To Fall in Love With First Affections

Pictured is what was always known in
Calidonia as la Casa de Mimbre, so named
for the artesans that worked cane and repaired
cane (wicker) furniture who had one room shops
there. The board building was right on Via España
in the heart of Calidonia. It was demolished around
2006. The room with the finger pointer next to
it is very like what Glady’s fonda looked like.

The scene was a delicious morsel of one of the most beautiful girls calling and inviting me in to join her in her knowledge of what love was. To say that this instance in my life would be the first time that someone would offer me, the love starved kid, some kind of affection would be an immediate response to why I would instantly fall in love with that girl.

At such times, however, I would always refer back to the days of my childhood and the fact that I had never been able to even approach my mother and father for a hug or even a caress or, for that matter, any type of physical show of that magical word “love.” Shortly after finding myself in that first-time intimate relationship with the Spanish girl next door I had been growing up so closely with I would find myself even less ready for the heart break that would follow. I simply found her to be too boy crazy and, given my youthful ideas about love and the notion that it should be a serious and exclusive relationship, I decided against following up on any more encounters with her.

I really thought that whoever I would fall in love with should reciprocate the feeling and have eyes for no one but me. It seemed hard at first, she being right next door, and I saw this first affection as a failure, but it was another factor in keeping me away from home. I nevertheless tried to keep my relations with that girl, Maria E., cordial and continued to consider her a sister.

I continued my quest for another place to pass the time and, at the same time, give myself an opportunity to make me some badly needed money. Although I had been visiting an impromptu tailor shop at the top of San Miguel Hill, which was one way to learn a trade near home, I somehow didn’t make an enduring connection there. That balcony tailor shop had also been a frequent stop for my mother at one time but I, for some reason, never became attached to that shop when the memory of the total break up of our family prompted by my mother’s visits to that place would haunt me just thinking about it.

Not too far from that tailor shop at the top of San Miguel Hill, however, there was also a small restaurant the natives used to call a “fonda” which was owned by a stocky little Westindian woman by the name of Gladys. Now, these were the times when not a few workers from the nearby Canal Zone would make it their favorite lunchtime stop. Also, the newly opened Gambotti and Perez Laundry Plant which was right across the street from the building that housed this one-room restaurant provided a steady stream of hungry clients.

The food was simple fare, but the meals were home cooked, fresh, filling and quite economical. Gladys served your regular rice and beans (poroto), stewed meat, fried chicken, and once in while she’d include in her menu the typically Westindian curried meat and other delights. Never, however, would she leave out her delicious rice made with coconut milk- arroz con coco- as only Westindians throughout the isthmus could make it.

In fact, in appreciation for all my help at sweeping, washing dishes, bussing tables, mopping down floors, going to fetch stuff at the big market for her, etc. she would offer me lunch and offer to buy some things I needed like school supplies, clothing and such. It would be there in that rather rustic little one-room “fonda” that I would be able to spend some time working and making a little pocket money.

I started, in fact, to spend more and more time at Glady’s Fonda, alternating my time between the dental clinic and that eatery just long enough for me to be always a welcomed sight.

This story continues.