TURK, THE WANDERER.

• Author: Vidal, Virginia
• Position: Brief Article

He crossed five continents. Showed his swollen passport and, by inertia, the customs police, immigration officials, and consuls just kept on stamping entrances and exits and renewing visas. Mongolia, Kampuchea, Zambia, Namibia, Iceland, Curacao, and Panama were some of the innumerable countries traversed by the insatiable wanderer. His hike through the wide world hit a serious snag when he arrived by train from Leningrad to a northern station, prepared to work as a dishwasher. A diligent border patrolman looked fascinated at the strange passport and decided to call a colleague who specialized in attending to those Turks with unintelligible language and sad eyes. They didn't know how to maintain their composure when the language expert began to read: "baby onions, eggplants and stuffed peppers, quimbombo, grapeleaf rolls, lamb kebabs ..."

Jose Painel, born in Trovolhue, near rainy Temuco in Chile, managed to escape a persecution in which some of his...