Note: a true story about an old man and his ongoing struggle with the invaders of his land in the jungle of Satipo!...

Jungle Treachery in Satipo

The old man had fifty acres in the Satipo jungles of Peru that was in l985, when he came across invaders, squatters on his property. It wasn't long before they started building structures on his land and assuming it to be their own"out of human greed"thus, they felt it was theirs for the taking.

The old man tried aimlessly with his brother, to talk the invaders out of their quest to take over his land, for the government was of little use, or for that matter, protection. If anything, they were for hire at a lesser amount than the value of the land, and thus, could be bought to look the other way for a few dollars. But old man Augusto with his machete met the invaders eyeball to eyeball, and started a war that cleaned his land of the invading cockroaches, as he called them.

"But it is not always, as it seems, is it? for it was not long after, when more invaders appeared, but this time with more gusto, and more perseverance, and more solitude with their fellow invaders to steal the land from the old man. And this time the law of the jungle"the machete"would be of little use.

Instead of paying the old man $7,000-dollars for the land, they paid the Shinning Path, a terrorist group, $1500; to kill the old man, and be done with the whole mess.

Hence, it was twilight when they cornered the old man by his one room shack. There, they surrounded him like hungry piranha. They had guns, machetes, and twenty men; they were lighting torches to set his shack on fire, when he found a shadowy pathway that kept him from the sight of the terrorist, thus he walked in the shadow, slowly, until he found himself in the jungle; and behind him, his hut in flames.

It was a long walk to the city called Huancayo, where his family lived, but he walked it, mile after mile, for a week straight. Upon his arrival, he had found people were asking about him, people he did not know, thus he throw a sack of fruit over a donkey, and through the Andes he rode the donkey, to Lima, Peru. It was a most trying trip, yet he felt safe. It would be twenty-years before he'd return, and so he did in 2005, only to find the invaders now had legally protested the absence of the old man, branding him a deserter of his own land, leaving it to waste away, while they cared for it.

And so my readers, this saga that took place in the jungles of Satipo, is not over yet; but should it occur in my life time, I shall let you know.