Jirón Unión in the San Isidro Barrio

 

JIRÓN UNIÓN IN THE SAN ISIDRO BARRIO

1960s — Corner of Aviación Avenue and Jirón Unión. Brothers 

Alberto (Beto), Fernando (Pepe) & Eduardo (Chato) Quevedo

The Jirón Unión was the stage for our heated soccer matches back in the sixties and the first half of the seventies. Back then, it was a dirt street with countless small stones; despite that, the children and teenagers of that time played barefoot or in torn sneakers. Each goal was a pair of rocks. Neighbors would come out to yell at us for hitting their doors so many times with the ball. And we players would argue too: the goalkeeper, “Lagaña,” suffered from epileptic seizures and often let goals in... the argument was whether those goals counted or not.

Jirón Unión was a two-block lane that ran from Aviación Avenue to Huayna Cápac Street, crossing Manco Cápac Street in between. In 1958, my father and a handful of visionaries had founded the Prolongación San Isidro Barrio. The street was named by my father as a tribute to Unión Street in the city of Trujillo, where he lived part of his life.

Ángel “Lagaña” Bejarano Bautista was the most popular kid on the street. He was the son of a humble but decent family. He had no father, and his mother sold fish at the Modelo market. He was a likable rascal, a joker, and even a bit of a pest. His passion was soccer. For endless seconds, he would stand still, his eyes white and blinking. The kids back then referred to these recurring epileptic fits as: “Lagaña is turning white.”

My house was on the corner of Aviación Avenue and Jirón Unión. I could have spent more time with the boys from Aviación, but until the mid-'70s when I turned fifteen, Unión was always “my street.” And soccer was our main distraction. We started by kicking a plastic ball, then rubber ones, and later leather balls into which we stuffed pieces of cardboard to keep the bladder from bursting through the unstitched panels.

During the sixties and seventies, Jirón Unión looked like any other street in the neighborhoods near downtown Chimbote. It was dusty, and only the first block had sidewalks on both sides. The houses were rustic constructions made of woven reed and cattail mats or adobe; a few were made of brick, and there were plenty of homes with “quincha” walls—a framework of canes covered in mud. Most had no running water, sewage, or electricity. At my house, for example, these basic services arrived at different times in 1977, and our first black-and-white television in May 1980, when I was already 19 years old.

Other kids joined the game back then, too: “Kalimán” Raúl, a tough defender who would clear the ball with no nonsense and was “Lagaña’s” brother; the ever-trying Manuel “Maño” Pinedo Pérez; brothers Ángel and Will Pinedo Bocanegra, skillful and elegant with the ball; the “gringos” Jaynor and Neiser Pereyra Utrilla; brothers “Pito” and “Curro” Cano Iraita; “Zurdo” Kike González and his brother “Papayo” Rubén; my brother Pepe and I—both defenders more worried about our father than the ball, as we were always playing on the sly, keeping it from him.

Our mothers often interrupted our matches to send us on some errand—for example, to buy vinegar for dinner. We would go with a small two-ounce glass cup, which was filled to the brim, and we had to return home without spilling a drop. It was no easy task. In poor neighborhoods, there were always more dogs than people. They would scare us with their barking, and more than once they bit us. When I spotted an aggressive dog, I avoided it by walking all the way around the block. That’s where my fear of dogs was born—a fear I could never overcome.

In our homes, we cooked on kerosene Primus stoves. Clothes were washed by hand on weekends and ironed with a charcoal iron that had the figure of a small rooster on its lid. So, we had to go buy kerosene and charcoal from the caseras: one was Doña Santos Ávila Luján, who lived at “La Curva” (The Curve), Block 1 Lot 11 of the 21 de Abril A housing development. The other business was known as “La Ventanita” (The Little Window), belonging to the Ibarra Minchola family, at Block 32 Lot 1 Zone B of the same development.

At the end of the matches, we enjoyed a raspadilla (shaved ice). Our neighbor Eusebia “Cheva” Corales had a small refreshment stand in front of her door. The usual joke was that she should give us a yapa (a little extra) to make up for the fact that her husband Augusto “stole” parts of the movies we watched at the old San Isidro Cinema. Her husband was the projectionist and had instructions to cut segments of the film to finish on time and, on a bicycle, rush the reel to the next theater where it was to be shown.

In those times, the famous aguateros (water carriers) arrived at Jirón Unión. In some Chimbote barrios, water was still hauled in drums on heavy-duty cargo tricycles or carts pulled by donkeys. But the aguateros in my neighborhood drove rattletrap trucks that they started by turning a large crank at the front, transporting rusted and leaky tanks. When they didn't show up on their own, we looked for them in the streets. If we couldn't find them, we walked to their original source, “La Bomba” (The Pump), located at the end of what would later become the San Francisco de Asís Barrio. We’d return happy, perched on top of the truck. The aguateros sold water by the can, and when they left, they’d leave a trail of mud from the street all the way into the house.

While we kicked the ball, every day we saw a knife sharpener pass by. He was our neighbor Encarnación Moore Estrada, who lived at No. 360 Huayna Cápac Street. He pushed a small wooden structure mounted on a wheel and coaxed a tune from an antara (panpipe). The women of the block would bring out their knives and scissors. He would set his easel on the ground and, with one foot, rhythmically pump a simple system of pulleys, belts, and axles that made the whetstone spin. Born in the highlands of Ancash and settled in Chimbote, he was one of the many  local men who earned their bread with the honest sweat of their brow.

When I wasn't playing soccer and had free time, I sat on the sidewalk of the carpenter Rufino Obregón. He had a large sawmill with many workers, customers, and machines that filled Jirón Unión with noise. Sacks of sawdust were bought to clean the floor of the legendary bar “Los Claveles,” better known as “El Frontón.” When it disappeared in 1971, the sacks of sawdust went to the bar “La Balsa,” the heir to its clientele and questionable reputation. During my hours in front of the sawmill, I found the first calling of my life: carpentry. A passion that has flirted with me forever, without ever becoming my life's partner.

By the mid-seventies, the peloteros of Unión began to follow their own paths and eventually drifted apart. I moved on to play on the dirt field of the 21 de Abril development, next to the Santa María Reina school, where Juan Valer Sandoval Park stands today. Later, some of the Unión boys left this world: one day in 2008, at the age of fifty, “Kalimán” was struck down by a heart attack. Three years later, Ángel Pinedo passed away as well.

“Lagaña” left us much earlier. On the last day of 1977, he went line fishing at the Pena pier in the Miramar Barrio, had an epileptic fit, and fell into the water. He never saw the New Year’s fireworks. He was only seventeen. His wake was one of the largest the neighborhood had ever seen. Knowing how humble his family was, no one arrived empty-handed. We were children back then, arguing whether a goal counted or not while “Lagaña is turning white.” We were teenagers when we agreed to stop the ball until the fit passed. And we were young men when we carried him to his final resting place.

At the end of 1983, I moved to Trujillo and stayed there for a decade; then spent another ten years in London, England; and now I have lived for a decade in New Hampshire, USA. I have made my home on many streets around the world, and each holds beautiful memories and decisive moments of my life.

But when it comes to identity, if someone asks me: Which is your street? “Jirón Unión,” I always answer.

Unión is like a black-and-white movie of my childhood. And today, new generations are filling it with color as they look to the future with optimism.

New Hampshire, USA

March 2014

1960s — Elsa Serrano de Quevedo & son Roger in front 

of Mr. Justo Guzmán Cortéz’s old house on Jirón Unión

1960s — Nelly Quevedo riding a bicycle on the first block of Jirón Unión

2014 — Jirón Unión as it looks today

(Courtesy of Olga Quevedo)

LIST OF NEIGHBORS ON JIRÓN UNIÓN

AT THE TIME OF THIS STORY:

RIGHT SIDE:

-Alejandro Quevedo Acosta & Elsa Serrano Rodríguez 

-Pedro Esteban Piscoche González & Victoria Alva de Piscoche

-Rufino Obregón Bravo & Justina Ruíz Julca

-Marino Ramírez Esteban

-Ricardo Dioses Vásquez & Francisca Burgos Miñano

-Dorotea Pinedo Machay 

-Augusto Marcelo Medina de la Cruz & Eusebia Corales Pinedo 

-Juana Bermúdez Pinedo 

-Andrés Pinedo González & Abelina Bocanegra Aguilar

-Wenceslao Castillo Corales & Pelina Corales Vásquez

-Teófilo Rodríguez Silva & Delmira Mozo González

-Ricardo Pinedo Machay & María Pérez Manrique

LEFT SIDE:

-Julio Guzmán González & Dolores Manrique La Madrid

-Justo Guzmán Cortéz & Alejandrina Espinoza de Guzmán

-Juan Eufemio Cano Roque & Rosa Amelia Iraita Pascual

-Demetrio Roque Díaz & Guillermina Reyes Huamán

-Elda Bautista Leyva 

-Pedro Dávila López & Luz Estrada de Dávila

-Eloy Bernal Díaz & Carmela Dávila de Bernal

-Teresa Gutierrez Chunga

-Esteban Chávez González & Irena Corales de Chávez 

-Máximo Corales Pérez & Mariana Pérez de Pérez

-Pablo Oyarse Ocampo & Jesús María Quiroz Arias

-Nolberto Sobrados Aguirre & Plácida León de Sobrados. 

-Faustino Mata León 

-Bertha Mata León 

-Liborio Milla Luna & Magdalena Huaraz Mendoza

-Santiago Escudero Ramírez & Isabel Milla Huáraz

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