Pupilo Pérez points out everything that he considers to be of interest for five decades. Scenes of everyday life written on all kinds of papers, from bills to napkins and restaurant bills, especially guachinches. The collage, which also includes photos or other documents, is then passed on to a journal. You have already filled over a hundred with the same process. It is the prompter of life.
Physiotherapist, graduated in Journalism and English Philology, in addition to FP teacher with a wide journey through different teaching destinations. From La Guancha to Santa Cruz, where he finished his work last year at the César Manrique de Ofra, the old School of Commerce. And also in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, his second home. She is 63 years old, but she looks ten years younger, two children and a granddaughter, Marla, her grandfather’s right eye. A self-taught man who, like few others, fulfills the saying in fact to himself.
It is the profile of Ward Pérez. But perhaps the most important thing is missing. Its facet as writer on all types of paper support that falls into their hands. For five decades he has written down, especially in pencil, every idea, situation or anecdote that has seemed transcendent to him. With them he has filled a hundred diaries that he keeps as a treasure in his house of The lagoon.
Pupilo Pérez -Manuel Pupilo Hernández Pérez- was born and raised in Taco, the populous neighborhood of La Laguna. She remembers her childhood: «My father, Domingo el Rubio, who was well known in the area, I had a sale and I wanted to write poetry. When he closed it, he left me the diary. There I wrote a first poem when I was 14 years old and then I posted a pool that I took out. That’s how it all started”. Reasons: «There was not nor is there any special one, nor a specific purpose. I started as a habit to capture my reflections and today I am somewhat sorry not to continue. I feel obliged and I think that it will be until I die. He considers that «I worry about the passage of time and I think about the diary that I still have to fill. I get up and say one day less ». But, armed with the small agendas that he always carries with him or thanks to whatever paper the writing can hold, he continues to point out life.
Ward repeatedly qualifies as a thesaurus the result of writing everything down. «Almost everything», he points out «because sometimes there is nothing to review. What you write has to mean something. The meeting with the subscriber and the photographer must be reflected “for posterity.” With images included that complete the writing. The episode is already included in the particular Ward universe.
He returns to the concept of the thesaurus to make it clear that “this is not a diary, that is not the idea because sometimes I go back and paste, for example, the obituary of a dead acquaintance with some addition, not always favorable to the deceased.” One piece of information: “Sometimes other people write as if it were a collective act.” And furthermore, “the average is once every three days and sometimes five go by without adding anything.” Thesaurus: list of words or terms used to represent concepts. In this definition Pupi is more comfortable, as his family and friends call him. He often engages his students in the hobby of writing in the thesaurus.
Born in a very humble environment and raised in that Taco, product of island immigration Interior of the seventies of the last century, Pupilo – a name that, he assures, “my mother gave me, María de las Nieves, I still don’t really know why” – remembers his youth. Among the unloading of containers of Galletas Artiach – he is still hooked on those of cream – for 5,000 pesetas to earn a living and compulsive reading. He tells it: «I read everything that fell into my hands and Miakovski and Parsternak marked me a lot. Or Nietzsche. A neighborhood boy with a cultivated mind. But he had time to go to the plaza, play sports and smoke a joint. It was the age of drugs and heroin took many friends. There was not much future in that Canary Islands and going abroad was a good option.
Ward emigrates twice. The first to Switzerland with her then partner. He is there for two years, has his first daughter, and returns in the mid-80s. The second time he marches, already alone, to England. It was three years as a freganchín (wahs in up). He works hard but comes back “rich from the change in the pound and fluent in English.” Save, invest and make the decision to train academically.
He calculates that every ten years he has finished a degree. Physiotherapy in ULL, with 30; Journalism also at the ULL, at 40, and English Philology at Las Palmas, at 50. When I taught Physiotherapy classes in Negrín they call him to join as a VET teacher in La Guancha. A turn in his life.
The penultimate story that it tells in the thesaurus is that of a lady – quite a few have passed through her life – who lived through the tragedy of the cruise ship Costa Concordia. The last one recounts his experience in the recent Rock & books Festival in the capital of Gran Canaria.
Ward is doing well. He lives in the center of La Laguna, where he has his query. Going out through Aguere with him – in tennis, shorts and a UD Las Palmas tracksuit, his second team, because the first is Tete – forces him to stop at every corner. He knows everyone and is also known.
He reflects to conclude: “If someone told me when I was 15 years old, when I lived in Taco that today my house would be here – one of the historical temples of the Lagunera bourgeoisie – I would have recommended that you go to the psychiatrist.” From Taco to the heart of La Laguna with passage through Switzerland, England or Las Palmas – he lives there from Thursday to Sunday. An intense journey. And all well pointed.