Thursday, 21 March 2013

ONE: Hernan Fuentes


 While shooting the stop-motion of Kwan Yin at the Saturday market the attention of a few passersby were drawn and one particular elderly gentleman, the lovely Hernan, stopped by for a long chat.  Excited by the photography element because of his own interest in photography, Hernan sat on the wall and chatted about his life in Chile as a miner, though he is now retired at 71, and his children and grandchildren who live near enough that he gets to spend plenty time with them.  Hernan apparently loves to have his photograph taken with young women, and I was happy to have my picture taken with him... (it made me smile to see the different photos in his wallet of him with leggy sporty model types on the sea-front.. I wonder where I fit in amongst them!)


Part way though the chat Hernan went off to buy me some fruit as a gift and came back laden with an overwhelmingly generous bag heavy with strawberries, bananas, pears, nectarines and apples, amazing! Mauro had happened to stop by as well so I left the two of them chatting and took the fruit back to the house, returning with three mugs of fruit salad and yogurt I’d made earlier for us to share.

I also invited Hernan to fill in one of the postcards:
Hernan Fuentes Godoy
Challenges overcome: Study, to have family, to have his first house and new vehicle
A dream for the future: to go to Brazil]

What really impressed me about our chat was that as I was asking him about his hopes and dreams for the future he was so clear in saying well in fact he didn’t have them beacuse he had acheived all his dreams, he was content and happy with his life in la Serena, which he said was a birlliant place, and with his home and vehicle and family.  He had all that he wanted.  What an amazing and unusual answer.  What peace and happiness!  And what a sense of humour - his only concern about going to Brazil he said was the risk at his age of having a heart attack because of all the gorgeous scantily dressed women!
 

Hernan also gifted me a United States dollar bill, which he told me was for luck!  Thanks Hernan!
And thank you for a chance encounter that left me feeling elevated by the joy of life experiences lived and shared in the moment... brilliant!
:-)



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