About this blog and its title

This blog is an intriguing snapshot about the daily life of a protestant missionary family living for fifteen years in the remote north eastern town of San Joaquin de Agua Dulce in the province of El Beni, Bolivia. They lived a very simple lifestyle alongside the local folk, without electricity and running water. 

It describes a specific era that does not necessarily reflect the current worldview. It is a snapshot of the mid twentieth century in a culture far removed from the perspectives, outlook and concepts of the 21st century. 

To this day the Bolivian people recognise that the religious beliefs of the indigenous people were integrated into the Catholicism introduced by the conquistadors in the 16th century. 

Jim and Joy Hadfield were ordinary suburban Australians who were born in the first world war, lived through the Great Depression, and were of the generation of adults who fought in the second world war. Both experienced the loss of a parent during their childhood to diseases which are treatable today. 

They were quiet achievers, as were the remarkable team of Australian supporters, family and friends, who helped and encouraged them day by day to last the distance. Of the twenty years in Bolivia, fifteen years were lived in this small border town on the border of Brazil in the centre of South America. It is a remote amazon area of pampas, rivers, jungles and wet season floods. 

In 1949 our intrepid parents, Jim and Joy Hadfield, both from Sydney Australia moved to San Joaquin. Their journal of these fifteen years in this small settlement and its surrounding region says it all. The array of creatures that inundated their part of the amazon basin feature on every page, as do the hair raising escapades of long distance travel by canoe and oxcart.

Their journal also captures the local lifestyle, our lifelong friendships with the local people and a social history in this remote Bolivian Amazon province in the nineteen fifties and sixties. This was a place far beyond two way radio. The only form of contact with the outside world was one DC3 airplane per week, weather permitting, and the local post office: a telegram or letter. They raised us, their five children there. Three of us were born in this remote corner, one was born in Sydney, and one in the city of Cochabamba in the Bolivian Andes. 

Nevertheless, San Joaquin El Beni, Bolivia was home for us all.

When Joy died in Sydney in 2006, she left us with the twenty-year project that she called ‘the Manuscript.’ Through her 70s and into her late 80s, she worked methodically evening by evening on her typewriter to create this legacy for her family. She organised the fifteen years of letters posted to their family in Australia. In her last months of life, we posed a question: “Mum, if this became a book what would you call it?" Without hesitation she replied, “The Call of the Perdiz”. 

What is the Perdiz?

It’s a ground dwelling bird, locally called a ‘perdiz’. This means partridge in Spanish. However, the birds known as perdiz in South America are actually tinamou. There are many species. The particular bird we refer to is an undulated tinamou, named for its melodic song.  

Why this title? 

Jim was particularly skillful at bird calls. He learned this skill in the bush around Eastwood in Sydney during his childhood and teens. He, therefore, had no trouble mimicking the perdiz. Jim could whistle up a perdiz so well that an unwitting bird would respond, turn on turn to his call and walk right up to him. 

The quintessential story prompting this title occurred on the final river trip that Jim and Joy made along the remote Bolivian Brazilian border in March/ April 1964 before returning to live permanently in Sydney, Australia. 

They were on the last leg of a six week river trip when they rounded a bend and found themselves trapped by massed reeds densely choking the river. What happened and how the call of the perdiz encouraged them will unfold in this blog. 

This story includes many folk who are precious ‘Bolivian family’ and friends. Many are no longer alive. In 2019 their four daughters returned together to San Joaquin and witnessed their parents' legacy in Bolivia. Some of the incredible stories will be linked within context.

Hear the undulating call of the local Perdiz here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFWTpHLfj1s