SAPALLANGA

— Can you teach me to take pictures? — a whispering voice said while tugging on my coat. I turned down my head and look at her, around 6 years old, brown skin & deep black eyes shining as if the lack of light didn’t exist. I saw the colors of the world through those eyes.

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— Just let me start the game and I will teach you later, ok? — She looked at me and smiled. I have made a promise, we had a deal and she knew it.

 

First day. I was in Sapallanga, a little town at the south east of Huancayo, in the province of Junín, Peru. I was going to stay there for about a week volunteering with kids of there and the surrounding villages: La Punta and Pucara. Ten days were not going to be enough, but at least I still could think that the journey was going to last longer, it was just the start.

 

Second day. There is something of the mountains that calls me, of the gabled houses, the smell of damp earth mixed with herbal and flower essences, the dry weather and the sun that imposes itself at top. There is some magical experience in looking up and be part of that painted sky, brushstrokes of white and blue, mottled with no order in the perfect portrait. Something about the darkest night that I have witnessed and the closest stars… This, that I can barely try to describe, connects with me in a way that I’m not conscious, until I’m writing without a paper, painting the memory in a canvas of currents, until I fly… And in that exactly moment I am alive.

 

Third day. The little girl was playing with us, about thirty kids that jumped, ran and circled around. How to spin if the air surpasses the holes in my clothes? How to run if I am barefoot? How to jump without a solid ground to land? They didn’t made themselves those questions, their minds were flying through other spaces… —Play with me—.

 

Last day. Where the magic happens. We were receiving a lecture by the Archbishop of Junin, it was the last activity, and we already had to say goodbye to our kids. Sitting in the last bench of the school chapel I was going through all the moments that I have lived, every game and every smile, I knew the journey had finished, that I was not going to stay forever, that I would have loved to stay longer to give them more. Actually, I was receiving from them; they were responsible for making me connect with the context and with me. And the world, that one they teach me to talk with, had a way of telling me that I still had one more spin, one last jump…

 

Shy fingers touched my shoulder. I looked up to see the whole scene: five puzzled volunteers standing up in the middle of the lecture, and thirty volunteers staying there while trying to figure out what was happening. Those five volunteers were my team. We crossed the school chapel and climbed the stairs up to a small room full of old desks. In this shabby painted classroom, ten of our kids were waiting for us with blue and black bags in their hands and the purest smiles I have ever seen. ­—Please, don’t forget to come back — said with broken words and flushed cheeks, turning their heads from the floor to our eyes…

 

I received a bag of native potatoes and corns, three letters that I still keep, and in their hugs received the innocence of the world with me. We went down to the school chapel and sit in our benches again. In the middle of all the swirl of emotions, a promise that I couldn’t fulfill blocks my absorption away. I turned to the left —I need you to help me to find a place, please — He smiled and nodded with unconditional support, even though he didn’t understand where we were going.

 

I don’t remember well how we arrived to her house, I try to remember the previous moment of seeing her there, playing outside while the sun was setting. — Would you like to learn how to take pictures? — Her lips curled into a shy smile, her eyes returned to show me the colors of the world. And in that moment I understood that I have nothing to teach because she already see things beyond the lens, while I camouflaged me through it.

 

Her eyes illuminate the night that has already fallen, gabled houses, smell of wet earth… smile little girl, you have the sky with you.