After a delicious salad and chicha morada in one of Lima’s thousands of chicken and chips restaurants we noted that the statue of Francisco Pizarro (conqueror of Peru) had been removed from the Plaza de Armas (actually the statue wasn’t thought to be of him but that’s another story, the same with his bones in the little box in the cathedral) and went back to Santa Anita.
Just about the last thing we felt like doing was going out but we had promised to see Niel and Ethel at 7.30pm.
We took a taxi from the front of the house and the driver immediately started weaving though the traffic, tailgating lorries and hitting unbelievable speeds. Telling him to drive more safely just made things worse. Once you are in a taxi in Lima, however dangerous, it can be worse to get the driver to let you out. You need to be absolutely sure of the area that you are in. Hence we were nearly at Ethel’s house by the time we had chance to tell him to stop. We got out and I refused to pay. The abusive and menacing driver then got something from the back of the taxi and came towards we muttering ‘this will make you pay’ a volley of abuse from me and his fare on the bonnet, saw him roar off into the night to attempt to kill some more passengers. We rang Niel from a payphone and they came to pick us up.
Diego their four year old son is a lovely boy and it was great to watch him play with Salvador.
Matteo who was born five months ago was sleeping when we got there.
After we had ordered pizza Ethel came back in with Matteo and told us that he was a ‘special’ baby, we could see ourselves that he had been born with Downs syndrome.
They explained that they had no idea until he was born.
Like anyone expecting at Esther’s age we discussed the possibility that our own baby could be born with Downs and given the amount of problems Esther had during her pregnancy we were anticipating problems when Salvador was arrived.
We felt immense relief when everything was fine with our little boy, we could see from the pain on Niel’s face that it had been very hard for them so far.
They obviously adore little Matteo and will dedicate all of their efforts to ensuring a good quality of life for him but Niel’s short lived dreams of taking his two lads to football matches and devising adventures disappeared two days after the birth when the diagnosis was confirmed.
Their life has totally changed forever but they have reacted to the news in a solid and adult way which is not always common in a country still riddled with prejudice and misinformation over disability.
We had an enjoyable night and hope to see them again soon.
This morning it was off to Immigration again to collect Esther’s passport and submit my documents. This time we were there less than an hour and have to go back tomorrow to collect my new resident’s visa. There were no party games today, although there was a load more photocopying.
This afternoon we took Salvador to Jockey Plaza to get presents for Daniella (Vilma’s daughter), Diego and Matteo. The place is chock-a-block with Barney stuff (that bloody purple dinosaur with a man inside) because he (it) is putting on a show in Lima. I have devised a method of walking that almost completely shields Salvador from the evils of this strange creature.