ChamoroCarlos Chamoro is a proud man. He has lived all his sixty-five years on Providencia. We are hitching our way to Santa Catalina island when he picks us up. He drives is silence, waiting for us to start a conversation.
Señor Chamoro is a happy man. He tells us about his sixteen children from two wives and about his twenty-five grandchildren. His large hands resting on the steering wheel he scathes his life on the island in a few words. “It is good to have many children - says he when I tell him that we are almost half his age but way behind in producing any offspring - they take care of you when you get old.” Chamoro does not need to be taken care of. He is in the construction business. “I am never out of work - exclaims he, looking at the road – make ninety thousand every day, build the best houses on the island.
Chamoro is a respected man. At the petrol station he is being greeted from far. The men converse in the island English, an easy going chatter in an easy going dialect.
Nobody picks us up on the way back at the end of the day. We end up paying eight thousand for a taxi after hard negotiation, even walk-away tactics. Generosity is not in the island DNA. We have found an exception this morning.
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