Peru

Though there there were shiny places.  And we drove between them.  Looking out the window of another taxi going to another mall, and down onto a six or seven year old girl, sat on a traffic island, four lanes of cars on each side.

Though the grey mist of a Lima sky let the sun cast not a shadow on the tarmac concrete dusty ground, a single extracted sheet of a tabloid newspaper rested on her head.  I had only to recall my experiences of cycling in Peru to realise that the girl was sheltering, not from the penetrating rays of a tropical sun nor the light thin drizzle that fell from the sky, but from the spit and cigarette butts, plastic cups and endless other kind missiles that fly from the windows of buses and cars.



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Her mother, we assume, is one of the women or girls walking between the vehicles selling newspapers or cigarettes.  Part-time workers, given the restrictions of red and green lights, but twelve hours spent still, in the fumes and the noise, and maybe never days off.


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It is an unremarkable scene.  A boring scene.  Children crying and selling sweets, dirty little feet and no new ploys; could make you fall asleep, this tear stained theatre.  Nothing happens in the humming, boring, roundabout day.  What first you took to be a simmering, buzzing, energetic boiling was really just a drone.  It was you that gave it song.  Because still, somehow, for all of it, you think you love the city.  And will.  With every sight of every coming next.


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The girl is doing maths homework.  It will be a thing if she gets out of here with that, I think.  Quite a thing.  Quite an impossible, wonderful thing.

We look sad out the window.

"Pobrecita." we say.  Poor thing.  Said in sincere tones, heartfelt tones; all those tones that make us human.

The light turns green.  The car drives on.



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Perhaps it is no accident that the mountains in Peru are so high.  A breathless escape in a staggering sky.  For days and weeks and years you could escape.

From grapes, to oranges, to sugar cane, coca to coffee, to nothing, to snow.  It is the most beautiful country I have ever seen.  I must say it.  It is a vast, breathtaking beauty, a wonderful symphony of contrasts.  Above the clambering hum, the steady human drone, it is remarkable.  Fragile and majestic both, this none anthropocentric space.

In my entries on Peru it has undeservedly commanded few words.  But what words?  What words for it?