About ten in the morning after my return to the Altiplano, a soft knock on the gate announced the arrival of old awicha (grandmother) Juana. When she saw I was actually there , her cataract-veiled eyes filled with tears.
“I missed you,” she wept softly.
“Oh, Awich, I told you I’d be back” I chided gently as I helped her sit down on the stones in the warming sun. Then I prepared her customary cup of hot chocolate.
“The others don’t make it sweet enough for me like you do,” she confided in Aymara.
She loves her sweets, this little old widow in tattered clothes who gropes her way along the paths of the fields with her study stick. I asked her if she had been able to get to Sunday market recently.
“No, I just can’t make it,” she sighs.
I don’t think our awicha is going to be with us long. As we sit on the step chatting, she drifts off almost into sleep. “I just don’t have any strength anymore,” she murmurs.
When she tries to stand, I put my hand under her elbow to help her. Her bones are frail and tiny. She takes her stick in hand, and, bent under the weight of the cloth bundle on her back, steps unsteadily out the gate.
“I’ll see you next Sunday if not sooner, Awich,” I call after her in Aymara.
Each time I wonder: will I?
