Hello listeners, Martina Castro here. We have exciting updates for you. Starting in November, we're bringing back our favorite episodes about the animal kingdom. It will be all about the four-legged stars and some two-legged ones of this show. Then in January, we're introducing something totally new. Duo's film club. We'll be exploring some of the most iconic movies from Latin America and Spain. Don't miss out. More soon, hasta pronto.
Hola listeners, this season of the Duo Lingo Spanish podcast. We are revisiting some of our favorite stories about people and their animal friends. Stories that show just how amazing that bond can be. Today, we have an episode from August 2018. We'll meet Marco Avelis and his best buddy. His dog, Bihi, in Peru. If like me, you're curious about what's been going on with him since we last heard their story, stay tuned until the end, because Marco has an update for us. Let's get to it.
In Peru, there's a breed of dog that's very famous. So famous that it's considered part of the country's cultural patrimony. It's called the Inca Orquid, or informally known as the Hairless Peruvian Dog. And in Peru, one of those dogs is very famous, like a celebrity. It's my best friend and he's called Bihi. That's journalist and writer Marco Avelis. He loves Bihi so much that he started documenting his companion's adventures for a big Peruvian newspaper. The articles were a hit.
Bihi gained an online following and Marco got an idea that would take them both on their biggest adventure yet. They would immigrate to the United States. I wanted to write books on the forest, live with my girlfriend and my best friend, with me. But everything was very different. Welcome to the Duolingo Spanish podcast. I'm your host, Martina Castro. Each episode we bring you fascinating first-person stories from Spanish speakers across the world.
The storytellers will be using intermediate Spanish and I'll be chiming in for context in English. But these are not language lessons. They're real life lessons through language. The Peruvian hairless dog is an ancient breed that has been in the country for thousands of years. They almost went extinct a few decades ago, but a campaign by a local breeder made them famous again. Bihi is delgado, attractive and atlético.
In the street people admired Bihi and the children wondered if they could touch it. One day, Marco decided to use his journalistic skills to help Pihi find a mate. He started writing a column about Pihi's romantic life. The first article was called Busco Novia para mi perro. It was published in La República, one of Peru's biggest newspapers, and the response was immediate. Readers started sending in pictures of their female dogs. They wanted to meet Pihi and have babies with him.
One day, they contacted me of a dog named Uma. Uma had a year and was hyperactive like Pihi. We gave him a romantic quote for them, a summer afternoon in La Playa. But Uma was not interested in my best friend. That day, he tried to attack Pihi twice and he was running with fear. As Pihi struggled to find love, Marco struggled to love his life in Lima. He wasn't happy with his job as director of his publishing house. Being about Pihi had awakened in him a dream of writing full-time.
To top it off, his American girlfriend, Annie, was ready to return to the United States after living for more than a decade in South America. Annie had a beautiful house in the woods, in the state of Maine, where she also lived the famous Stephen King author. He was the perfect destination for the change of life she wanted. But it was perfect for Pihi too. Lima is a city with few parks or green spaces. Pihi didn't like living all the time inside our house.
But in Maine, Pihi could run into the forest. So in July of 2014, Marco decided to quit his job and pursue a dream of a better life for him and Pihi in the United States. They arrived in Maine in the dead of summer. Pihi ran freely in the forest all day, happily chasing squirrels, while Marco started to organize his routine as a writer. But the summer was brief and Maine became less social as the winter approached. People were focused on preparing their houses for the snow.
When Marco met Pihi, it was love at first sight. The first time Pihi saw him and his six brothers were playing, distracted. Pihi was the only one who looked at me and walked towards me with curiosity. His eyes were small like clouds. His skin was like an elephant. Pihi's ears were huge, like wings of a bat. In fact, they inspired his name. Pihi is short for Pihi, which means bat in Machigenga, a language from the Amazonia.
Ever since Marco adopted Pihi, they've traveled all around Peru, spent their days together in Marco's office, and even traveled to meet Annie's family in Maine. Pihi was crucial to that trip. He was the first to win over Annie's parents. But if Pihi was unique in Peru, imagine him in snow-covered Maine. The most typical dog you see there is the Labrador Retriever, a large hunting dog, covered in thick fur. Pihi, on the other hand, was built for the Peruvian Desert.
Pihi ama correr bajo el sol y dormir en la playa. Además, es hyper activo. Siempre está bailando y saltando. Pales and family in the States didn't know what to make of Pihi. Maine's population is predominantly white, so in many ways, Marco felt like he stuck out there, as much as Pihi. Marco spent his first month in Maine consulting remotely for customers back in Peru. He also kept writing his weekly column about Pihi, to keep his followers informed about his life in their new country.
One of those last autumn nights, Marco and Annie made an outdoor fire to enjoy the full moon. Pihi, who came out with us immediately, ran towards the forest. We went to look for him. They started looking for Pihi, worried that something bad might have happened to him. We heard that sometimes the coyotes attack the dogs. We screamed. Eventually they found him, walking slowly towards them, his head covered in quills as thick as nails. A poor cubine had attacked him.
Marco's brother-in-law took the quills out one by one with pliers. But with the cold came different dangers for Pihi. His lack of hair made going outside for simple activities like peeing a complete torture. The first time he was born, Pihi only could walk on the snow for five minutes. Then he got confused and began to cry. I took him back home. That day, he bought his first boots from the snow. But there was something wrong with the boots. Pihi seemed to hate them.
One day, Marco took the boots off and noticed Pihi's feet were bleeding. The boots had been squeezing his nails so tight that they were piercing his own feet. Pihi's ears didn't fare well in the cold either. The skin started to crack and fall off. The mother of Annie helped him a lot. With a pro calcetines for Pihi, as a protection for her feet inside the boots. In Jane, she also used a lot of cream until finding one that helped her ears.
While Annie and Marco worked on helping Pihi get used to the cold, they got some bad news from Peru. Marco's newspaper editor told him he couldn't secure any more funding to cover his salary and let him go. It was a difficult moment. Mines were not as good as the ones they'd prefer to work with someone on the internet. After a year in Maine, they had to do what all immigrants have to do when they arrive to a new country. They had to look for a real job.
Maine is a rural state and has one of the most senior populations in the US. Carpenters and lumberjacks are some of the most popular jobs. But Marco had little experience in manual labor. So what could a Peruvian journalist do in a place like Maine? Pigey was a part of his career. He was also sad because we weren't going to the forest anymore. Marco made a list of the jobs he could possibly take on. Operator of demolition equipment. Factory worker at a brewery, supermarket clerk, and cook.
Finally, he quit working as a cook because he liked cooking. Pigey went with Marco to hand out his resume in dozens of restaurants. Marco recalls waiting anxiously for an answer as if he had applied to some kind of literary prize. His mind was full of questions and doubts. That Chinese restaurant was one of the best restaurants in Maine. The chef, Cara Stadler, is a culinary celebrity. Marco was baffled when he got the job and remembers wondering what the chef saw in him.
Marco was assigned to the salad area. His boss was Kyle, a strong man about 10 years younger than him. Kyle was incredibly fast and precise with a knife. Marco, on the other hand, was not. That first day, it took him 20 minutes to cut up a handful of cilantro. Kyle looked at me in the patient. He took my knife and cut the cilantro in 30 seconds. He learned how to make a child.
During the dinner hour, the kitchen workers took to their tasks with the synchronized rhythm of a well-trained orchestra. Kyle pulled him aside and yelled, what are you staring at? Marco was paralyzed with fear. All he could do was repeat, please, please, all I want to do is survive this day. In that moment, Kyle found me, took some green and purple leaves and told me, this is a joke. No, don't forget it. Marco's work at the restaurant forced him to leave Pee-hee with Annie's parents.
That night, when Pee-hee greeted Marco with his usual enthusiasm and jumps in the air, Marco was too exhausted to play. I didn't like how they greeted me every day. Annie listened to me talk about how I was doing my job and consoled me. This dinner was repeated for weeks. Sometimes, when Annie was asleep, I cried. While Marco worked at the restaurant, feeling like he was stuck in a tragic soap opera, Pee-hee was having quite a good time with Annie's parents. Pee-hee seemed to be happier than me.
They gave him a good meal and Pee-hee was strong like a athlete. She looked like the king of the forest. Sometimes, I visited him very early in the morning, but seeing him only a few minutes was worse than seeing him. Sometimes I asked him, and if Pee-hee begins to want Annie's parents, more than me. One afternoon, Marco picked up Pee-hee at Annie's parents' house and decided to take him on a walk before heading back home.
Even though this was new territory for Pee-hee, Marco decided to walk him off leash so he could run around a bit. The sun was low when we saw a window. A window is a deer. Immediately, Pee-hee ran behind him. He's barking echoed as he ran deep into these woods that were unfamiliar to him. Sentipánico. The sky was dark and had fear of losing Pee-hee forever. I walked on all sides and shouted his name until I lost my voice. But I didn't find him.
Marco decided to go ask for help before it got too dark. As he walked back to Annie's parents' house, he couldn't help but be overwhelmed with shame and anguish, as he imagined telling everybody that he had just lost his best friend. Casie empecé a llorar cuando vía Pee-hee. Él estaba muy cansado y tenía sangre en sus patas, pero estaba vivo y feliz de verme. Quizás yo era el perdido.
Over the following months, Marco slowly accepted that in his new job and in many ways in his new life, he had to start from scratch. Empecé a observar con más atención como mis compañeros trabajaban en la cocina y escuchaba con cuidado las instrucciones del chef, traté de ignorar los heritos. Eventually he got faster with the knife and wasn't cutting his fingers anymore. La chef me dijo que mi trabajo era muy bueno.
Seis meses después de empezar, me convertí en el asistente de una de las cocineras principales y iba a ser responsable de la estación de Carniz, finalmente formaba parte de la orquesta. For all of Marco's success at his new job, each night he still came home exhausted from the intensity of the kitchen. It also pained him to be far from Pee-hee and to put aside his writing. If I'm going to work this hard, he thought to himself, wouldn't it be better to work on something of my own?
Next morning, Marco went to pick up Pee-hee at Annie's parents' house. Marco assured him that their adventures weren't over just yet. Marco turned his attention again to his dream of writing, but now with more determination than ever. And the hero of the book? After living in Philadelphia and then Maine, Marco Aviles moved to Chile for research for his PhD and his buddy Pee-hee is still with him. He just turned 11. Marco sent us a WhatsApp message to catch us up.
His audio might sound a little different from his original interview. I'm Marco and I'm very happy to tell you that Pee-hee is still with me, but someone more familiar with him. We decided to adopt a little girl called Rue and now she's the best Pee-hee friend. Play all the time and I think that's good for him. It's so nice to hear that Pee-hee has a new companion. Also in the original episode, Marco mentioned that he was writing a book about Pee-hee and their experience.
We asked him about that project too. There are people who have heard this story in Duolingo and then write to me and ask me. When is the book ready and the truth is that I don't know, but sometimes I tell myself, no, I better end it now. Thank you Duolingo. Bye. We'll definitely keep an eye out for your book, Marco. And we hope Pee-hee stays happy and healthy. Thank you so much for the update.
This story was originally produced by Marco Aviles and updated by Thali Goldman, a journalist and writer based in Buenos Aires. We would love to know what you thought of this episode. You can always write us an email at podcastatduolingo.com or call and leave us a voicemail or audio message on WhatsApp at plus one seven oh three nine five three nine three six nine. Don't forget to say your name and where you're from. If you liked this story, please share it.
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The Duolingo Spanish podcast is produced by Duolingo and Adonde Media. I'm the executive producer and your host, Martina Castro. Gracias por escuchar.