Cerro de Pasco, Peru: Christmas on the Plateau

By Cliff Potts
Bay Bay City, Leyte, Philippines — September 3, 2026

This is a serialized installment from the autobiography of Cliff Potts.

Summer in December

December in Peru is summer, even at 14,000 feet.

It did not feel tropical, but the skies were clearer and the wind lighter. There was a brightness to the month that did not resemble any winter I had known.

In Will Savoy’s class, we learned English Christmas carols. Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat… She taught it as a round, the sound circling the cinderblock room. She explained that beggars once sang it in London streets hoping for coins.

I was known for getting dirty between the back gate and the classroom. The nickname followed.

The Play

There was a Christmas play.

My line was simple: “You can’t do that!”

During the performance, I froze. A whisper prompted me, and I delivered the line loudly and late. The moment passed. The play continued.

No lasting damage.

Decorations and a Record

Our shipment had only recently arrived. The compound store was limited. Lauren and I made paper chains and simple decorations to give the house color. I do not remember whether we had a tree. I remember effort.

We had one long-playing record — twelve inches, 33⅓ RPM — and we played it repeatedly. It carried the season inside the house.

Caroling and Fairness

One evening the adults gathered at a management house near the clubhouse. The children went caroling through the compound, including the singles’ bungalows. No one was excluded.

We collected coins and candy, emptied everything onto a table, and divided it evenly.

Norm Owens played Santa. The beard was not convincing, but that was not the point.

Christmas morning brought fruit, candy, and small toys from the compound store.

It was the most intact Christmas of my childhood.