1940s Archive

Saludos

Part IV

Originally Published June 1944

The natives of Moyobamba were celebrating the first day of Spring, although my journal put the date as the twenty-first of September. But then, when you are four or five degrees below the equator, naturally everything is upside down.

It was Sunday morning, and whole families emerged for mid-morning mass after a breakfast of café con leche and sweet rice cakes, which the panadero had been preparing since dawn in his great adobe outdoor oven, toasting them in the ashes below, while the bread baked above.

The women, who had stayed at home properly all week, wore freshly washed dresses; and even though many were barefoot, they all wore black lace mantillas that partially shaded their dark Indian faces. Little boys and girls stiffly dressed marched to the crumbling adobe cathedral on the parched and barren square, carrying great bunches of flowers—gardenias, camellias, fabulous orchids, and calla lilies as tall as they were. From a hidden balcony somewhere on the cobbled street came the strumming of a guitar playing Rubinstein’s Melody in F.

Perhaps Moyobamba is one of the most interesting small towns in the two Americas, for certainly it is one of the oldest. It was founded nearly half a century before our own ancient St. Augustine, by Alanzo Alvarado, who with Pizarro swept over mountains, rivers, and jungles in the invasion of the land of the Incas.

But to me, Moyobamba was not a very impressive relic of the conquistadores’ might. Because of a rather severe attack of malaria, I could not continue my expedition with Sandoval, who was scouring the surrounding territory for information about the rare little bear we sought—and I was trapped in Moyobamba … for how long, I didn’t know.

By the second day I knew every nook and cranny of the village, and every shop. One couldn’t buy a newspaper or a book. I did manage to purchase a Japanese toothbrush which bore the legend “A Clean Tooth Is Sign of Culture.”

But more than that, the townspeople were hostile. They knew little of Gringos or Gringas, and wanted to know less. An American woman on a zoological expedition was completely beyond their comprehension … a woman’s place was in the home, preferably bearing babies.

September is the month of equinoctial storms that rage through the tropical Andes. That Sunday afternoon the first of these tempests thundered down from the blue, jungled mountains; it swept in a wall of white water the patio of the rustic inn. Gardenia and camellia shrubs were blown flat, and an old rotting tree swathed in draperies of purple bougainvillea came crashing to earth.

Somewhat vaguely I wondered about the airplane whose motor I’d heard earlier in the afternoon. The little one-motored planes that served the remote and lonely jungle towns certainly couldn’t survive such weather. To crash in the forests even a short distance from a settlement would be to disappear from the world forever.

The storm passed; the late afternoon sky, blue and brilliant, again vaulted the lonely jungle village. Drearily I washed my face and combed my hair to go across the street to Señora Rosa’s pension to eat a dinner of the inevitable tough chicken, innocent of all flavor, condiment, or sauce.

Suddenly an unmistakably American voice boomed in the patio, and then came murmured Spanish in the room next to mine. Even to hear the voice of a countryman after not having seen one for many months is an exciting thing. Hurriedly I scrambled in my duffle bag and got out my one clean dress … I even used my fast-dwindling lipstick.

Emerging a little later, I almost stumbled over a big, curly-haired giant who, tip-tilted in a chair against the wall, was reading an ancient magazine. The expression of astonishment that spread over his wide Irish face changed rapidly to an amiable grin. Holding out a hearty paw, he asked, “What in God’s name are you doing in Moyobamba?”

My explanation finished, he said, “I’m grounded for at least the night … maybe days. Quien sabe? Couldn’t possibly fly that storm to the coast.”

It developed that during the rainy season the pilots of the commercial airline (whose schedule was, at best, uncertain enough) often had to stay in jungle towns for days waiting for the weather to clear. Frequently they made as many as six or eight attempts to cross the Andes to the coastal cities before succeeding. Then said Joe (“My name’s Russell, but most people call me Joe”), “Lots of times we run out of gas trying to get to the coast, and have to wait till a plane can get through from the coast to bring gas to us.” Worst of all, it seemed that the villages ran short of beer in the interim.

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