And I Went to Peru
In this case, it was a friend of mine — a French-Swiss man who worked at the Indulac factory in Santa Bárbara. His parents had been in Venezuela for some time before and were now in Peru, where they were very happy, both with the economic situation and with the warmth of the people. It is true that in 1954, Peru was doing well under General Odría; it enjoyed a period of prosperity. Since I had already resigned from my job, I decided to make the trip to see at least the mines, some of which had a worldwide reputation.
The Venezuela–Peru Voyage
As my luggage was very heavy — nearly 150 kilos of books, clothing, equipment, and so on — I decided to travel by ship. I boarded one of the Alitalia line vessels, which operated between Genoa and South America via the Azores. The food was excellent, though the first-class bathrooms left something to be desired. I embarked at La Guaira, and we set sail for Willemstad, Curaçao, to take on fuel oil at the refinery, which offered the cheapest petroleum in the world. The island was very beautiful, with many houses in a Dutch-Flemish-German style — two stories rather than four, but charming. The people were very pleasant, with no sense of inferiority about their skin color, and they spoke several languages.
From there, we went to Cartagena — a city of colonial character that had once been very beautiful but was then suffering from neglect, with its houses and buildings in poor repair. We continued to Panama. The canal is not exactly pretty, but it impresses enormously with its engineering. It does not look like a canal so much as a string of interconnected lagoons. From there, we went to Buenaventura, Colombia, on the Pacific side — an ugly place, like the worst part of Callao. After that, we entered the Guayaquil estuary without going into the port itself, as the ship's draft was apparently too deep to enter — at least, that is what they said. So we anchored among swampy islands where nothing could be seen but tall reeds and nothing else. Finally, we touched down at Callao, and in Lima, I stayed at a hotel recommended by Mr. Parisi, who was traveling from Italy to Peru. Following his recommendations, I found a boarding house and settled in Jesús María on General Garzón Street.
My Life in Peru before 26/06/1960
I arrived in Peru in November 1954. Within my first week there, I decided to stay—primarily because of the people, who were not at all hostile toward foreigners, and because I felt at home. Later, I became aware of the presence of mines where I could eventually find work. Although the standard of living in Peru was naturally much lower than in Venezuela, that did not matter to me. Money is not everything.
I visited my friend’s father from Santa Bárbara—a very pleasant man and former Electrolux salesman who had made some money trading coal during World War II, but later lost most of it in a failed fuel briquette factory. Since he knew nothing about manufacturing—only sales—he depended on others. At that time, Mr. Eindiguer had a Swiss-Italian friend, very intelligent but not very scrupulous. On their recommendation, I bought a 20-hectare agricultural plot in Pisco. Later, I discovered I had paid far too much—one can only imagine where most of the money went.
Eindiguer had found a financier and a small mine in the Comas area, between Concepción and Satipo, for me to put into operation. However, as I was no magician, it proved impossible to revive the mine — it had almost no mineral reserves left. That venture collapsed, and I went to work at Cerro de Pasco with the Cerro de Pasco Corporation, thanks to the recommendation of a compatriot, Wellens, who was manager of the Hotel Junín in La Oroya. At Cerro de Pasco, things went reasonably well, though the pay was half what I had earned in Venezuela, and the work itself was quite hard and dangerous — gas in the mine, and a great altitude of 4,250 meters above sea level.
Meanwhile, I helped Mr. Eindiguer on several occasions but later lost contact with him. Later, I learned that he had died and that his son had come from Venezuela to take his mother back. While working at Cerro, I realized that a career there was not going to be possible—the work in the mine was simply too hard. In July 1957, I learned that the Toquepala project needed engineers, that the pay was better, and that the altitude was more manageable at 3,200 meters. I resigned from Cerro and began working at Toquepala with the Utah Construction Company.
The work there involved constructing camp facilities and industrial buildings for the mine, which was very interesting, as the best American construction techniques were being used. Later, construction began on the aqueduct from Lake Suche to Toquepala, and engineers were needed to supervise that work, which another company was carrying out. Because I had worked at Cerro at an altitude of 4,250 meters, I was selected for the job and lodged in a small camp near Lake Suche, close to the Tutupaca and Yucamani volcanoes. The area was distinctly volcanic, with geysers nearby. Experiencing a car mishap at that altitude was very dangerous, given the isolation and cold—something that happened to me once. Therefore, if anyone was not back at camp by 8 p.m., two trucks would set out to search, because the cold of minus 28 degrees and the wind were terrible. Diesel engines could not start without injecting ether into the air intake. Despite these inconveniences, it was a fascinating place to work — the sky was so deeply blue it appeared almost black, and there were thousands of vicuñas and vizcachas, condors, and the occasional ñandú.
At Toquepala, I also met Father Bruno Béguin, a French-speaking Belgian Franciscan whose uncle owned a major Belgian newspaper. At that time, he was the parish priest of Toquepala, and he frequently clashed with the company's head of Public Relations, a German-born Mexican who held a high rank in Freemasonry. After several altercations, Mr. Delius had Father Bruno declared persona non grata and replaced him with a more flexible priest. Father Bruno then went to Tacna as the bishop's driver. Years later, when I was married and living in Satipo, he stopped by to visit us on his way to Puerto Ocopa. I later heard he was sent to Santiago de Chile, and after that, I lost track of him. In 1959, the construction work at Toquepala was completed, and that chapter came to an end.
After examining the land I had bought in Pisco, I calculated the cost to make it productive, but found that transforming the sandy wasteland into cultivable ground was expensive and would take many years. As a result, I shifted my attention to Jungle Land, where water is abundant. Although it may seem unusual for a mining engineer to want to become a farmer, I believed farming would offer me independence with modest capital and allow me to start a family, unlike mining, which often meant living in remote, inhospitable places, as I had experienced in Venezuela as a road engineer. Additionally, both sides of my family included relatives involved in agriculture. Ultimately, I bought a plot of land, built a small house, settled in the highland jungle of Satipo, and married in 1960.
My Life after 1960
When I married, the small house in Satipo had just been finished, half the farm was planted with bananas, and I had a nursery grafting orange and avocado trees for later transplanting. The soil and climate were quite good, so I was confident about the future. Many others, like Adela's parents, had also invested in the area and believed agriculture was a profitable, secure investment. While Adela was less enthusiastic, her parents and I had enthusiasm to spare.
In 1961, my son Paul was born, and in 1962, my son Lucho was born. Meanwhile, enthusiasm for farming gradually cooled due to countless unforeseen difficulties. For example, strong windstorms would knock down the banana plants just when they were ready to bear fruit. On top of that, it was not easy to sell the fruit that had been cultivated and harvested with such effort, because buyers often failed to appear when the fruit was ready to ship. The road would become impassable, and the harvest could not be moved for lack of transport. These difficulties were somewhat less severe with coffee, but it required larger land areas to be profitable, and finding harvest labor was hard, so the coffee often spoiled on the plant.
The situation was not good. Adela's parents proposed taking over the running of my farm, which would allow me to look for work in Lima and improve our circumstances. Finding work in Lima was not easy, but I eventually found a position with a French company that specialized in driving piles for wharves in the port of Callao. The Callao work was poorly paid, but the children were still better off than in Satipo.
Around that time, I ran into an old friend who had worked with me at Cerro de Pasco, and he advised me to return there as working conditions had improved considerably. I made contact and was hired again. My first assignment this time was at Yauricocha. We had to wait three months before being given a house in the camp, and we finally moved to Siria, a camp situated at 3,642 meters above sea level. Money was not an issue there, but other difficulties arose — a certain discrimination against non-English speakers, and most importantly, the question of our children's education. For that reason, Adela and the children moved to Satipo, where there was a school, several family members, and even the farm — and this time without financial worries. I had to be separated from them, which was very painful. Adela had already been to Satipo before, after a miscarriage caused by the altitude, unfortunately, during the period of the guerrilla activity. This time, the situation was calmer, and the army was in Satipo building roads after pacifying the area.
The children and Adela were happy to go and be with their grandparents, aunts, and uncles. They could study there, the environment was more pleasant and so was the climate — hot and rainy, certainly, but at least without the altitude of the highlands. The family spent several years in Satipo. I visited them periodically, and during those years, Adela worked at the Banco Agrario and later taught classes at the secondary school.
Our third son, Frans, was born in September 1968. I had by then moved from the Yauricocha camp to Cobriza, and from there to San Cristóbal. In 1969, Adela's father, who had been looking after the farm, fell ill, and I had to leave work to take over. By that point, we had, in addition to the bananas, oranges, and avocados, some 35 beehives. While the household finances were not terrible, they were not sufficient, so I decided to build a house in town for the family and resolved to sell the farm. Around that time, I was also somewhat unwell, and when I recovered, I felt the solution was to return to the mines.
We gave up the farm without receiving a single cent — we handed it over in exchange for the new owner assuming our debt with the Banco Agrario. It was better to be rid of the farm once and for all, on whatever terms.
Back to work in the mines, this time at Morococha, where the whole family reunited since education in Satipo was not very good, and the children could study at a better school — the company school — in La Oroya. I was happy to be with the family again, though eventually they had to move to Lima for schooling and because the climate was better — no altitude sickness, no intense cold that so often affected their health.
In 1974, I was transferred to Cerro de Pasco, and after two years, to La Oroya, from where I was eventually moved to Lima.
During that period, we sold the house in Satipo — not much of a house, but one I had built with great hope, and once the farming venture had failed, there was no sense in keeping a house there. In those years, the country's economic situation was not good — it was a period of left-wing military dictatorship that imposed many restrictions on imports and anything foreign.
By then, the two older boys were about to enter university. We had a plot of land in Corpac that we sold, and then a shop in San Borja that we later had to sell as well because the tenants were not paying rent, and the legal proceedings dragged on endlessly.
In time, Pauli completed his university studies and graduated as a Mechanical Engineer from the Catholic University, and Lucho as an Industrial Engineer from the University of Lima. Frans had gained entry to the University of Lima. I worked in the Planning Department at Centromín in Lima, handling the Cobriza project, then the Andaychagua project, and finally the company's corporate planning. The salary was modest, but with service-related subsidies, I managed to earn enough to build the house in Santa Patricia — and it was really Adela's drive that made it happen, because I was convinced we would not have enough money. The country's economic situation at that point was genuinely dire. The house even turned out to be larger than we need now.
As for the children, Pauli married just a few months after graduating and did not live with us in Santa Patricia. Lucho, on the other hand, showed no interest in marrying and could not find suitable work. Peru's economic situation went from bad to worse.
In 1986, I resigned from my job and decided to try my luck in Venezuela again — Lucho and I went together. I was able to reunite with my brother José, which was very welcome, and I saw his children again and met the new members of the family, who were very warm toward us. But there was nothing in Venezuela that suited us, despite having family there. We returned to Peru and felt at home again. I found a couple of jobs — one at a mine in Huaraz and another at a small mine in Cerro de Pasco.
In 1987, Adela, Pauli, and Lucho traveled to Paraguay, as the situation in Peru had become very difficult economically. Though a rather pleasant country, it was not one to emigrate to — too small, with little industrial activity. In 1990, Adela traveled to Venezuela to visit her mother and sisters, who were there, and she also concluded it was not a country to emigrate to — the heat is stifling, and the political and economic situation was not good. She also met my family on that trip.
In 1987, Adela, Pauli, and Lucho traveled to Paraguay, as the situation in Peru had become very difficult economically. Though a rather pleasant country, it was not one to emigrate to — too small, with little industrial activity. In 1990, Adela traveled to Venezuela to visit her mother and sisters, who were there, and she also concluded it was not a country to emigrate to — the heat is stifling, and the political and economic situation was not good. She also met my family on that trip.
Colquijirca, October 1990