Confesiones a un Árbol: A Half-Pint Camera

A HALF-PINT CAMERA

"A Half-Pint Camera" is a story (… also a half-pint story) that begins with a childhood prank. A bit of mischief that, far from ending badly, turned out to be providential in documenting a slice of my family’s history.

It happened in 1969. At that time, my brother Roger (whom we called 'Coco') was fourteen years old, and I was eight. He was the eldest of the eight siblings and the hero of my childhood. One midday that year, he had me hop onto the crossbar of his bicycle and pedaled toward downtown Chimbote.

Where were we going? At that moment, I didn’t yet know.

On different occasions, I have recounted that I was born and raised in the San Isidro Barrio. At that time, it was a humble spot of Chimbote that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny never visited, and where most of the children of my generation grew up without toys or pocket money.

For that reason, on that midday in 1969, on our way to the center of the city, when my brother revealed to me that he had some “big” money for something “big,” I was stunned. “Don’t worry. The important thing is that Dad doesn't find out,” Coco said to reassure me, and he kept pedaling the bicycle.

We arrived at the intersection of Pardo Avenue and Manuel Ruiz Street. We stopped at the corner of the old “La Mercantil” store. There, my brother asked me to stay and watch the bike while he crossed the avenue’s central median and entered the “El Sótano” store. Later, he came out with a small package in his hands.

“What is that?” I asked. “A Kodak camera,” he replied. “And how much did it cost you?” I asked. “One hundred and thirty soles,” he answered. “Dad is going to kill us!” I said, terrified. I asked him where he had gotten so much money. He explained that he had been taking it bit by bit from the drawer where my father kept the cash from his store…

The arrival of the camera brought moments of joy and excitement to my family. We all knew of its existence, except for my father. Coco had a secret place where he kept it: he would put it inside several plastic bags and hide it among the woven reed mats of our bedroom ceiling.

In my house, no photos were ever taken before 1969. The first shots were thanks to the half-pint camera. It only worked for a year, but it left us with half a hundred photographs that document our lives. Coco’s mischief immortalized the youth and beauty of my parents and captured the innocence of us eight siblings.

There are images that show us with Grandma Carolina, the only one of our four grandparents we ever got to know. My mother’s mother would come from Trujillo to visit us and shower us with affection. Until one day she said goodbye forever, and we were just children when we learned that despite so much love, there are departures we cannot avoid.

Some photographs show Olga, my younger sister. She was born on Christmas 1965 with an illness and didn't walk until she was five years old. In the first photos, she appears with her plaster cast, and in the following ones, with a metal bar that kept her feet apart. When she walked for the first time, she did so on the sidewalk of our street, in full view of family and neighbors. She took her first steps humming “La Plañidera,” a popular song by the singer-songwriter Raúl Vásquez.

1969 was the year we met my father’s first relatives: his nephews Lázaro and Franciles. It was also the year his sisters, María and Sofía, visited us for the first time. They arrived from Lima unannounced, and my house filled with joy. Coco pulled the camera from its hiding place and took photos of my father with all his relatives. My father was so happy that it never even occurred to him to ask about the camera’s origin.

Other photos capture Unión Street—the street of my childhood, where I played soccer whenever my dad’s back was turned. There, our neighbor Pedro Pizcoche had one of the few televisions in the Barrio. On July 20, 1969, after paying half a sol, I was able to see Neil Armstrong, commander of Apollo 11, step onto the lunar surface for the first time and utter the phrase: “That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Most of the images from 1969 were taken in my backyard. Visible in them are the bricks that our neighbor Ricardo Pinedo Machay was casting, ordered by my father for a large bakery being built on our property. At that time, no one knew that a few months later, the 1970 earthquake would destroy all human endeavor in Chimbote and the Ancash region.

It was 1969, and Chimbote was approaching the center of a perfect storm: the destruction and recovery from the earthquake, the triumphs of José Gálvez FBC, and the music of the Los Rumbaney orchestra, which understood the soul of Chimbote’s people. A trilogy that reaches deep into the heart of our identity as a port city.

What is my favorite photograph from this story? It is the opening scene:

Coco is riding the bicycle. I am on the crossbar. We are heading to the “El Sótano” store. We move along Gálvez Avenue. Palm trees rise from the central median. There are no minibuses or combis on the road, only colectivos and pájaros cochos. At one corner of the Modelo Market, “Loco” Ciriaco Moncada preaches his truth with unerring lucidity. At the other corner, the chuncho Orlando Ávalos Pacha offers snake fat, love spells, and remedies for bad luck, while reading fortunes in the palm of the hand.

If on that sunny midday in 1969, none other than the chuncho Ávalos had told me that one day I would be writing about a half-pint camera, I wouldn't have believed him.

But here I am, 43 years later, putting an end to the story.

New Hampshire, USA

June, 2012