The Shepherd Boy in Peru
There is a picture in National Geographic Magazine from the 80s. It is a young shepherd boy in the mountains of Peru.
I am sure if I ran a Google search, I would find the photo, but I don’t want to search for it today. I don’t need to, because I can see it so clearly in my mind's eye.
I saw that photo, perhaps a few times, in the National Geographic collection at my mother’s house growing up.
I remember seeing his face, his dark brown hair, and tanned skin, his dark liquid eyes, his face so filled with raw fear, sadness, and hurt.
He was a beautiful child, relatively healthy, looking for the poverty he was in. Still, you could tell by the tears welling in his eyes and the clench of his face that his life was so tenuous, perhaps dependent upon the sheep killed by a passing vehicle.
That is the story as I remember it.
His face, this child's face, this young boy's face already, it had seen too much hard life, know things I could never fathom.
I had the luxury to read his tribulations to study the artistic rendering of his pain.
I can still feel his pain today and still see his face so vividly.
