I went aboard a Chinese whaling vessel named the Zuo Tian as a spy and saboteur. After fighting with one of the crew, I went below to the engine room and attached the small lump of C-4 I had tucked into my duffel bag before deporting from Xiamen to the ship's wall. After it detonated, I was adrift for the remainder of the night and into the next day. As the sun began to set, in the distance I saw, one by one, the blinking on of lights in what was Valparaiso, Chile.
A man named Girardo helped me into his rowboat and I sat next to his dog. He was drawing the lights of the city in pencil and remarked that the challenege of the growing skyline married perfectly with his aging skill. I offered to clean his house and cook his dinner in exchange for a couch to sleep on or a roof to sleep under.
And this was the start of how I played cuecas in a band and earned enough money to return home.
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