I am now in Chilé. I arrived almost a week ago to the farm in Villarrica.
While at the bus terminal, waiting to be picked up by some farmer I’d never met before, I went to buy candy bar and a newspaper to pass the time. When I went to pay, my wallet was no where found. My wallet, containing a travelers check, nearly $300, my lil sister Fredi’s school picture, a map of Central Park, my school ID’s, my bank card, and a picture of me and my family and on New Years: all gone. I began to flip out, I checked all my bags, every zipper, every pocket, six times. I went up to the woman at the information desk, she called the bus driver to check my seat. I searched the floors, the garbage cans, my bags and pockets for the seventeenth time, and that kind woman at the information desk called the driver again. Nada.
It was then that I realized I was totally on my own and I had no one to blame but myself. I felt helpless, distressed, I was close to crying. I had no money, and as far as I was concerned I would have to live in that piss-stained terminal for the rest of my life. So I begged God, if there’s a God, to help me find it, please, I’ll never be so careless again, just please, please bring me my wallet, help me.
“Yadira?” asked a woman, must be in her sixties or seventies. “I’m Illani.”
Illani piled me and my backpacks into her car, and I instantly felt better. Okay, I thought, I’ll have a place to sleep and eat, I’m not alone. [I mean, don't get me wrong, I love being alone, being independent and responsible, it makes me feel powerful. But as soon as something goes wrong, I just want my momma.]
Illani and I spoke in the car. She’s a scientist, attended Berkley majored in botany. She met her husband in Chilé in the 60’s. His name is Eduardo Rojas Ladron de la Guevara, (not related to me, but related to Che Guevara). His nick name is Guayo (backstory: when he was a kid, his friends couldn't pronounce Eduardo, so they called him Guayo.). He was a neuro-physiologist, very well known in the science world.
In the 70's there was a dictatorship. Pinochet came into power in Chilé, people were being killed in the street, or arrested for no reason. Things were going downhill fast, so the lovers fled the country and went to Europe. There were a few scientists in Germany that desperately wanted Eduardo to work with them. They asked him to come and they offered Illani a job too. By then Eduardo had trained Illani in electro-physiology. The couple became internationally recognized.
She ended up researching diabetes, and absolutely loved it, stayed in the lab for days without looking at the clock. They were entirely engrossed in experiments and data, answering one big question that burst open a spring of even bigger questions, and in that way they spent their time chasing discovery with butterfly net and a pair of safety glasses.
"Yes, we've had a wonderful life. He was a brilliant guy."
“Was?” I asked.
“Well, he had an accident a few years ago.”
He didn’t have an accident really, someone else did. Ten years ago he fell asleep on a plane. Maybe the plane jerked, or maybe she didn’t see him, maybe she was new at the job, or maybe she was distracted and tired herself. Whatever the case, the stewardess ran her drink cart into Guayo's head by mistake. It broke part of his skull right above his left eye, got infected, and soon infected the left lobe of his brain, destroying his ability to articulate his thoughts or initiate any action.
Sometimes we forget how mortal we are. We keep looking for ways to live forever and it's so insane that someone so brilliant ended up that way. Someone that dedicated his life to science, to discovery, to medicine had his whole life changed. Just because a stewardess had butter fingers, just because he was sleepy, because he was sitting in the aisle seat and not the window seat.
Guayo’s now in a wheelchair, and he can’t walk or speak. He has to be fed, bathed, and changed daily.
Still Illani told me that she was lucky. Lucky because he laughs, lucky because he always finds something to be happy about.
After that I felt ashamed that I asked God to help me find my wallet.
