Tenerife's Pupilo Pérez: A Life of Observation, Learning, and Global Journeys

Pupilo Pérez, a man from La Laguna in Tenerife, offers a unique view of the world. Born and raised in the Taco neighborhood – what he calls "the periphery" – he’s known for filling hundreds of notebooks with his observations. His life reflects two different experiences of a Canarian leaving home. First, as a young man, he had to emigrate to England and Switzerland to find work. Now, as an older man, he travels for pleasure, having visited a dozen countries, including a three-month stay in Australia.

Pupilo Pérez, 67, is self-taught and retired early from his jobs as a physiotherapist and vocational training teacher. He aims to complete a university degree every ten years. After studying Journalism and English Philology, his next goal is Physics, specifically Quantum Physics. He wants to understand "how matter is made," but admits he needs to "significantly strengthen" his math skills first. To do this, he plans to enroll in a friend's academy.

In his youth, Pupilo emigrated twice. The first time, he went to Switzerland with his partner, staying for two years and having his first daughter (he now has two daughters and one granddaughter). He returned in the mid-1980s. His second emigration was to England, this time alone. He spent three years working as a dishwasher. He did it "out of necessity, because there was no work here and many shortages. It was like an escape to find something that wasn't possible to achieve here." He worked hard and returned "rich, due to the exchange rate of the pound, and with a command of English." He saved, invested, and successfully pursued academic training back home.

He estimates he has completed a degree every ten years. He earned a Physiotherapy degree from the University of La Laguna at 30, Journalism from ULL at 40, and English Philology in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria at 50. While teaching Physiotherapy at Doctor Negrín Hospital, he was invited to become a Vocational Training teacher in La Guancha, which he considers a turning point in his life.

Another significant change came recently after his early retirement. He decided to travel again to practice his fluent English, which he learned both as an emigrant and through academic study. This "restless spirit's" latest journey took him through Bulgaria, Armenia, Azerbaijan, China, Vietnam, and Australia, where he stayed for several months. In Australia, he lived in upper-middle-class areas, observing a society with "a lot of work, good salaries, and security." His next destinations are Japan, focusing on its "less touristy and more spiritual aspect," and Iran.

After all his travels, this man from Tenerife concludes – "I don't know if I should say it out loud" – that "we live well here and don't realize it." He doesn't have the usual strong attachment many Canarians feel for their homeland, stating, "if they had offered me something really good, I would have stayed longer in Australia." He believes, "The world is big and there are opportunities everywhere, but here we have a refuge. Always a return home."

He highlights that "we have a treasure, which is the capacity for positive improvisation among Southern Latins, something that doesn't exist in other cultures." As an example, he recalls that his Australian host family "couldn't conceive of going out for dinner at night without a reservation. That's like a tragedy, while we just go for it." He concludes, "They are amazed, and it's just a matter of us being hungry and going to eat. A question of mentality."

Pupilo Pérez has been documenting daily life for over five decades. He often describes his habit of jotting almost everything down as creating a "thesaurus" (glossary). He writes down anything interesting that comes to mind on any available paper – invoices, napkins, or restaurant bills, especially from local guachinches. He then transfers this "collage," which also includes photos or other documents, into a diary.

During a recent meeting, the phrase "something smells bad south of Denmark" from Shakespeare's Hamlet caught his attention, and he eagerly jotted it down with a small pencil on a corner of paper – a perfect example of his "thesaurus" in action. He says this practice "relaxes me immensely and saves me from needing a psychologist."

Pupilo already has over 150 diaries, the result of a personal journey spanning more than half a century. But, armed with the small notebooks he always carries or any paper he can write on, he continues to record life – both his inner thoughts and his outer experiences as an emigrant or traveler.

Pupilo Pérez, whose full name is Manuel Pupilo Hernández Pérez, was born and grew up in Taco. He remembers his childhood: "My father, Domingo 'the blonde,' owned a shop, and I wanted to write poetry. When he closed it, he left me the diary as an inheritance. There I wrote a first poem at 14 and then pasted a lottery ticket I had won. That's how it all began." He explains there was "no special reason, nor a specific purpose." He is concerned about the passage of time and thinks "about the diaries I still have left to fill. I wake up and say: one day less."