Confesiones a un Árbol: Mr. González's Little School

BOYS' SCHOOL No. 3151 OF THE SAN ISIDRO BARRIO

(MR. GONZÁLEZ’S LITTLE SCHOOL)

1971 — Group of teachers and parents: Esther Quiñones Benites, Maruja

Morales de Ángeles, Magda González Martell, Rómulo Salazar Silva, Eva

Carbajal de García, Felipe González Olivera, Adela Martell de González,

Natividad Sánchez, and Edita Ramírez de Asmat

When, in 1958, a handful of visionary settlers founded the neighborhood of Prolongación San Isidro in Chimbote, they had the foresight to reserve the best location for their community center. The lot sat on the fourteenth block of Aviación Avenue, on the corner of Huáscar Street.

Until 1960, this place was the “theater of operations” for the founders who organized the new settlement. In 1961, the building became Boys' State School No. 3151, and for an entire decade, it was a dovecote for the students who, year after year—like the lyrics of the old song by Virgilio Dávila—returned like a flock of doves, eager for knowledge.

However, it seems it was always written that this place was meant to be a community center; in 1971, the little school merged with another educational center to form School No. 89007 and moved to Zone “B” of the 21 de Abril development, allowing the neighborhood to have its old community building once again.

The little school was a construction of palos and esteras—eucalyptus poles and woven reed mats; over the years, the large front room was improved with brick walls and an asbestos-cement roof, but the rest remained the same. And when the 1970 earthquake destroyed the little it could devastate, the parents returned with their poles and their mats and raised it once more.

It was also known as “Mr. González’s Little School,” due to its close ties with the founder and principal, Don Felipe González Olivera—a venerable educator who devoted his life to teaching and belonged to that noble generation of teachers born at the dawn of the twentieth century to guide us with knowledge, humility, elegance, and fine manners.

Mr. González was born on May 1, 1917, in Yungay, Ancash. He completed his primary and secondary studies in his hometown and studied education at the National University of Trujillo. He was working as a teacher in the Ancash highlands when he met his wife, Doña Luz Adela Martell Canchis. In 1954, the couple and their three children—Mery, Felipe, and Magda—moved from Yungay to Chimbote, making their home on the sixth block of Espinar Street.

In 1956, they bought a property at the intersection of Pardo and Aviación avenues. At that time, he was working in the district of Moro. Later, in 1957, he was transferred to School No. 329 in Chimbote. In 1961, he founded the little school, No. 3151, in my neighborhood. And at the end of the 1960s, the family moved to their final home in the San Francisco de Asís Barrio.

I was born in 1960, and my first memories of Mr. González go back to when I must have been about five years old. My house was on the thirteenth block of Aviación Avenue, and my father owned a grocery store. Early in the morning, Don Felipe González Olivera would walk along the avenue toward the little school. He always wore the same thing: a dark suit, a white shirt, and a colored tie. Passing in front of my house, he would stop at our store and ask for a bottle of “Sansón” brand dark beer. He would drink one glass and then say: “Save the rest for my return.”

There were four brothers and four sisters in my family. All the boys studied at Mr. González’s Little School. Roger, my oldest brother, started primary school in 1961. From that year on, and in the ones that followed, many local boys studied there, such as Guillermo Asmat Banini, Arturo “Gato” (Cat) Tarazona Villanueva, Enrique Dongo Quiñones, Edwin Campos Espinoza, Andrés Mamerto López, Elías “Cotorra” (Parrot) Peláez Hervias, Teófilo Víctor “Tofi” Alva Castro, Walter “Gringo” Ynguill Collado, “Canuto” Chávez, Ángel Cobián Romero, Walter Quiróz Villanueva, “El Burro” (The Donkey) Méndez, José Isidro “Piero” Quiróz Contreras, Rosario “Chayo” Milla, Santos González, Ángel González Rojas, José Asmat Rodríguez, José Torres, Genaro Damaso Ramírez, Manuel Montenegro Medina, Jorge “Carbonero” (Coalman) Bautista, Nelson Florencio “Panahuero” Chávez Ortega, Raúl Espinoza Lara, and Alfonso Chacón Yupanqui. They only studied here until fourth grade, as the school had no fifth or sixth grade. My brother finished his primary education at the Minerva School under Don Arsenio Vásquez Romero.

The teaching staff in those days included Felipe González Olivera, María Céfora Chávez, Gonzalo “Chalo” Gutiérrez, and Walter Razza. In 1966, my brother Fernando started primary school, and four years later, he finished fifth grade in a newly created classroom; however, he attended sixth grade at the Elías Aguirre Romero educational center in Zone “A” of the 21 de Abril development.

As for me, I began primary school in 1967 and finished fifth grade in 1971—the very last year of the little school’s existence, and also the year my younger brother Alberto started his studies. I completed sixth grade at School No. 89007, and Alberto continued his education at that same center.

The group of teachers who taught at my neighborhood’s little school in 1971 consisted of Felipe González Olivera, Rómulo Baltazar Salazar Silva, Eva Carbajal Mantilla de García, Segundo Fermín Orbegozo Luján, Imelda Castañeda de Carranza, Elcira Giraldo Guzmán, and Alicia Asunción Rodríguez de Alegre.

1971 was also the year Mr. González retired for health reasons. It was in the middle of the school year. I still carry in my mind the image of that day when the entire school gathered to say goodbye. He wore a dark suit, a white shirt, and a red tie, and he gave a slow speech filled with emotion. Beside him, his wife wore a white blouse and, from time to time, encouraged him to take a sip of water. We, the children of 1971, sang the songs of the program with fervor, as if understanding the meaning of the moment. The emotion grew even more when we sang “San Isidro Labrador,” the song composed by Mr. González himself as a tribute to our barrio.

After the summer of 1972, we went to the new school. One day in April, the teachers organized us to go back to the little school and move the furniture and salvageable materials. We were carrying the desks and even the asbestos-cement sheets from the roof through the streets when a group of neighbors came out, led by Carmela Cabrera de Rodríguez. She confronted the teachers, shouting that everything the community had achieved had cost struggle and effort; then, she chased them off with a whip. To me, she managed to say: “You are helping to destroy what cost your father so much to build—it even cost him jail time.”

Don Felipe González Olivera passed away on January 26, 1980. In the pages of Chimbote’s history, there are almost no traces of his existence. We can say the same about my school. Dust and oblivion cover part of our story, especially that of the marginalized neighborhoods, led by humble and decent people. This story seeks to remember this great educator, a school, and the barefoot children who, in that place, learned their first letters and their first lessons in citizenship.

Never forgets the dove... its beloved dovecote, say the final lyrics of the old song by Virgilio Dávila. And they are right.

New Hampshire, USA

September 2013