A LOST TREASURE

1527. The living god is dying. Wayna Qhapaq (Quechua for "splendid youth"), the eleventh emperor of the Inca Empire, is likely the victim of smallpox, brought to South America by the Spaniards. Trying to please both Huascar -his elder son- and Atahualpa –his favorite son-, right before his dead Wayna Qhapaq splits the empire between them, setting by this act the downfall of the Inca empire, as Huascar soon declared war on Atahualpa, claiming the reunion of the recently dismembered empire.



1532. Atahualpa, is resting in Cajamarca after winning a long five year civil war fighting his own brother. The winner has had to order the execution of the defeated. Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror, has arrived to Cajamarca in an expedition to meet the Inca; the secret task: to subdue the ruler of the land of gold. Pizarro demands from the emperor to abandon ancient traditions and religion and to submit and convert to Catholicism. Atahualpa’s answer of him being “no man’s tributary” sets his fate along with that of the Incan empire, as Pizarro attacks the native army, wins the battle, and takes Atahualpa as a prisoner, demanding one room full of gold and two of silver “up to where his arm reached” , as a ransom. The biggest ramsom known in history.





1533. In spite of having fulfilled the ransom, Atahualpa is not set free; instead, he is taken to a trial. Pizarro, who has murdered thousands of Indians, who has not minded killing women and children, orders the execution of the monarch. Atahualpa, the last Child of the Sun, dies in Cajamarca the 26th July. “Dusk took place right at noon”, mourn the subjects.

The word of Atahualpa's death reaches four ends of the Tahuantinsuyu. The stream of gold that is still heading for Cajamarca is halted. The faithful Incan generals hide the treasures they bring along. One of them, Quinara, is close enough to Cajamarca; he has already passed Cuxibamba and is now surpassing Wilcopamba, when he learns of his emperor’s assassination. He unloads the “70.000 man-loads” of gold he was transporting, sets a concentric point equidistant a whistle sound length from three different masks set facing each other on three mountains surrounding a valley under the folds of the mountain range. In that very point, he buries the treasure –along with the carriers-. The gold is given back to the Pacha Mama, instead of to the treacherous Spaniards.

1874. A young man, son of shipbuilders in Hamburg, is heading to America as part of the crew of a transatlantic. He has deserted the German Army and on doing so, has “ashamed his family” according to his father. Ernst is his name. During the journey, he listens to stories on the exotic land he is heading for, to start a new life. Somebody relates to him the story of Quinara and the treasure hidden in a valley named after the Indian general. The young man remains mesmerized, envisioning him finding the treasure and returning home full of glory. Finding the treasure of Quinara becomes then an obsession for young Ernst.

1876. Ernst is heading south, eventually. Upon his arrival to Guayaquil, he had to find a job and ended up remaining two years as a clerk of the Poppe imports house, a German fellow’s business. But now he is on his way to Loja and to his dreamed treasure.

1919. A sick, too slim and weak Ernst is no longer able to lead the last of countless expeditions to the mysterious valley of Quinara, where he has sought and dug for the treasure for 39 years. He now makes an inventory of his life since he arrived to Loja. Most of his earnings have been invested in finding the hidden treasure of Quinara, almost to no avail; he found one of the three masks indeed, but that was as close as he got to the lost Incan treasure. The final balance of his life is not in red though, as he discovered another lost treasure: Ricarda, a strong, independent and open-minded woman who became his wife and mother of his 9 children; her black eyes sparkling as gems and her outstanding determination became Ernst's wealth, one he found at the end of a long trip from Hamburg to the exotic lands of South America.

1970. The first daughter of Ernst and Ricarda is celebrating her 90th birthday, surrounded by her large extended family. A 12 year old girl stares at grand-aunt with admiration, wondering how it is possible to reach such an age in such a good state of mind. That young girl is me, one of the over 120 great grand children of Ernst Witt, the treasure hunter.

DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL

One need not be a chamber to be haunted;
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.
~Emily Dickinson, "Time and Eternity"

A memory is fragments of past experiences, bits of the experience stored in several different parts of the brain, linked to one another by means of encoded neural connections, I learned in college.

Fragments of the past, I said, because rather than stored “video clips”, memories are like jigsaw puzzles. We do not remember a day, but a moment. Exactly what you encode to be stored is not completely understood, but I imagine it is only things of (subjective) significance. In an attempt to overcome this lack of continuity, as well as to overcome time and space, we build paper memories… and so was the case when daddy and I met.

Dad, so handsome the nurses called him "The doll"


Dad, Surgical Clinic Contest, Luis Vernaza General Hospital

Dad, giving a surgical solution to a congenital hip dysplasia of a babyboy

He was 30; a handsome, well reputed, charismatic director of the hospital in a mining town. I had just born after a long yearning for fatherhood. He was instantly spellbound by adoration.

Dad and I (4 days old)

The snapshots made in those years, late 1950’s, show him holding me, looking at me, helping me, a true passion I must say.

Dad and I (8 days old, the day of my baptism)


Dad and I (3 months old)


Dad and I (six months old)


Dad and I (8 months old)

As it often happens in life, the infatuation must have been mutual. There are no images of me saying my first word, but the happening was recorded on a gold bracelet that dad ordered to commemorate such milestone, particularly because the very first word I uttered was his nickname: PEPE. He was very proud of having bestowed his last name on me; the other charm of the bracelet had my initials engraved. Also, as a birthday present on year two, he ordered 7 tiny gold rings, linked by two hearts, the first one had the initials of my given names engraved on it, the second one sported the initials of his/my last name as an epigraph.

The bracelet and tiny rings, next to my wedding ring, so that the size can be compared

Although paper photos have fixed the shadows of my early infancy, and gold baby jewelry has been a remembrance of father/daughter love for 50 years, there are some other recollections that remain engraved in my heart, written under the forge of a love I find no words to express.

I remember you, dad, making the daily intake of vitamins an act of pure joy. While my cousins would have a spoonful of the disgusting cod liver oil, you had tiny chocolate-flavoured vitamin bricks brought from abroad, that you kept in a golden tin box as a treasure, of which you gave us one piece a day.

You often brought fun with you, like the most scrumptious cheese-flavoured cheetos, something unknown in our little town of Loja. Or eccentricities such us the silent movies of The Circus, Cinderella, Mickey Mouse, Popeye and Donald Duck that we’d watch on the panoramic screen of the living room wall. They came with the Kodak home theatre projector you had brought from USA. Since then, I ought to have popcorn when watching a movie.

I have vivid memories of your slightly crazy way to make ordinary things seem a marvelous adventure, totally ruled by chance. Mango fruits were safer then, in the sense that farmers did not use chemicals to increase the production; this brought along the fact that at times, mango fruits could have harbored a couple of “residents”. So after you had brought home a bag of mangos, you’d peel the one I had chosen, and then say “let’s turn off the light so that we enjoy the flavour”. I don’t know how many worms I ate, but I have always loved mangos, ever since my early childhood. You also brought those splendid seedless oranges, the “Santa Rosa” oranges that sported a “belly button” from where you’d start peeling them. You never turned off the lights when we had those, I imagine the chances of unwanted hosts in them were slim.

No journey would start without a round of love. As soon as I had gotten up, I’d rush to your bedroom, where you’d be smoking (yes, a nasty habit, I know, but in those days it was not considered so bad). I’d have my milk bottle while you bemused me by blowing smoke rings that kept my sight caught as they ascended higher and higher until they vanished into thin air. Then, you’d read me the comics on the newspaper. “Pochita Morfoni” and “Fulmine” were your favorites and became mine as well, of course. Then, when you were ready to go to work, you and I would kiss on each and every single space left by the balusters of the staircase.

My sister and I in dad's bed, early in the morning


Dad with my sister and I, in a rocking chair, before bedtime

You were so encouraging: none of my whims was too ridiculous for you not to oblige, no choice of mine was too wild for you to undertake. I remember you driving, with me often standing to your side, my arms wrapped around your neck, and leaning in to whisper –read "to command"- into your ear which turn to make when we reached an intersection. Good thing all streets were two way roads and there were not too many cars in Loja in those days.

I never got the chance to tell you about these memories, as you departed one day, rather unexpectedly, due to that absurd accident that left me eternally waiting for your return home to hear you say “I am back, Miss Moon; see? I told you it wouldn’t take long”. These sweet memories have haunted me for good 48 years. But you know what? father’s day is just around the corner, so I wanted to tell you, wherever you are besides than in my heart, that the strong and self sufficient woman that I became feels so proud and fortunate to have been, for 3 years and 10 months, daddy’s little girl.

To you, dad, goes my everlasting adoration.

Dad and I, August 1958

BACK HOME EVENTUALLY, or the misadventures of being gone for so long

I arrived home after having been gone for most part of this year. Home is the new house to which the husband had to move (along with all our belongings gathered in 29 years of marriage), while I was away, and to which I arrived after my first trip to USA and stayed for a few days until it was time for me to return and tend to my sister while she received radio and chemo therapies in the States.

During the first stay, I added some of my favorites: plants and flowers. The new house is a 2700 square feet construction placed in a 10.800 square feet lot, so I have lusted for a rustic garden and lots of plants and flowers inside the house; I did take the first steps towards "nature all over the place" until I had to leave again for USA.

On returning, I faced reality: not all men are made to maintain gardens and plants. Inside the house, all plants were dead! The husband had forgotten to water them.

Well, all plants but the one in the bathroom. I realized later on it was a miracle that plant was still alive, when I found out about the watering method: now and then he would pull that plant under the warm water while he was taking his morning shower!

The outside garden was... exhuberant, to say the least. The grass was totally grown, and it had devoured the flowers. One thing towered over the overgrown grass though, a new element that had been added to my garden: a phalic monument!

The husband is fond of archeology and in one of his trips he found this ancient sun clock, which he had brought home. I admit it is a very nice piece, but I felt it was a must to tell him that the garden needed to be planned and not to have "pieces" added by whim, he said: oh no worries, I shall hire a garden designer for you. I shall post a picture of the garden once it is done, but for some odd reason I reckon it shall take a while as he is in charge of finding the designer.

In the meanwhile, all I was able to do was to run to the market and buy a few ornamental plants and plenty of flowers for inside the house.

~ August 28, 2007 ~

AT THE MINES

Trip back home. Day 2

We arrived to Portovelo, an old mining town in which four different foreign companies (from England, France and the United States of America) settled since colonial times, to do mining works in a land that was thought to possibly be the conquerer’s longed “El Dorado”.

Quechua name for Portovelo is Curipamba, literally translated as “The Land of Gold”. The mining for the native inhabitants, the Inca Empire included, was Curipamba’s reason of existence. The legend tells of the Overlord Quinara coming to Curipamba himself to be supplied of gold to pay for the rescue of the last Inca, Atahualpa, who had been made prisoner in Cajamarca by the Spaniards. The Inca was murdered before Quinara’s cargo arrived, and as the news of the assassination of the monarch spread over the empire, Quinara buried the treasure (along with the Indians that were carrying it, go figure) in a valley, but that is another story I shall relate sometime soon, as the treasure touches my family in some strange way.

In 1896, the South American Development Company (SADCO), from the USA, exploited the mines of Portovelo, rebuilt the village and obtained excellent profits from the mines that were believed to be among the biggest in south America. “The Company” as it was called by the locals, not only that made sure their officials (Americans, of course) had all the comforts that home (the distant country, USA) could provide: they had foodmarts and school for their kids, but also made sure to have a hospital located on top of the hill, where two physicians and nurses were hired to treat the illnesses or accidents they could suffer. Coincidentially, when my father and mother graduated with honours from medical school, they were offered the job at “Curipamba Hospital” as Surgeon and Gynaecologist. And even if I was born in Guayaquil, I lived in Portovelo, with my parents, during the first 24 months of my life.

All splendour of Portovelo ended when the Company left town. Only the celebration of the 4th of July –the only place in Ecuador where this day is celebrated- and a few houses that are different indeed from the local architecture but similar to America’s homes of mid 20th century are the remains of the times when Americans and Ecuadorians had a place in common.




I sought the hospital and my parent’s house that were located one next to the other, with the directions mother had provided before I started the trip back home. I found the ruins of both places. On walking inside the abandoned hospital, I could almost hear the voice of my father comforting any and all of his patients.




I could not enter the ruins of what was our home, mainly because they were inhospitable, with grown vegetation, and I was not prepared for snakes or bugs. I did pictures though (above, the operating room and the ruins of my first home) remembering what mother told me: that was the place where you danced to music before you even started walking.

We also visited the old mines, the ancient Inca stone grinders and enjoyed a wonderful landscape.




Even if the roads were not at all like American freeways to which I was used due to my job as sister’s driver in the past months, they did have lots of beauty to offer. I returned home with a singing heart.


~ August 24, 2007 ~

STANDING ON THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN

Returning Home. Day 1

Perched on a hilltop, and thus sporting great scenic views, Zaruma city seems to be one of the very few remainings of what was the colonial type of construction in Latin America.

Founded in 1560, it is full of steep, twisting streets, with sidewalks wide enough for one person to walk alone. Other sidewalks are just the wooden entries of old houses.

The center of the town has wonderful painted wooden buildings.

And towering over central park, one of the loveliest wooden churches; my interest in it was due to family history: Mother in law had leaded the fundraising team to construct the bell tower, during early 20th century.

Zaruma was declared by UNESCO a cultural patrimony. If you visit Ecuador, coming to Zaruma is a must.

~ August 23, 2007 ~

CELEBRATING LIFE

My adored little sister has been receiving treatment for a Lymphoblastic Lymphoma, a very aggressive type of cancer that in a very few months evolved to an over 1’x 8”x 6” size tumor in the middle of her chest.

The diagnosis was made in December, by our cousin (a darn fine oncologic surgeon) right at the door of her house, when we all traveled 8 hours to be able to spend Christmas with her, in Dec 23/06. She traveled to Houston first days of Jan/07 and was blessed with not having to wait too much to start her treatment. She found a very fine, compassionate and brilliant oncologist, who started a treatment as aggressive as the tumor: eight cycles of chemotherapy (regular terms would be six) with six different antitumoral drugs (regular schemes give four).

After third cycle she was in total remission, but her bone marrow did not take it well. It took longer and longer to recover after each new chemo cycle. A month ago, after 6th cycle, her blood counts were life threatening: anemia was so intense she could hardly breath; a compensatory tachycardia took place and the beats of her heart, doubled in number, were perceived at her neck. Her platelets were so low that any little effort (walking even) provoked small bleedings. Her defenses went down to zero and developed a severe infection from a normally harmless bacteriae present in our bodies. We almost lost her to this. She was hospitalized for several days. The bone marrow was exhausted and not recovering. The doctor decided that the risks of continuing with the two more cycles of chemo were way higher than the possible benefits, and decided to stop there. She was scheduled ford new Positrons Emission Tomography, new complete blood test looking for tumoral cells in peripheral blood, and new bone marrow biopsy for a “rearrangement”. The dreadly "bone marrow transplantation" phrase started being mentioned often. I was ready to donate would that need rise.

We were given the results today: there is no evidence of Lymphoma whatsoever. She is in complete remission. Her blood tests are back to normal. She was scheduled for a one month daily sessions of radiotherapy starting this coming Monday, to finish her treatment. She looked adorable with the scarves covering her bald head, but I have never seen her more beautiful than today, when she flashed Me the hint of her hair that has started growing after one month without the venoms.

We got out of the hospital at 2 pm, and walked around the malls laughing and joking and embracing each other. We had hot dogs and icecream for lunch, just like when we were little girls, she and I, celebrating her life under the sultry embreace of the sun in this texan summer

MOTHER'S DAY, MOTHER'S LIFE II

Year 1948.

A male centred culture in a third world country. An 18 year old girl named Violeta is accepted in Medical School. There were only two other women studying medicine at that time. A handsome 6th semester student notices the strong, dark haired woman and gets closer and closer to her. They are seen together very often, and some months later, he asks her to marry him.

They get engaged, but Violeta wants to finish her career before marriage. He decides to work as an intern in a private hospital, to wait for her and graduate together, which they do. They eventually get married 10 days after the two young physicians entered the college of surgeons, after 6 years of betrothal.

Five years have gone by since that day. Every morning, three little girls of 46, 28 and 10 months old fill the house. The 30 year old physician has brought her mother to live in when she became a widow 1 year ago.

And all of a sudden, life has a twist. In a tragic car accident, the handsome young father is killed, leaving Violeta alone, with her back injured as she was also involved in the accident, with 3 very young daughters and her own mother to take care of.

During the 6 months Violeta was kept hospitalized, she sells most of her belongings to be able to feed her family. When she recovers, she leaves the town where her husband passed away. After having accepted a new position at a hospital in the major city of her little country, she wins a scholarship and travels to North America (Mexico and USA). Upon her return four years later, she is the only doctor specialized on anesthesia for neurosurgery in the country, and thus, is designed head director of the anaesthesiology department in the major hospital of the country. She was the only female and the head of the team.

Violeta raises her 3 girls and the three of them become physicians. The photography above is her favourite. “My three doctors and I”, she often brags about, showing off the picture that was made with us wearing white lab coats because she wanted it to be that way.

34 years after her husband died, she decides to retire and to re-marry. Her labour is done, in accordance to her. The picture above shows her with six of her seven grandkids.

I was not able to post about you on Mother’s day, but as I said before, there is not such thing as mother’s day, but a mother’s life. And this is a tribute to your life, mother mine, the bravest woman I have ever known. I love you beyond words.

~ May 15, 2007 ~

MOTHER'S DAY, MOTHER'S LIFE

As mother's day approaches, I decided to offer the husband a gift (yes, I always celebrate him on mother's day as he has been "mother and father" at home, tendeding to my boys during the long duties at the hospital when I was a med school student, an intern or a resident). I went through old pictures of my wonderful kids, and did several compositions of our treasures through different ages. For the very few friends that visit my blong, here are some of the pictures I chose.

The last picture shows two fine young men. The elder one, to be 29 by late september; a professional with two careers: he is an economist and a sociologist, with a masters in social development and a diploma on Leadership for development given by Georgetown University, where he is standing in the picture; he works for the German Cooperation for Development Office. The youngest one, just turned 27; an artist who started to study psychology first and then switched to Human Ecology; in the picture during one of his classes; he teaches theatre in a private college and in a private high school.

Unhooks bra before it bursts out. Mother's life has been a good life. I love you both so dearly, my precious, darling sons.

~ May 11, 2007 ~

HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM

I find myself in Houston for longer than what I expected. I arrived 5 weeks ago, to keep my sister company while she received treatments for a Lymphoblactic Lymphoma. My original plan was to remain in Texas for a month, and here I am, 5 weeks later and without any specific day booked for my return home. With all the comes and goes of chemotherapy sessions, blood tests, other medial procedures and so, I've been fairly busy until the past weekend, when my neice arrived to visit her mother. On having to show the lovely young one around and not being familiar with Houston, I of course ran to the laptop and googled "Houston". I started with general information about the city. And the first thing I came across was a description of transportation. "Public transportation: Have a car. That's all I'll say about that."

Amen! is what I uttered, on agreeing wholeheartedly. Public transportation are just two words that might as well belong to a foreign language when it comes to go from one place to another in Houston, a city with some ineffable sprawl: it is spread out like nothing else imaginable, I swear! I thought I had been to several places where traffic was bad; however, the worst traffic that I have EVER seen is in Houston. Not even the crazy traffic of Guayaquil holds a candle to the traffic nightmares of Houston, where exits aren't clearl marked, or are located exactly to the opposite side of where they announced them 1 mile ago, forcing people to change five lanes to get to where they need to go because you are given little to no notice about the upcoming exit. I do thank the goddesses from the bottom of my heart because the black Mercedes I have been driving for the past 5 weeks remains intact in spite of the number of hours I spend in the packed highway, on daily basis.

My next search brought me the weather information. "Houston, Texas is full of excitement and surprises and unpredictable rainstorms. If you live in Houston, Texas, you can't be surprised at flooding in the city."

Well yeah, thanks for having told me in advance (not!). The past week, we had two days in which it simply poured and poured to no end. Interstate 10 was closed in various periods of times, traffic was interrupted by crashes due to the rains, a lightning stroke a house in the neighborhood destroying the roof and we had enough water as for people to take out their boats to try to cross the intersections under the freeway. If that is what they meant by surprises, then yes! they are right! Houston is full of surprises!

Then, I stumbled onto this article on culobrids; here the quote that caught my attention. "The majority of snakes are harmless. However, all snakes will bite. The snakes come out a lot after heavy rainstorms. (...) Snake bites, in general, last longer than raindrops, and the spaces between snake bites are generally longer than the spaces between raindrops"

Why thanks! it sure made me feel good to find out I had also gotten my dose of the above promised Houston excitement, when we found two snakes coiling outside at the backyard, after the last severe rainstorm! I was not game for finding out about how lingering snake bites might be and worse to go into a double blind survey on the width between two raindrops versus that of the separation between two snake fangs, thank you! The picture above shows the place where the texan snakes were found, right outside of the my sister's bedroom window, which I now found to be too close to the grass of the backyard!

It is not that I am complaining, no. Not at all. There is a lot of fun things to do in Houston. The Kennedy Space Center is definitely something to check out if you are visiting. In the pic illustrating this blog, my sister (with the scarf) and her daughter during our visit to the Space Center. The Richmond strip is loaded with clubs and bars to check out, all of them with long happy hours! Houston is also a shopping paradise. The Galleria, Katy Mills, Memorial City Mall among many others, are shopping centers that are beautiful and wonderful to check out.

Houston does have a ton of restaurants to check out as well. And it has numerous museums to check out too! I have heard that the Houston Rodeo is awesome and probably one of the best in the country.

But above all, Houston has given me a sense of having been of help to my beloved sister. That alone, makes up for all the above mentioned little inconveniences and makes of Houston a city I shall always remember.

~ March 19, 2007 ~

THE PURGE

Ah… the pre-move phase seems to have no end. The stucco ceiling is EVENTUALLY done, the kitchen is half way to be finished, the electric and water supplies are half done, the floorings are almost done inside the house, the painter is due within two weeks, and… I do hope to be home by Christmas.

In the meanwhile, I am still going through the “getting rid of the stuff I don't want or need to take with me” phase. This weekend was the turn for memories. My two son’s little blankets, shoes, toys, clothes, notebooks and whatnot. And to be honest… those have been the hardest things to get rid of. Linen, kitchenware, furniture, and lots of clothes were easily packed to be given to people that could use them, but I did not expect it would be so hard to let go objects linked to the sweetest memories from the past 30 years.

After having sorted through my son’s bedrooms, I ended up packing most of what they left behind when they flew away from the nest... I guess I shall bring my memories along, to the new house.

~November 11, 2006~