Photo: Joel Salvador/shutterstock.com
I left Peru in a wheelchair arranged by my solicitous Columban brothers to ensure that this post-op, half-blind exile would reach his assigned destination.
So, I rode the chair in Lima, Los Angeles and Sydney airports and was safely delivered into the bus destined for the Radisson Hotel and 14 days of very peaceful quarantine.
It is not the leaving of Lima that grieves me, but the leaving of a sad and sorry Lima that is now fit for a wheelchair.
I arrived in Peru early in 1972 in the middle of the reformist military dictatorship of Juan Velazco.
Being military, it was repressive and, being reformist, gave some hope for at least the first few years. People had dignity and rights for the first time.
Then came the 20 years of terror, destruction and death, thanks to the ideology and pretentions of the brutal Shining Path. Seventy thousand were killed and millions were displaced. The people lived in constant fear.
The next wave was one of corruption, lies and betrayal, in favour of big business and against small business and people on the margins. The fat cats got fatter and the quality of life for the vast majority worsened - working longer hours, with no rights and no security.
Into that scene rode COVID-19 on March 16 last year. Now a year on and 110,000 deaths later (more than in the War of the Pacific or under the Shining Path) and the scene has not improved. There is still no oxygen because of a monopoly and more victims are dying in the corridors waiting for access to ICU than those dying in ICU.
There is a new fully equipped hospital lying idle because the paperwork has not been completed.
The vaccine has been delayed while the politicians prioritize personal power over public health.
There has been one bonus in the year and expectations that a population that is 80% informally employed can observe lockdown and this lack of realism is to preserve the country’s reserves.
Peru is at war! The authorities either don’t know or don’t want to know. They certainly have not declared it, for all the rhetoric. They are too busy promoting their political futures in an absurd electoral campaign.
It is Peru in a wheelchair, and that is the wonderful Peru I left behind after 49 years of love and laughter, dust, sweat and tears.
I left with a very heavy heart.
These beautiful people deserve and need something much much better.
They are in their dark night, and I fear only God can lead them out.
Columban Fr John Hegerty has newly retired to Australia after 49 years in Peru.
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