Back in 1982 I was working for Oxfam. My job was based in the charity's Summertown, Oxford HQ, and my responsibility was to run a small team called the Donor Response Unit. DRU, that was us, and merry little band we were. There was me, dazed by my switch from self-employed to employed at the age of forty, Trish, who was my rock in that she patiently guided me, a complete beginner, through the complexities and nuances of office culture, and Dharshini, a quiet young woman from Sri Lanka who I'm sure didn't know what to make of this strange man who suddenly become her immediate boss.
He knows nothing, she must gave thought to herself as she kept a wary eye on me in those early days. Both Trish and Dharshini became wonderful friends and I treasure my time with them.
However, this is not the moment I shall try to describe in this piece.
I mention it only to emphasise that life circumstance had plucked me from deepest rural Oxfordshire and thrust me into this new, strange and forbidding environment.
Needs must. I had to earn a living somehow and this was the only avenue I had found open. I had barely been there two years and little did I know that Oxfam was about to thrust me, briefly, into a much more amazing, life-changing, environment. The Andes in Peru. (See 'Peru -This is where the story really starts')
I ran an office in Oxfam Fundraising Division and, asca fundraiser, and it was deemed that I should spend some time at the cutting edge of Oxfam's aid work. This would give me authenticity when talking to supporters about how we used their money. I could describe some of it through first-hand experience. Thus I found myself tramping up a spectacular path high in the Andes. We had left our battered Landrover way below in the guardianship of a local priest.
We were now way beyond wheeled traffic.
Our path varied between one and two metres wide. On one side a sheer drop gave us views of clouds far below. Occasionally they parted allowing glimpses of a gushing, dashing river. On the other side of the path a high cliff climbed high to a blue black sky. Oxygen levels at this altitude were rather less than I was used to and I was glad I had done a little training before coming on this venture. I wished I had done more. I was also glad that we stopped now and then to catch our breath. My heart was thumping.
A light cool breeze eddied around us. When it blew towards us we caught snatches of flute music. It was beautiful. Two stops later the music was clearer and louder, but we still couldn't see the melody maker.
"Who is that?" I asked Pocho, real name Teoboldo Pinzas, Oxfam Field Director and our leader.
"That's a scout, letting the villagers know that we'll soon be arriving", he told me.
As we rounded the next bend we saw him, across a gully which the path horseshoed around. A small boy, sitting in a boulder further up the mountain path, silhouetted against the late afternoon sky. He waved. We waved back, weary and relieved that we were nearly at our destination.
But nothing had prepared me for what happened next.
As we rounded the corner by the boulder where the boy had been playing his flute, we longed to sit down, take off our packs and rest. But suddenly we were surrounded by laughing girls showering us in flower petals. they danced alongside us as we entered their village. Boys came up to us and presented us all with long staves. It was clear to us that we were to hold these high and take our position of honour on a wooden platform that stood in the middle of the village square. Alongside us stood important looking men who were obviously important village elders. The leader, or Mayor, raised his arms and all the chatter and excitement suddenly stilled. Everyone looked at us.
The Mayor stepped forward centre stage and looked around at the villagers, whereupon he launched into a grand sounding speech liberally emphasised with arm flourishes, many directed towards us. It sounded very presidential, but he spoke in his mother tongue, Qechua, and we couldn't understand a word. No matter, one of our guides spoke Qechua and Spanish, and he translated for Pocho, our Peruvian Field Director. Pocho translated his translation into English for our benefit. The speech was wonderflly flowery, and we were required to reply in equally flourishing words. We did our best, each in turn, and our party pieces made their way back through the tortuous transaltion chain. Whether our replies bore any relation in Qechua to what the Mayor had said I have no idea. I seriously doubt they did, but it didn't matter. We received thunderous applause and were welcomed by one and all.
And so began a night of serious home-made liquor drinking. We bowed out and climbed into our sleeping bags as soon as judged politely possible, but the party went on way into the inky blackness of the Andean night, as revellers drank their way from house to house under the stars.
The glittering beautiful skyfull of stars.
