Chapter 5: Lost in Ashmanton

Luckily, the taxi driver didn’t understand any of my curses. We agreed on 30 SOL, about eight dollars, and off we went to the port. The office of Rus was closed, of course. I asked about the women who had worked here, but no one understood English. Two corners further on, I found the shipping company that had always delivered the goods and containers to us. But it was an almost useless break with my few words of Spanish. In an international shipping company, no one spoke English, which was bad for a shipping company, I thought, but that didn’t help me.

Shortly afterwards, help arrived. A man who had just delivered tamales, a local fast food, could speak a few words of English. A little later he arrived with his nephew, who was studying in Lima. A charming young man with good manners introduced himself to me as Claudio Cuevo and said with a smile, “Claudio like the footballer Pizarro”. I had no idea who this was, but smiled approvingly.

The young Mestizo made a very good impression on me. He was friendly and looked like a TV star. But it took some time before we really got into conversation. I was so excited I could hardly concentrate. It was pounding inside me: “How do I get back? What am I going to do?” But my problems were to get worse.

First we quickly found Mathilda, the office manager of the Rus in Ashmanton. She jumped in shock when she saw me. What did she know about the camp? Nothing, it turned out, but she did tell me about a second group of girls who had arrived in Ashmanton at the end of July 2017. By then, Rus had been dead for several months and no one outside the valley knew about it. Let it stay that way for now, I decided.

Claudio spoke to the office manager in Spanish. He translated to me that no one knew what was going to happen to the eleven children. In the end, they were sent to an orphanage. Later, Claudio told me that the conditions in the orphanage were apparently catastrophic. What was I supposed to make of that? But at the moment I had other problems, mainly how to get back to my loved ones.

Mathilda informed me in barely understandable English about three containers in the port, that had arrived late and there was no money to clear them through customs. We had to act as soon as possible or the goods would be lost. Well, that was already important, but not immediately, if at all. There was so much to do, but should I really bother? I sorted my thoughts. Should I take my time with the goods in the harbour and the girls I did not know? I also urgently needed to find a construction team to make the road into the valley passable by car. The old mining road was definitely the only way back to my loved ones for me.

A taxi took us to the Port Authority. Luckily I had Claudio with me, as no one spoke English at the clearing office either. I was shown the shipping documents. A container had arrived from China with some technical equipment. It was equipment for dissolving metals by electrolysis, probably gold or other precious metals. I couldn’t use it now, but maybe it would come in handy in the future when I thought about the gold-bearing rock in the valley.

The second container was filled with various office supplies and paper products, including items we were missing such as toilet paper, tissues, napkins, photo and writing paper, even tampons and much more. The third container contained mostly furniture, including the children’s chairs we were missing. The harbour master was not very friendly, but sent a worker to show me the integrity of the containers. Meanwhile, Mathilda and Claudio were haggling over the stall fees to be paid. A worker, Raul, told me in stuttering English that he had secured the containers for us and put them in the only large warehouse. When I pressed a hundred SOL into his hand, he looked at me in astonishment. Obviously it was too much, but Claudio had to tell him that he would be responsible for securing the containers for the next two months.

The port commander wanted 10,000 SOL per container per year for the three containers that had been in the customs warehouse for more than two years, or 60,000 SOL for the three containers. We agreed on a total of 10,000 SOL against a receipt and 2,000 US dollars without a receipt. We also agreed that I would leave him another $1,000 in cash without a receipt when I picked up the containers. Of course, I didn’t know if that would ever happen, but the stuff was worth almost half a million dollars and could be very useful to us.

It was midday and the sun was burning mercilessly. The three of us sat down in a street café and talked. First, I wanted to see the girls and see if we needed to do anything for them. Mathilda told us that the orphanage would get money for the children, but they were hungry and had only worn out clothes from donations of second-hand clothes. It seemed to me that she was trying to discourage me from visiting. But I insisted on seeing the girls.

We took a taxi the nearly twenty kilometres to the so-called orphanage. It was guarded by an old man. The high Iron Gate was locked. Claudio learned from the guard that the owner and his wife would only come in the cool of the evening with some food. Before that, no one could enter the camp because the man did not have a key.

There was no way I was going to wait here for more than three hours. A few metres further on, behind wild thorny bushes, the wall was porous and there were no stones. Two strong kicks and I was in the garden. Claudio followed me. The dirty meadow behind the wall was in the blazing sun. The house was dilapidated and partly without windows. As we walked around the ruins, some girls were sitting or lying under trees, overgrown, dirty, starving. They hardly reacted to us, showing neither fear nor interest. There were three sick girls with fever in the house; no one was looking after them.

What could we do? I could not go to the police because my visa had expired more than two years ago. I thought I would be arrested and deported immediately. But I desperately needed a doctor and other help. The taxi driver received the agreed fifty SOL. Then he took Mathilda and Claudio to a doctor nearby. The guard had shown them the way.

In the meantime I looked for a lever, found an old piece of steel and broke the chain by force. The doctor had to go to the girls. The guard cursed, but ten SOL calmed him. Then I went round the house again and spoke to the girls in English. Some of them looked at me in surprise, but none replied.

A girl looking like a little poplar was talking in German to someone sitting on a box. As a Belgian, I knew a few words. “Deutsch?” I asked. Perhaps the strongest answered, “Inca yes.” She pointed to the girl on the wooden box. “I’m Holland, Heidy.” When I spoke to her in Dutch, she jumped at me in all her filth. She cried with joy. But there was nothing I could do for the girls at this moment.

Heidy hesitantly told me what had happened to them over the past few months. First, they had been locked up in the harbour and then Mathilda had brought the girls here. I immediately suspected that our former office manager was in cahoots with the owners. The Dutch girl also told me that they were very afraid to escape. They had been told that they had come to a children’s home without passports and after entering the country illegally. There the girls would be beaten and raped by the boys. Even pregnant girls were not considered.

I had to think for a moment. How had the girls been told this? Had the little girl lied to me? All the girls spoke different, sometimes exotic languages. Heidy went into the house and collected some old, yellowed pieces of paper. There followed a similar and even more ominous statement in several languages, apparently poor Google translations into each language. So, the little girl was telling the truth. I asked about Mathilda. Heidy said that the woman was angry and would have threatened and scolded again and again if she had been on site once every few weeks.

Actually, I could not imagine that eleven young, healthy girls from Europe could be kept here with such a scam and neglected in such a way. How did you get money for the children? Without money, no one would bother, and in the end there are only problems. Heidy said that in the beginning there were two guys who looked at everything and checked the names of the girls on a list. Before that, the children had to clean everything up. They were each given a new T-shirt. She pointed out that it was much too small now, but she had no other one. She’s been wearing this one for almost two years.

It was unimaginable for me. The Peruvian authorities were mostly very correct. They would never allow foreign children to be treated in this way. Only someone with criminal energy had deceived the state and the administration. I clenched my fist in anger. I wanted to bring the guilty to justice.

After an hour the taxi arrived with a doctor. She shook her head when she saw the children. Claudio translated that the children were completely malnourished. The three sick ones needed tonics and hydrolytes. Actually, all the girls needed it, she said, but no one would pay for it.

I spoke to the doctor in English, but it only broke a wheel, so Claudio had to translate my words. “I will pay for the treatment, the necessary injections, and drips. Please do everything you can to make the children better tomorrow.”

The doctor also said that this would not be possible in one day, but that she would be happy to help for a fee. After a bit of back and forth, we agreed on an hourly rate of 60 SOL, or about 15 Euros. I gave Claudio the money and he went with the doctor to the pharmacy. It didn’t take long, and they were back with medicine and equipment. The three apathetic children were given a syringe and an intravenous drip. I had to smile when the doctor tied brushwood brooms to the three beds and attached the drips to them. It was unusual, but practical under the circumstances. The main thing was that it helped.

Then we looked at the toilets and the two washing facilities. Obviously, the children were drinking the tap water. That’s something you shouldn’t do in South America, but after all that time they’d probably become as hardened as the locals. I had photographed the merciless conditions with my mobile phone, including the sick girls and the state of the children’s clothing.

I’d only paid the taxi driver half, so he wouldn’t disappear like the pilot. But he turned out to be trustworthy. The fate of the children had obviously touched him. I gave him a hundred SOL to buy food for the children. He soon returned with eleven simple flatbreads and eleven tamales. I had ordered coke for them, because in my experience it quickly restores strength and helps with diarrhoea. Camillo, the taxi driver, put even eleven bananas on the table. The money would have been good for that. He was allowed to keep the rest of the money.

I gave the doctor two hundred SOL to look after the children for the next four hours. If the owners of the home came, they should wait for us. If they refused to cooperate, the kind doctor was to threaten to call the police. The helpful woman nodded her head in thanks. Then we drove back to Ashmanton. Mathilda promised to take care of the girls’ passports immediately after I told her I would report them to the police along with the owners of the house. I was sure she was behind it all.

In Ashmanton, I sat down with Claudio in a street café near the harbour. We discussed how we could help the girls. The student said that Alonso, his uncle, had a small bus and could take the girls to his grandmother on an almost abandoned hacienda in the mountains. Conditions would be better there, especially the climate, but there would also be clean water and a bed for everyone. He had spent part of his childhood there. He felt this was the only way to help the girls. After I agreed to pay for each girl for two months in advance, if it was not too expensive, we agreed after a short phone call with his grandmother.

Nevertheless, I asked the Peruvian to leave me alone for a cigarette and a beer. I needed time to think. The money would only last me and the girls a few weeks. If I fled to Europe with the money and credit cards, I would be out of the woods financially, but that was out of the question for me. I loved my women and children in the valley far too much for that.

I made a practical decision: under all circumstances, I would try to get back to my paradise and my loved ones. But my money was not enough for the girls for long, and I might never return to the valley if the money was used up. I had the pin codes for two credit cards. If I got money on one card, I was determined to continue helping the poor creatures here in the horrible home, otherwise I had no solution.

I quickly found an ATM, inserted the first card and got 500 SOL, the maximum amount the vending machine would give out. That was more than $100. So the account was still active more than thirty months after Rus’s death, and the credit card was still valid. With the other card, I got 1,000 SOL from the nearest ATM. Since no one knew about the billionaire’s death, his accounts were apparently not closed.

Claudio came to see me with Mathilda. I was given the girls’ eleven passports. As I leafed through the first two passports, I noticed that there was no travel history. It seemed that despite the great distance from Europe, the traffickers had managed to smuggle the children across all borders.

First I gave Claudio a hundred SOL for his work so far and sent him to his uncle for the bus. I wanted to get the children out of the terrible home and into the mountains, where the climate was better. I was actually sure that I would soon have access to the almost inexhaustible supply of money in the valley again and would therefore be able to help the girls in the long term.

Mathilda led me to a shop that was still closed in the early afternoon, but my companion found the owner sleeping behind the house. They whispered to each other and the blonde woman, unusual for this region, opened her shop for us. The first thing I grabbed was a wide-brimmed straw hat. The sun had burned mercilessly through my dark blond hair. Then we put eleven jeans on the table, the same size Sula wore two years ago. I just thought that the girls were no taller than my assistant then, and if I remember rightly, the new girls were all ten then, so about twelve now. That was followed by thirty-three plain T-shirts at a good price of not even $1.50 each. The shopkeeper didn’t have any underpants for the girls, but I got eleven pairs of flip-flops.

While we were browsing the displays, the blonde woman was in another shop looking for children’s underwear. She quickly returned with another woman who was carrying a large package of unisex children’s knickers over her arm. I took five for each girl, 55 pieces for 250 SOL. Finally I bought twenty-two towels. Everything was packed in three big plastic bags. Claudio was already outside the shop with his uncle Alonso. Mathilda had called him on her mobile to tell him where to find us. Everything was going like clockwork at the moment.

The bus was getting old, but it served its purpose. Alonso drove us quickly up the road. Back at the dreadful children’s home, we found that the owners had not yet arrived. The doctor had already spoiled the girls a little. Eight girls were eagerly looking at us, wondering what we wanted from them. One of the sick girls wanted to get up, but the doctor did not allow it. We put a box of 24 bottles of mineral water on the rickety table and a bag of salted crisps for each girl. Even there was a lollipop for each. The girls gratefully accepted. Heidy said “Thank you!” and some of the girls did it after her.

Now I brought Heidy to me and told her that it was very important that all the girls did what I was telling her to do in Dutch, “Trust me, my sweetheart, you’re going to get naked and throw the dirty things in this box. This is rubbish. You’ll get something new.”

She was staying dressed, so I showed her a new pair of knickers, a T-shirt and a pair of tight jeans. “Go ahead. I’ve seen lots of naked girls.”