It was 3 a.m. and we were on a flight from Boston to Peru. We had been delayed two days in leaving. The northeast had just had one of its largest snowstorms in decades. Our plane had been one of the last out before Logan closed. We were returning after 24 years. Below us the city of Lima looked calm and welcoming. It stretched our for miles to the south and the east. There were no blacked out areas or fires.
As the three of us deplaned, myself, my wife and our daughter, we didn’t know what to expect. What we found was a modern and efficient airport. To our surprise, we quickly found our luggage and passed through customs smoothly. We met our friends, who had been waiting for hours, since our flight had been delayed three hours in taking off. (Some things never change.) The parking lot outside the airport was a model of efficiency and security, not the chaotic and dangerous place it had been 24 years ago.
Our friends drove us to the Hilton, a hotel we had avoided 24 years ago because of the bombings and the attacks on Americans. They would meet us the next morning. They had arranged a meeting for our daughter with her biological mother and sisters in the early afternoon. They would pick up her mother and her relatives and meet us at a small club where they were members.
As it was 24 years ago, the hotel staff were just as welcoming as those at the small Peruvian hotel where we had stayed so many years before. The room, to say the least, was considerably more lavish. But we still weren’t sure about the water. We called the front desk and sheepishly asked. The clerk sounded surprised. “Of course, the water is drinkable,” she said in perfect English.
And so began our week in Lima, the primary purpose being for our daughter to see her biological mother for the first time and for us to visit with the family that had taken us into their home and their hearts so many years ago. I’ll talk more about our visit in the next blog.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment