Jhony – The Flying Peruvian

But maybe it’s a certain calmness about him that people mistake for seriousness. Even when he discusses the hardest things he has had to come through in his life, he is calm in a way only a person who knows himself and is at peace with that knowledge can be. A person who is proud of himself. “My best quality is consistency. When I’m focused on something, I never give up”, he says.

I fought for my goals in my life. I never gave up.

Jhony was born close to the Brazilian border in Peru. Most of his classmates spoke both Spanish and Portuguese, and that’s how he learned Portuguese too. His father was half Japanese and had grown up in a different, stricter culture. Jhony says getting along with him has personally been his biggest obstacle.

When he was 14 years old, he got a motorcycle. He still thinks it was the best thing he ever owned. “It was like freedom for me.”

After high school he joined the Peruvian army for a mandatory one-year training. That’s where he learned how to fly an airplane. He enjoyed it so much he actually dreamed of becoming a commercial pilot, but the education was too expensive. “We will have to see how it works out in the future”, he says, laughing again.

After the army he moved to Lima to study hospitality and tourism. That’s where he learned Italian, and a little French. Count in English and lite grann Swedish, and you have six languages. “I chose hospitality and tourism because I always wanted to travel the world. I knew that this career was going to help me do that.” After graduating he moved to the United States and worked for a couple of cruise ship companies. He traveled all over: Alaska, Africa, Russia, Italy, you name it. That’s how he found his favorite place in the world, a small island in the Caribbean, Saint Thomas, where he stayed in a rustic house next to the beach. That’s also how he describes a perfect day, for him, would look like, staying in a rustic house in sunny weather. No internet, no cell phone, just him and his girlfriend enjoying the day.

On the cruise ships Jhony first started as an entry level cleaner but worked his way up to team leader. “We were like 16 guys, and I was in charge of all of them, of cleaning the whole ship. And maintenance.”

At Freska, Jhony now works as a Field Team Lead. Part of his salary he sends to his mother, who still lives in Peru. He is afraid of losing her. “She is not in quite good health, and I’m just trying to work harder, and harder, and harder to help her pay for all the medicine that she needs.”

Jhony sees cleaning as something all of us need, something that makes a healthy home. But for him, the best thing about his job is his customers. “I like to talk too much”, he says. And laughs again.

One time, when Jhony was already off work, his customer called him. He said he had just gotten a promotion at work and asked Jhony to join him for a celebratory beer. And so they celebrated. “People who have never worked in the industry think cleaning is bad. But it’s not”, he says. The problem is not really cleaning, it’s how they view it. “The thing is, people should love what they do, right?”

On weekends Jhony likes to work out. After that he enjoys watching movies at home, maybe having a glass of wine. Sometimes he paints landscapes based on pictures he took around the world. Talking about that makes him smile vaguely and say he’s no professional.

Happiness, for him, is seeing the people close to him happy. He also loves driving, but he has yet to pass the Swedish driver’s test. It seems he is too fast for the Swedish taste. When asked who would play him in a movie, he answers Tom Cruise without hesitation. “He’s tough, you know?”