May as well continue...

Yeah, may as well. I started this blog to remind myself of my mistakes, so hopefully I don't repeat them in the future.

Back to my family story we go.

While grandma was helping us financially my mother not only administered the building we lived in, but also had her own 'kiosko'. We used the front of the building with our own table to sell jewelry she would make herself. Fake of course, nothing made of gold or silver, cheap stuff that would get a decent profit and other things she would buy wholesale in the capital.

Hmm, I guess I never really mentioned where we lived exactly. We lived in the Constitutional Province of Callao, Lima's largest seaport. Well the fancy name was pretty much stating the province was the source of income for the capital for the most part if I understood it well back in those days. Lima was just an hour away if you took the bus, or 3 hrs on foot.

Mind you the buses in Lima are like the ones you find in the states which are run and administered by the city. However there are the independant buses which were cheaper. Why were they so cheap? they made up the profit on numbers. An independant bus would be filled like one of those cans of sardines. Hell there would be people hanging from the side of the bus!

Dangerous and probably a risky way to ride a bus, but fun when you felt the air hit your face and you could imagne you were superman, heh.

I went to Lima often, because that's where you could buy comic books and other stuff cheaper if you found the right kiosko.

When I was low on cash to get back home, I would sneak my way into a crowded bus and make it as far as I could go unnoticed and then get off and get on another crowded bus. You see...there are 2 people in each bus running it. The driver and the guy who asks you for the fare. Now when an independent bus is full, it's not easy to get the guy in the middle of the bus to get his fare, so he usually gets caught when he gets off. Unless...you say you already paid and tell the guy off. It usually worked because in the chaos very often someone would hand his fare and the guy would only see an arm handing out the cash in the crowded bus.

That was my way to get home when I had spent too much of my money.

In Lima itself, it was a bit trickier if I wanted to do that since the city buses were larger and weren't as crowded. Well, when someone gets off they must do so from the back of the bus and pay on their way in through the front. So when someone would get off, I would sneak through the back and keep my head down and slide into one of the seats way in the back. The times I got caught I was kicked out of the bus, it was no big deal because lots of kids did it.

Well, let's get back to where I lived. It was a building in a commercial area, believe it or not in the same block across the street there was a beer factory, I remember the brand, it was Pilsen Callao (I think that's the correct spelling). Of course it was the beer everyone drank. I never through when I would grow up to be a teen I would work there. Well let's not get too far ahead of my story.

There was a supermarket in the on our side of the street, not too far. A shoe store was in the first floor of our building run by chinese-peruvians. They paid us rent, and also we got a good discount on shoes.

I went to the catholic school which was ran by the Salesianos de Don Bosco (Society of San Francisco de Sales). Padre Pum and Padre Pigi were in charge and they were strict. To be caught by them breaking the rules or misbehaving meant you were going to be in pain. They would either hit your hands with a ruler or your ass with a paddle. Kids always were hoping it was the hands, cause its better to have red hands than not being able to sit for hours.

Most teachers did the same thing, except a few who would be kinder and reprimand verbally. 

Those, of course where the favorite and most popular teachers in the school.

Every afternoon I would hang out after school and play soccer in the school's field. Most people in the states thing soccer and assume it's going to be on a grass field. Not in Peru. My school was middle class and the entire playground was concrete. That was a luxury. I knew the state-run schools didn't spend that kind of money, playgrounds were dirt, plain and simple, dirt. I learned that fact the hard way after I had been expelled from Don Bosco.

Again I'm jumping too far ahead.

When my grandma was with us in Peru, she had very good relations with the Padres, every Christmas they would get a nice bottle of Pisco (the good liquor) from her. I don't know what else there was, but it was her doing that got me in that school.

After she left, my mother became more promiscuous. I guess I wouldn't have minded it much since she been betrayed by my father.

However, when teachers became nicer to me, some started to tutor me at home...well, I was not stupid. It bothered me, I was also embarrassed cause I got teased at school for it and even got in a fight (which I lost to a bigger kid) over it.

Then, somehow she fell in love with a guy who seemed to be a nice man. His name was Manolo. I will never forget his name. How can you forget the name, of the man who raped you?

Yup, that's where my life started to fall apart.

It wasn't right away, no. He earned her trust, began babysitting and helping her around the house. Perhaps I started to see him as a father figure, specially after he taught me how to ride a bike (which I think he bought for me).

One night when my mother was away he convinced me to play a game. I won't go into details, but it was of a sexual nature. The whole thing went on for months, I trusted him and I thought it was normal.

Since I thought it was normal, I went and tried it with schoolmates. Of course eventually word was out, and my mother was contacted. She confronted me and I got a beating for it. Then I spilled my guts about Manolo.

At that time he had moved in and living with us. That day she kicked him out, and I think she tried to cut him with a knife from the screams I heard.

After that, there were psychologists, going to church more often (besides every Sunday of course). The matter was kept quiet of course, the school could not have a scandal of one of their young students messing with other students. However I just wasn't allowed back. As far as I know I was expelled, even though my mother never said those words. All she said was that I needed to change schools.

I went to a smaller school, I guess less prominent than Don Bosco, I don't even remember the name of it now.

My attitude changed after I knew that what happened to me had been wrong in so many levels. I stopped caring about things. I became selfish.

Perhaps things would have changed for the better...if it wasn't because, mother dear found out she was pregnant and ended up taking Manolo back.

That's when things really got fucked up for me. I was asked to forget and forgive and to move on for the sake of my little brother who was coming.

How can a mother make such a decision? to allow her son's rapist back into the family for the sake of an unborn child?

Fucked up. Very fucked up. But then, in Peru abortion is not encouraged, it's against the will of god the priests say, if you are pregnant you must have the child. And in Peru, religion is everywhere.

I think I'm done writing for today.