How
Ovideo Spent His Summer:
A Military School Story
The Latin
American cadets, sons, cousins and nephews of dictators and generals, lined up
with us North Americans to pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States.
They were there, after all, to absorb as much of American military culture as
possible for later use in their homelands. “All this saluting, its really a
joke,” my friend Ovideo Fernando Gustavo Midence Peverel whispered to me.
Ovideo was a modest boy from Guatemala, and an
entertaining companion as, each year, his command of English improved. In his
shy way, Ovideo occasionally gifted our other roommate, Freddie, and me with
unexpected knowledge of his alien Latin American culture.
One
September, when we had returned to the Academy from our summer furlough, we were
bragging about what we'd been doing over the last three months. Freddie told us
he'd spent six weeks as a counselor at a fabulous summer camp that had canoes
you could paddle, and a terrific softball team which he coached.
For my
part, I reported my adventures learning to scuba dive in our beach club's
swimming pool.
When it was Oviedo’s turn, he smiled shyly but
remained silent. We had to drag it out of him. We prodded him and joked with him
until he finally confessed.
His father, a senior
government official, had arranged special training that summer for Ovideo. "My
Papa said it was time to develop my macho. He enrolled me in a bordello in
Guatemala City for the whole summer to learn to do sex."
This was astounding news for
fifteen-year-olds. We were stunned. Finally, Freddie broke the silence when he
said: "Wow! That really beats six weeks at Camp Waka-tiki!"
