Keep on going

He was born in a small village, painted between the mountains and the jungle of Peru; he worked since he was a kid in the fields, he sewed rice sacks, he worked as a cleaner while he was studying at nights, and later he became an assistant accountant. This is the amazing story of Omar Olivera.

When Omar Olivera recalls his childhood, the first thing that comes to his mind are his grandparents. Back then, he was just another kid, playing barefoot, rolling an old tyre with a stick on the dusty streets. That village, attacked by suffocating heat all year round, and full of people who are as happy as they are poor, is called Bellavista, and it's trapped between the jungle and the mountain range. When the first roosters are announcing the arrival of a new day, the women are busy in the kitchen, silently cooking on the fire. The men are preparing the donkeys to carry them to the fields. Omar Olivera's grandparents started their daily routine early in the mornings and came back home with the last rays of the sun.

He accompanied them every weekend and on school holidays. Whenever he wasn't at school, he was with them. Sitting on a donkey and holding on tight to his grandfather's back, Sr. Goyo Guevara, Omar Olivera said goodbye to Bellavista between dusty roads and green horizons.

Many years later, settled down in his adult life, he still thinks that if it hadn't been for his grandparents, his life would have been very different. In the countryside, they taught him to cultivate and plant rice, to harvest cocoa, and everything they knew about a peasant's life. But the lessons they taught him went beyond that. "They also taught me to be responsible and to be concerned about the things that I start," recalls Omar. And perhaps they taught him even more. On one occasion, when Omar was about 15, he went to look for a job as a rice planter with his childhood friend. The two of them set off to the rice fields at five in the morning. They found someone who was willing to offer them one day of labor.

—Have you got any experience? —he asked them.

—Yes, we both do —lied Omar.

He did have experience, but his companion, three years younger than him, had no experience at all. So when they went to the puddle to work, Omar instructed his novice friend what to do, step by step. "You grab a fistful of rice sprouts with your left hand, then take a part of them in your right hand, and then you plant them. Make sure that the root is stuck in the mud." At the end of the day, it seemed that everything had gone well. The next morning the overseer ordered them to go back to their workplace. "Look what you've done", he told them, pointing at the puddle where they had been working. It was a disaster. The rice sprouts that his friend had planted were floating on the surface, and the work had to be redone. Omar simply smiled and told his friend to pay more attention and let him do most of the work. On the day they got paid, Omar divided the money in two parts without any hesitation. Despite having done most of the work by himself, he didn't think twice before sharing the money equally with his friend.

Many years later, settled down in his adult life, he still thinks that if it hadn't been for his grandparents, his life would have been very different. And for him, his grandparents were also his parents. "I didn't spend much time living with my mother," he says. And his father left when he was barely one year old. At the age of 16, pushed by his curiosity, Omar saved up every last cent to travel to Tarapoto, where his father lived. He had to come back hurriedly on the third day. "My father got drunk and came to my aunt's house, where I was staying, and wanted to hit me." The boy who had wanted to meet the man who had conceived him, had to retrace his steps sooner than planned. Far from feeling sadness or pity, he felt that his father was just another stranger who he had crossed paths with. "I didn't feel anything. No sadness nor joy. Nothing."

When Omar Olivera finished his studies in the secondary school, and turned 18, he started a different life. Despite the obstacles he had encountered so far, he always found the strength to move on. After some tiresome jobs, he arrived in Lambayeque, where he started to sew rice sacks in a rice mill. He worked many hours in a row for a meager salary. The friends he made there helped him to get promoted to a cleaner's position. He was used to working endless hours, and now that he had an 8-hour working day, he felt that he had too much time on his hands. That is when he started to study business administration. During these three years, he spent his days cleaning the mill and his nights studying. It wasn't easy but he managed to finish his studies successfully. All by himself. He continued to move up the ladder, and now he was a storekeeper. He held this position for one year, until he started to help his friend who was the accountant. The owners of the mill realized they needed someone else in the accounting department, and since Omar had already spent quite some time learning about the accounting systems, they chose him. So he was promoted again, this time to the position of assistant accountant. The recent times have been a bit turbulent at work. Omar saw that the problems couldn't be resolved and he didn't want to continue. "I left before things took a turn for the worse." Now he is getting a degree in accounting in the university of Toribio de Mogrovejo in Chiclayo. On his own. It has always been like that. He has always kept on going in any kind of turmoil.

Many years later, settled down in his adult life, he still thinks that if it hadn't been for his grandparents, his life would have been very different. And he is sure that if they had been alive till now, he would have gone even further in life in even less time. Either way, this boy who was going to the countryside, riding a donkey and holding on tight to his grandfather's back, this teenager who behaved fairly with money despite the difficulties, this young man who wanted to meet his father, is now a man, facing the future on his own, with the memories of his grandparents and their life lessons well learnt.

Omar, from Jaén, Perú