Pinchazo

Yesterday at the gas station I asked the guy to check my tires. I do this about once a week and give the guy a Q5 tip for the work. While it's only about $.65 and in the states you would think I am offending the guy, keep in mind that for that same amount I can get a guy to mix cement for me by hand for an hour.

My tires need to be at 40psi, but after our long bumpy trip last week they were down to 35, 20, 35 and 8. The 8 was the one that worried me. He filled it up, but I noticed at the dump today that it was very low again. Luckily I had my handy emergency tire repair can and filled it up so I could go get it fixed.

I've seen lots of "pinchazos", or tire repair shops, on the sides of the road but have never had the pleasure of stopping by one. The tire was maintaining air just fine after my magic can, but next week I am taking a generator and a bunch of doctors 5 hours round trip on a bad road and don't want to get stuck changing my tire at night in the middle of literally nowhere Petén.

I pulled up and explained my problem. They then proceeded to look for the leak by pouring muddy water over the top of my tire while looking for leaks. I have seen my air conditioner repair guy do the same thing on our Blazer, but he puts soap in his water to look for bubbles. I wasn't sure what these guys would see, especially after I told them about the quick repair. After moving my truck so they could not see a leak underneath it, they told me they were going to pull off the tire. I thought finally. After taking off my big 70 lb. tire they submerged it in water. I had a brief flashback to when my dad used to teach me how to repair my bicycle inner tubes in the same way. I'm not sure how normal this is, but at least they got the tire clean and didn't find any nails. After still not finding any leaks I asked them if they could take it off the rim and look inside for any punctures.

This is when they informed me that since I used the can of repair foam they would not be able to fix my tire. They said patches don't work after that and the only thing they may be able to do would be to put an inner tube inside my tire. Luckily they informed me that the can appeared to be working and I wouldn't have any more problems with my leak. (I'm glad they are positive about what is not their problem.)

Maybe somebody can tell me if this is really as crazy as I am assuming it to be. These are 6 ply tires and I don't know that they will have an inner tube strong enough to hold up my tire. I politely declined and made a mental note to buy a few more magic cans next time I go to the city so that I can prepare for the worst on this one. We'll see how this holds up.

Rent Discount

The house we are renting is not the biggest house around, but it is just enough for the two of us. However, now that we are having two more arrive in 7 months, we need to make some space. So I called the owner and asked her if we could build a storage room in the back yard in order to rearrange the house. Worst-case scenario we have to pay for it ourselves, but I wasn't going to offer that.

Yesterday she came over to look at the spot I wanted to build it. I estimate it will cost us about 10,000 quetzales to build a 3.5 meter/3.5 meter concrete block room with a metal door and a metal roof. We are not paying very much rent, but I still asked her to drop the price by Q150/month. I explained to her that at that discount it would take me 5.5 more years to recoup the Q10,000. She accepted quickly, but then asked if I could pay her a year in advance. Right now we pay 3 months advance and have paid until the end of May. Her husband is in the States (illegally) and hasn't had a job lately. I think I can get the money together by the end of May and I like having the security that with two new babies we won't be asked to leave the house if her husband gets deported and comes home.

This morning she called me. She spoke with her husband and said that they would give the Q150 discount on the rent, however they needed to raise Q100 because they weren't charging enough to begin with. This would give a net discount of Q50/month. I told her that I wasn't planning on staying in the house 16 years in order to get the money back from the storage room. I also reminded her that we pay so little because when we got the house it had no doors on the rooms, no paint on the walls, no water tubes glued together, no water that made it to the sink, and very few outlets that had wires behind them. I also explained that I have a request with the electric company to boost our power so that we run a second air conditioner, but that I will have to re-wire much of the house and add another 50amp breaker (right now our whole house is on just one).

We discussed it a little more and I finally agreed to only a Q100 discount, but I told her I would only be able to pay her 6 months in advance instead of a year. This information changed everything for her and she agreed to go back to our previous agreement and get the year in advance. We'll see how long it takes for her to ask me for more rent money. She has never made it to three months before asking for the next installment. I'm betting on 6 months.