La Cobradora

The second I put my foot on the curb, I hear her.

"Pampas? .. Pampas?" She nearly shouts as she takes my elbow.

There are 3 faded cars parked along my paradero*, but she leads me to the middle one, spotted with rust and back doors you can't open anymore from the outside.

She holds onto my arm until I'm fully crammed into the backseat. I'm struck my the intense heat of the sun cutting through the windows and radiating off of the other passengers' tightly situated bodies.

I try and roll down the window, but it doesn't budge. Outside she scans the street with a concentrated gaze. A flash of recognition and she's back at it. "Pampas! Pampas!" She guides another passenger to squish in beside us, taking the final seat situated directly behind the stick shift in the front seat.

"Completo!" she shouts and reaches out her hand to take a Sol from the driver. He starts the ignition, and I feel the floorboards shake beneath my flip-flops. The car jerks forward. I turn and watch the corner grow smaller. I see the woman putting yet another passenger in another car that has suddenly appeared and then disappear complete as we turn the corner.

We drive away, and I wonder who she is.

Is she married? Does she have children?

She looks in her mid-60s, but she could be much younger. Most women at her age don't seek jobs outside the home. I ask myself what could possibly drive her to come out and work with such fervor Monday through Saturday, all day, every week.

Sometimes I romanticize.

Her husband grew sick with leukemia, and she must work to pay the hospital bills.

She never married and now is left to make her own way.

She is raising her grandchildren alone while her daughter works in Lima. Every luca she brings in goes to pay for school fees and uniforms.

Really, any of these scenarios could be possible. For what could motivate a woman to step into a traditionally masculine role in a machismo society? To work so fiercely and for so long? If it is not poverty — or worse, desperation?

How long has she been doing it? I wonder. How long will she continue?


*paradero: bus stop