I Grew Up in Peru, with a Mix of Old and New
(draft) How might we honor the past, present and future?
My parents met in Cochabamba, Bolivia, came to Reno to get married, got pregnant on the honeymoon and had me in San Diego. Then they returned to Bolivia, and my Dad found work with Brown & Root (he was a civil engineer) in Lima, Peru, that was supposed to last two years, but lasted ten.
So I spent the first decade of my life as a towhead in Lima. Half my buddies were Limeños, the other half were my international expat classmates at the Roosevelt School (it didn't have a website then). I grew up speaking Spanish and English interchangeably, luck of the draw I've long been grateful for.
In with the new
My Mom didn't grow up in a style-conscious family (they had barely escaped Nazi Germany), but somehow she caught the style wave of the 1960s. She discovered Knoll furniture and had a mess of it shipped to Lima. Mid-Century Modern is retro now, but then it was spankin' new — and beautiful. Soon our dining room featured Eero Saarinen's white oval pedestal table and matching tulip chairs. The living room had Harry Bertoia's Diamond Chairs, two of Saarinen's Womb Chairs, and pedestal coffee and side tables.
Then a cool thing happened: My Mom accompanied a friend to view a beautiful open house in a Lima suburb called Rinconada Baja. We were renting in San Isidro at the time, and my parents had no plans to move. But Mom and Graziella Laffi, the new property's owner, had met before: We had bought this chess set from her furnishings store. They got to talking, and Graziella sort of invited herself over for coffee.
Graziella was asking twice the rent we were paying, and Mom (Eva) wasn't interested in moving... until Graziella offered to match their current rent. Suddenly, we were moving, and Graziella offered my Mom to use any of the antiquities that were still in the house, asking her to store the rest. And that's how I grew up in the Laffi House for three or four years, surrounded by the old and the new (sorry for the poor quality photo scans; here's a Maps link).
Our Knoll pieces cuddled next to carved wood chairs and tables, wrought iron, fabrics, and pottery. The contrasts were beautiful. I was a kid, but I felt it.