Jim and Alim

“And how many nights will you be staying?”

Jim hadn’t thought of that yet – he had lost the habit of planning every leg of his journey and preferred to play it by ear. If he liked a place, he would stay longer, if he did not, he would move on quickly. But he would always attempt to give it at least two nights. That was, in his mind, the minimum amount of time required to judge a place properly. This beach town, although not particularly different from other ones he had visited in Peru, had quite a positive vibe to it, and was close to a large city he could explore.

“Three nights” he said. If he liked it, he could extend, or find another place to stay nearby.

“Okay sir, you will be in dorm number three,” the clerk said in an impeccable American English accent, “it is upstairs to the right. Just pick any bunk that’s free, and let us know if you need anything.”

“Thank you, will do,” said Jim and walked up the stairs.

The room was what he expected – small but not too crowded, with two bunk beds tucked in. The white walls were bare save for a picture of the beach he was at. It had been taken at sunset, with the foreground showing the caballitos de totora – slender small boats made of dried reed – standing upright in front of the beach. The two bottom bunks were taken, so he set himself up on the top bunk nearest to the window, which had a view of the beach right across the street. Jim stored his bag in the locker and headed downstairs. As he was leaving the room, Jim passed a tall bearded man who seemed to be in a hurry and bumped into him. The man mumbled “Sorry” and went on his way.

“Asshole,” though Jim to himself.

* * *

Alim ran past a short, white man in a baseball cap, bumping into him. He wanted to apologize profusely, but he had no time, so instead, judging the man to be an American, he just quickly said “sorry”, and continued into the dorm. He could not believe that he almost forgotten his own mother’s birthday! And he forgot to charge his phone, so it was now dead! His last hope was that at least his laptop had enough charge. He did the math in his head – Germany was seven hours ahead, so it was actually not that late there, however, his mother loved the outdoors even more than he did. Undoubtedly, she would drag his father out on a hike somewhere. What if she was unavailable, or somewhere without good signal? But perhaps it was too late for that. What if instead, his father had taken her on a fancy date, and they did not want to be disturbed? Would it be too late to call? Should he be more considerate, and call tomorrow? No, he decided it would definitely be worth it to make the call, or at least try. He powered the laptop on, it had charge, and Alim breathed a sigh of relief. He clicked on the call button.

The call did not go through.z

“The WiFi must be bad up here,” Alim thought to himself, and headed downstairs to the lobby. He tried again.

This time, the call went through, and he saw his mother’s beaming face. He could tell she was outside.

“Hallo, Mutti!” Alim greeted her.

“Hallo mein Liebling! Ich dachte, du hattest mich vergessen!“ his mother said, laughing, knowing her child did not have the best memory. "Wie geht’s?"

* * *

Jim stepped outside into the bright sun – the weather was perfect. There were no clouds, and he could see quite far ahead into the Pacific Ocean. He though to cross the road and take a walk on the beach but realized he had not had any breakfast, and was starting to feel quite hungry, so he decided to go look for food first.

Jim had been making his way down south across Central and South America for about a year now. He had crossed the bridge from Ecuador into Peru by foot about three months ago and continued his trek down the coastal region of the country. He enjoyed the northern beaches, they were remote, the ocean was warm and pleasant, the sand was white. As he kept on moving, the beaches got a bit colder, grayer, like the one he was at – Huanchaco. The people he met were friendly, and most of the warnings he received about how dangerous it was down here seemed unfounded.

There was not a specific reason why he chose to embark on his now almost year-long trip. Rather, it had been an idea, a profound and unexplainable desire which had been buried in his soul forever. A sort of insatiable wanderlust. It was the reason he decided to join the Army when he was just seventeen, although to his dismay, he spent almost the entirety of his four year contract stationed at Ft. Riley, Kansas, not very far from his hometown of Hastings, Nebraska. When he finally deployed, it was to Kuwait, where he spent most of his time at Camp AJ, and almost never got to leave the base. That would have been fine by him had AJ been foreign or different in any way, but it was like an American colony, and he felt that he had travelled halfway across the world to never truly leave home. To top it off the heat was unbearable and there was not much to do. When his reenlistment time came up, he decided he would take matters into his own hands and see the world on his own terms. But first he thought it to be a good idea to use his GI bill, and so he got his bachelor’s degree, and after that he thought it would be good to get a job for some time and save up, and after that he started thinking that maybe it is foolish to want to travel for no reason and that he perhaps should settle down instead and buy a house. He met Annie and was sure he wanted to spend his life with her and was getting ready to propose. But the days at the office kept getting longer, and each day felt more like the other. The conversations he had with people started to all sound like different permutations of the same amalgamation of words. The wanderlust had never left, it had just been sitting there, pinned up, ready to explode. The more he thought about having to do that the rest of his life, the more he wanted to get away, and in the end he could not resist any longer. The pressure to lead a regular life was too much for him to handle, so he decided to sell most of his things and leave. Worst of all, he had disappointed Annie, who did not understand why he wanted to leave, and decided to stay back. Almost every night, Jim wondered if he had made a fatal mistake and lost the love of his life.

* * *

It had been several hours since Alim had finished talking to his mother, but he had still not managed to put away his laptop. Instead he kept going back to his paper, finding thigs to fix here and there. There was always some sentence that seemed out of place, or not quite there yet, always some reference which wan unproperly formatted. His data was still somewhat of a mess, and he could not find a way of organizing in a presentable manner. Perhaps his interpretation was incorrect – after all, he was still gathering more data. Was there some great unknown he had not considered? Alim had decided to take a break and come to the beach to get a bit of rest from his work, but clearly he was failing at that. He knew he should have left the laptop back at his place.

Alim was a post-doctoral scholar from the University of Göttingen, and he specialized in the indigenous languages of South America, specifically the Arawak family of languages, and the different varieties of Quechua. For his current research he was posted at the San Cristobal de Huamanga University in Ayacucho, in the Peruvian Andes, and was trying to gather and study enough data about the different Quechua dialects spoken in the region by analyzing the sound of different words and phrases. It was fascinating work, or at least he thought so, but it could become overwhelming and mind-numbing at the same time, and he had been at it for several months without interruption.

Alim didn’t know why he chose the linguist path, other than because he had a fascination with languages, and some days he though he should have just listened to his father and become an engineer. He was glad, at least, that his mother had always encouraged him to pursue whatever he wanted. It had been strange growing up in a mixed family – his father was a Turkish immigrant, and his mother was a German native. They had Alim right after their marriage, and then his sister just a year later. As a child Alim struggled to figure out his identity, he did not understand whether he was German, or Turkish, or both, or none, or part of each. He did not fit in well with any crowd, and always seemed to be the odd one out. As time went by, and as he matured and met more diverse people, Alim began to gain more confidence, and appreciate the messy and blurry nuance of identity. Perhaps that is why he became a linguist – since what determines identity and origin more than language? One could even argue that the origin of identity itself comes from language, and if one digs deep enough, everything is connected. Or so he liked to think and convince strangers of.

* * *

After lunch, Jim had spent most of his day by the beach. The main part of the Huanchaco beach was full of surfers, who Jim judged to be mostly beginners, as the waves weren’t very tall, and he spotted several instructors. There were also a bunch of kids who were very quick to get on the waves, and incredibly skilled. As he kept walking in the direction of his hostel, past the pier, he noted that the waves got bigger, and that there were not as many surfers anymore. These waves demanded more skill and commanded more respect, or so he thought, as he had never surfed in his life. By sunset he engaged with a group of two tall Australian surfers who also happened to be staying at the same hostel, and started heading back.

“You never been surfin’, mate?” asked Matt, one of the surfers.

“Nah, I’ve been thinking of trying it, but I gotta admit it makes me kind of scared,” laughed Jim

“Nonsense, you’ll love it, brother! You should head over to Chicho and Omar’s school! What’s it called, Dave, do you remember?”

“Uhm… Mu... something with Mu...“ Dave struggled to remember.

“Muchik!” Matt said with excitement.

“Yeah, that’s the one!” Dave picked up. “Anyways, you should definitely head over there, they’re very good, and very nice people! It’s two brothers who own it. One of them is a national champion!”

“Or both, innit?” asked Matt.

“Maybe, I don’t remember.”

“Well, looks like I will have to give it a shot!” said Jim, as they entered the patio of the hostel. At the bar he saw the tall bearded man who had almost bumped into him. The man waved at him.

“Hey, sorry about earlier!” the man said with a slight German accent. He seemed to be in a better mood than he was earlier. Jim was somewhat confused the man’s accent – he had always pictured Germans as white, blue eyed, blonde haired types. But here was this tall, dark, well built man, who looked almost more like someone from the middle east. Jim didn’t mind of course, but it just didn’t match the stereotype he had in his head.

“It’s no big deal, man,” Jim replied.

“I would like to offer a beer as an apology!” said the man, “Please come join me.”

Jim thought a beer sounded mighty fine. He took a seat at the bar.

“Alim,” the man said and stretched out his hand.

“Jim,” said Jim, and shook it. “Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” replied Alim, and then looked at the bartender, who was the same guy from the desk when Jim checked in. “Carlitos, dame una Pilsen más, por favor, la grande.”

“¿Trujillo?”

“Si.”

The bartender got a large Pilsen Trujillo and a glass, and opened the beer, handing it to Alim. Alim proceeded to pour himself less than half a glass of beer and raised it, saying, “Cheers!” and drank it. He then handed the bottle and glass over to Jim, who proceeded to pour himself a similar amount as Alim looked on with approval.

“I see you have learned the customs of the locals,” said Alim, smiling.

“Indeed, I have,” answered Jim, as he raised his glass, said “Cheers!” and drank it. In Peru, Jim had learned, it was customary to share a single glass among friends when drinking. Therefore one could usually see a group of people, with a box of beers, or sometimes a pitcher of a mixed drink, all passing it around and sharing the glass. Jim passed the bottle and the glass back to Alim.

“So why were you in such a hurry earlier today that you almost knocked me over?” asked Jim.

“Oh, you see, I almost forgot to call my mom for her birthday! Terrible, I know! And my phone was dead, so I needed my computer! I am so sorry for almost knocking you!” said Alim, sounding genuinely apologetic.

“Oh, that makes sense, no worries, bud,” answered Jim, laughing. “I would have done the same,” he said, even though he had not called his mother for her last birthday.

“I see you’re a Huskers fan?” said Alim, as he poured himself another drink, pointing at Jim’s baseball cap.

“Indeed, I am,” Jim said, visibly surprised. How on Earth would a German man in Peru know what the Huskers were? “Went to school there, too. But how do you know about the Huskers?”

“I like to watch the American Football sometimes,” beamed Alim, proud of his knowledge, “and also one of my distant cousins went there.”

“Well, I am most impressed…”

The beers kept coming and the conversation went on for hours. Alim told Jim about his background, his work, and why he was in Peru at the time. Both men discovered that they were not surfers staying at a surfer hostel, and that despite coming from different backgrounds they were both very similar. Jim expressed to Alim his irrational desire to travel and see as much of the world, and Alim instantly connected with him and understood that feeling completely. The men talked about sports, and about women, Jim shared the few Army stories he had, and the conversation swayed back to Alim’s work and a general discussion of the customs of different peoples. By this point the two Australians had joined them at a table.

“You ever heard of Carnaval, Alim?” said Dave. “The one here in Peru I mean. I heard that’s a blast.”

“Carnaval? No. I mean yes, in general, but I don’t know what is special about how they do it in Peru. I know that kids in Ayacucho like to throw water balloons during Carnaval.”

“Well, yeah, I think they do that here too,” Dave continued, “but I think there’s some place where it is supposed to get super crazy.”

“Hm, no idea, really. You know anything about that?” Alim asked Jim.

“About what?” Jim had been lost in his thoughts for a second.

“Carnaval,” Alim repeated.

At that point, Carlos, the host, who was picking up their beer bottles and overheard the conversation, intervened.

“You guys must be talking about the Carnaval in Cajamarca!"

Jim noticed Alim’s eyes light up at the mention of Cajamarca.

“Cajamarca, yes! My professor has been there many years ago, and he told me how wonderful it is. That is where they captured the Inca! We must go! When is the Carnaval?”

“Uhm, now,” answered Carlos, laughing.

Alim looked at men sitting around the table. “We must go, tomorrow! What do you say? Jim, Dave, Matt?”

“We still have some waves to catch,” answered Matt, but we may join later if it is still going on.

“How about you, Jim?”

Jim was generally somewhat apprehensive about travelling with strangers, he mostly liked to travel solo. But there was something about Alim that made him almost instantly confide in him. He didn’t know if it was his charisma, or confidence, or candor, or the fact that over the last couple of hours Jim felt like he had made a friend, perhaps the first friend he had made since he left on his trip.

“Tomorrow?” asked Jim.

“Yes.”

Jim paused.

“Count me in!”

“YEEEESSSSSS! Let’s drink to that! Carlos, another bottle!”