Filomena was concerned and worried. Many month had gone by without knowing anything about Antonio. After he has been sent to Peru, it had been difficult to communicate with him. Letters would take up to two or three month to reach him, and after his experience with the “heaven hunger” creatures in the mountains, Antonio has kept very silent.

As soon as she moved to the “barrio alto” (upper neighborhood), Clarita had hired a maid to cook and take care of the house. As every house in that neighborhood, the house had maid quarters consisting on a bedroom and a bathroom. The maid rooms were usually inside the house but located in the back and next to the kitchen.

The maid, Sinfo, was a woman from the South of Chile, a little bit younger than Filomena, but not by much. She had family in Puerto Montt, and she loved to cook good and savory sea food dishes. She specialized in “curanto en l’olla”, a traditional dish from Chiloe which is a variation of the real curanto consisting of seafood, meat, potatoes and vegetable, traditionally prepared in a hole, about a meter and a half deep, which is dug in the ground. The bottom is covered with stones, heated in a bonfire until red.

Filomena was not used to having somebody to cook for her so she frequently cooked in her own little kitchen and would bring desserts or special dishes that she new her daughter and granddaughter liked.

Little by little, Filomena started to know Sinfo. After much talk while cooking or doing some house chores together, Filomena concluded that Sinfo was a good woman and since she felt lonely without the “comadres” in her little town, she confided in her.

Filomena told Sinfo about her grandson, the priest. However, she did not tell her how he had become a priest in a little town in Peru and why.

The reaction of Sinfo was incredible. She had been in love with a man from Peru, of Quechua origin, that was precisely from the little town where Antonio was. She had not been there, but she mentioned the Catholic Temple, famous in that area, that was originally built between the year 1540 to 1600, and that was where Antonio was sent. Yes, the small village was 12,500 feet high and surrounded by big mountains, full of legends about the Quechuas and angels.

Sinfo had been in contact through letters with her old “pololo” (boyfriend) and she could contact him, she believed, and inquire about the little priest. So Filomena helped Sinfo to write a letter addressed to this man and asked him to discretely find out about the little priest at the old Colonial Temple. The letter was sent including a nice little “detente” wrapped in paper.