mess.  Dirty, smelly.  It is quite possible he was on drugs.  His face was a patchwork of scrapes and bruises.  He found a bottle with a few sips of orange drink.  My stomach went into knots. 

I walked over to the man and pulled out a 10 Bs. note, only about $1.40, and told him to have a real breakfast.  He looked at me stunned, but asked the lady at the store if he could have an empanada.  She looked like she would have told him no, except I was standing there.  He went down the street, sat on the steps of a house and ate the empanada.  He looked so tired to me.

I don’t want to sound like I am boasting.  In fact, telling you embarrasses me.  I walked back to him, gave him a 50 Bs ($7), told him to eat well today, and said God bless you.  I also felt compelled to put my hand on his shoulder as I said that.  I wondered if he had been touched by another person in a while.  It just felt like something I was supposed to do.  So maybe the whole idea of going to Samaipata was just to meet this man.  I don’t know, but I am sure God does.

The trip was eventful in because of two things.  First, at Angostura, we had to wait for a blocked road for over 30 minutes.  Usually we zip right through there.  Second, once we entered the mountains, it started raining and half the route was slippery mud.  So the usual 3 hour drive, or even as little as 2 hours if you get a fast driver, took 4 hours.

The driver dropped me in front of Fernando and Mariela’s house.  I just missed lunch, but told them I wanted to sit and write in the plaza anyway.  But I stayed and chatted with them for a while, Fernando proudly showing me his stairs and explaining future plans, and Mariela, like all teachers I know, talking about the needs of her students.  I love these two!  They also, as always, ask me why I don’t buy a bit of property and make Bolivia my home for life.  I don’t have an answer to that.

I had a nice milanesa de pollo (breaded chicken) and shared the potato with a dog.  After I had walked around the plaza a bit, I heard the trufi place saying there was one more seat on the trufi to Santa Cruz, so I walked half the block to fill that last seat. 

There was a man who took the front seat, who left just as we were getting in the car.  He walked the three blocks to the market, unaware that he was causing the rest of us to wait.  Just as we were leaving town, he asked the driver to stop at a convenience store.  He came back with a pack of gum!  He talked the whole way to El Torno, luckily not to Santa Cruz.  Periodically he turned the radio up to full blast, though the driver kept turning it back down.  It seemed like every sentence the man said used the Spanish word for sh--.  And to top it off, halfway along our journey he again asked the driver to stop at a store. 

While I was getting angry, I reminded myself of the man from earlier this morning.  How blessed I was and how little it mattered what was happening.  I wanted a day of adventure, but then learned valuable lessons about giving and forgiving.  Isn’t that what all of our days should be like?