Sometimes fate steps in

I truly believe that sometimes fate decides to play a hand when it feels the inclination. Take today for instance in the town of Morrope. We where there because I wanted to learn about the local plaster industry and perhaps get photos and information for a blog entry. We were having a hard time getting directions on where to go and how to get there. Even the officers at the police station couldn’t provide information. We had about decided to give it up and return to Chiclayo when, as we were leaving the police station a man approached Maribel and asked if he could talk to her about a project he was working on. We both immediately thought ‘scam’, but it turns out that Martin Rolando Angeles is the director of the school in Monte Hermoso…a dirt poor little village some thirty minutes from Morrope and that the Morrope municipal officials had just turned down a school project he wanted to implement, not because they didn’t like it, but because they don’t have the money. He was discouraged, tired of knocking on doors, and mistaking the emblems on our travel vests as an indication that we represented some agency, unapologetically began to pitch his project to Maribel right there on the street.

Within minutes the two of them said almost simultaneously…, “Did you study at Karl Weiss?” It turns out they were classmates and graduated in 1980 (see the previous post entry). After a minute of chit-chat Martin returned to his project. His presentation was thorough and included facts, figures and photos for support. The bottom line is that he needs 1250 soles ($450) for hand tools and several other items to be used by the kids to make artifacts for sale. I like his project and respect his tenacity. We’ve been looking for a place to help out and if our visit to his school next week goes well we told him we’ll consider helping him.

We were about to say goodbye when he asked why we were in Morrope – a town no tourists ever visit. Informed about our plan to learn about plaster, he said he knew an owner of a manufacturing site and offered to take us there. We went – were welcomed and got all the information and photos I need for the next blog entry.

Nobody’s going to tell me that fate wasn’t hanging around in Morrope today, and having nothing better to do at that moment decided to put a win-win situation together.

By the way, today marks the first anniversary of ‘My Slice of Peru’. Here we are one year and 84 posts later. That sure went fast!

Tom & Maribel