The Project of the Day

What do I do with my self these days?

Well, this is what the start of today looked like:
Woke up at about 6am and stayed in bed till about 7am - just laying there, not thinking of much cos there aint much to bother thinking about.
Got up and got dressed. Went outside and up onto the roof where I sat in the warm sun listening to the sounds of a small Guatemalan morning and had a meditate for half an hour or so.
Then I went back down, got the motorbike keys, and started the three bikes up to warm up the engines. Then I drive the bikes one by one (they really dont heard that well!) out through the narrow dirt lanes between the houses to park them for the day in front of a strategically located local minimarket type shop. The people there watch the bikes and give me a phone call if people are interested (I give them 10% if we get a client) . This is a good arangement for me since I dont have to spend my whole day with the bikes.

Once thats done, I walk into town (200m) and find something for breakfast...its usually either a pineapple or cantelope from the market or scrambled eggs and a cup of tea at a little restaurant with a deck that overlooks the lake. But today I settle for a cantelope and strawberry milkshake from the juice sellers on the side of the street half way up the hill.

Once thats done, I start working on "the project of the day" and today that means getting the materials to make a simple leather sachel so that I can carry around the few things that I need to have with me during the day when Im wearing clothing with minimal pockets.
So up into the town I go and wind my way to where the leather shop is (my friends told me where it was). There is a round of introductions and I explain what I want in broken Spanish - this takes a bit of effort and as usual there are several rounds of minor confusion and entertainment, but the message gets through.

What I want is two or three square feet of leather sheet, about three feet of leather strap, and some thin leather thonging to stich it all together with.
In Canada it would probably take me about ten minutes to get this explaind and the stuff in my hand and paid for. However here, with the way the locals do things, it takes well over an hour to make all this happen. The little old guy does not have a single straight edge in the whole little shop to draw a straight line with. Likewise the cutting is done by hand with the saddest little knife I have seen in a long time. Its bent and worn and takes quite a bit of muscle to plow through the leather hide - but it does the job one more time for the little leather man :)

Finally my pile of pieces is assembled and then its time to figure out the cost... The little man has a calculator!... The batteries work!....he scribbles some numbers on a list on a piece of paper and then pushes buttons on the calculator...I watch...I wait...the little man runs the numbers through a second time...I notice while hes doing it that he is using the multiply button instead of the add button and never using the equals.... the little man has that confused look again... I offer to help, and he allows me to use the calculator which I do very slowly as he watches and nods... the numbers do what I think they should do and a result pops up. Then I do it all again to be sure...just as slowly :)
So, I think we are about done but the little man isnt happy, Apparently the final number should definitely be more... (blue eye tax maybe?) ... turns out that the little list of numbers is not really indicative of what I should pay...or something like that. The little man struggles internally for a few moments and comes up with a number its about five times the size of the number from the added up list...what can I do... I agree and pay up...there are smiles and shakes of hands... I take my pile of stuff and head off back through the streets toward home.

The total cost is about $40 which seems high to me for here, but it would I think cost me twice as much back in Canada. Was I ripped off? - I honestly dont know!... Do I begrudge the little man the money? - not really... Will I have to recut every piece of leather that he cut to have straight lines that fit together when I stich it up? -Yep :).... I guess that gives me something else to do with the day :))... but then the phone rings and I manage to figure out in rough Spanish that I think I have customers waiting at the bikes :))))


- This will be my third rental in just over a week.....hmmmm aint gonna make millions this way but I might make a living if Im lucky :)))))