Sand Problems

Of course this drama will never end until our house is finished, and at the rate we are going, it will probably be another 10-20 years...So get ready for a lot of blog posts. Maybe I should just start another blog called "Don't build a house in Guatemala" but I'm still sweaty and in Petén, so I'll stick around here for now.

When I ordered my trailer full of sand, I was given the options of 32 meters, 35 meters or 38 meters. I of course chose 32 meters knowing that the amount of sand would be the same either way and hoping that with my low order I would have a better chance of it all fitting on the truck.

I told them that I would pay for what was delivered and was assured that I would receive that correct amount because Manuel would never cheat me. I told him that while I appreciated him saying that, my albañil would be measuring everything anyway.

So when the sand arrived Lico measured everything out. The driver told me that they had brought me 35 meters of sand, but would only charge me for the 32. Red Flag number one. Nobody gives anything for free.

It came out that the length of the trailer is 12 meters. The interior width is 2.28 meters and the height in the center of the trailer was .85. That comes out to 23.256 cubic meters. That's almost Q1000 worth of sand that did not arrive. I told the driver no problem, that I'd just pay for the sand he brought and that he didn't have to make another trip. I was then told that he had loaded up 32 meters (wait, I thought it was 35...) but that some blows off the top during the trip. I told him that he should buy a tarp because it is not acceptable for a third of my sand to blow off the truck. "No, you don't understand, it doesn't blow off the top, it compresses with the vibrations of the road." He then explained that you have to add 10 cm to the top for compression because that's what everybody does.

It doesn't matter that adding that 10 cm only increases my total cubic meters to 24.276, I told him that I don't pay for air. I had never encountered this before and it didn't matter to me if he steals from everybody else, I only pay for what I get. Then he said that my albañil doesn't know how to measure and that the truck is actually 12.6 meters long and that gives me my 32 meters when I add the 10 cm. Well, that's still only 27.29 cubic meters, but I acted very chapin and took great offense that he would dare criticize my worker's measuring skills, plus I had just bought him a new tape measure.

After a little more talking I told him to unload all of the sand and that Lico would remeasure once on the ground because unloading the sand by shovel would take care of the compression problem. After all that we came up with the same amount of sand-23.25 cubic meters.

This had still not been resolved when the owner finally arrived. He wanted the rest of his money, even though he still hasn't delivered my block. I prepaid Q9,000 out of Q15,000 and the block is worth Q8,500 of that. I told him that I would pay him on Monday if he really did deliver the block, after I had counted all the block, and discounted the sand he didn't bring. There were lots of "Fijese" thrown about and more explanation about how my worker couldn't measure, the truck is actually longer than it really is and sand settles 10 cm, no matter how high it is stacked.

Of course, I didn't pay any more money, because I knew ahead of time that he would be asking me for it and I left my money at home. That way I could truthfully say that I didn't have any money with me...fijese.

Now I have to decide whether I stop buying from him altogether (the logical Gringo's first choice) or whether he has learned that the Gringo in San Pancho is tacaño (cheap) and not tonto (dumb), therefore bringing me the correct amount of materials from here on out.

How Not To Sharpen A Machete

Wednesday Mateo came over to work in the yard. He is a 15 yr old Kekchi teen and one of our last remaining friends from New Horizon. Starting last week I asked him to start helping around the yard by chopping the grass, pulling weeds, checking on the bananas and other various things. He needs/wants the money and it is really nice to have some help with work and twins taking up all of our time.

That day he was supposed to chop the weeds outside the fence and then spray the yard for ticks. Apparently we brought home an infestation in the mud on our vehicles from Santa Rita.

After about an hour he came to the back door holding his finger. He asked me if I knew anything about wounds. Having a well supplied medical kit thanks to my mom I told him to come in. The hand was so bloody that I couldn't see the wound so we turned our deep freezer into an impromptu operating table. After cleaning the area I saw that he had sliced his left index finger from one half of the nail to the other half of the opposite side. A nice clean cut because this boy really knows how to sharpen a machete (when he's paying attention.)

After cleaning him up and dressing the finger I began a long discussion about taking him to the Mennonite clinic (Good Samaritan) to see what the nurse there thought about it. There was much argument and he claimed everything would be fine if I would just let him finish chopping the yard and go home so he could put some weeds on it.

He argued with me all the way to the gate where he got in my pickup for the drive down the street where he protested all through the check-in process. His curiosity had him complying more than anything else because he'd never been to a "hospital" as he called it. It was really just a house with 4 rooms. After a 5 minute wait the nurse called us back. She complimented my fine wound dressing abilities (she's apparently seen too many Guatemalan weed varieties) and then argued with Mateo about stitches. She told him that if he promised to eat six eggs a day for the next week then she would let him go, but if he was going to just eat tortillas and salt the wound would take 3 weeks to heal and she was going to stitch him. He promised to eat the eggs.

Then she gave him instructions about bathing. He is supposed to keep the area dry for 5 days, so she told him to put a bag over his hand when bathing. She asked to make sure he had plastic bags in the house, and then followed up asking if the bags had holes in them. Again, this lady knows a lot about Guatemalans. He promised.

She asked him to wait in the hall and walking out of the room he asked me where the machine was that would tell him how much he weighed. He's seen too many movies. The nurse laughed and said he might as well get something fun for his trouble so she weighed him at 104 lbs which he thought was way too low. I can tell you this because I live in Guatemala where privacy laws do not exist...

After another 5 minutes they called us into the front room where they gave him tylenol and amoxicillin along with a booklet about God. Grand total was Q24 ($3). I left a bigger offering because I had benefited from their services before at no charge.

On the way home we stopped at the store where I bought him 30 eggs and some plastic bags. She didn't know that his family is so poor that Mateo doesn't know how to eat an egg, but he thought maybe his mom would know how to fix them. What I bought may last until tomorrow because the whole family will be eating them. He also didn't have any plastic bags. We argued some more about the medicine and when to take it as well as not removing the dressing. Then he finished the yard and sprayed for ticks. His biggest problem now is that he is left handed and wanted me to teach him how to write with his right hand before school tomorrow...Sorry bud.

Our next adventure will be when I take him to get a tetanus shot. He can't remember ever getting a shot and claims he doesn't need them.

Siphoned Gas and a Chew Toy

Before leaving for 5 months, the most important thing for us was to find somebody to watch our house (really just our dogs but house sounds better.) We have two big ferocious guard dogs for whom we would trade everything they are supposed to be guarding to keep them safe.

If you read this post you can get the background on how much we were paying him. While we were gone he was kicked out of his village for his association with us (we were also kicked out, but that's another post) and so lived at our house full time. Instead of buying a motorcycle, we talked about him buying a plot of land and putting up a "house" since he has no place else to go.

Living in our bodega (concrete storage room off the house) full time, we didn't really know what we would come back to. Happily, the dogs were both alive and healthy, which was the main thing. However, he had siphoned all the gas out of both vehicles (I'm not sure what he did with it though), given my nice soccer ball to the dog to chew up (probably not intentionally as much as left it outside without putting it away), and I am missing a nice flashlight and some MACE I had left for him. I also lost both cell phones ($12 ea.) that I had left for him.

Everything else seemed to be in order. Again, the most important thing was that nobody broke into our house and the dogs are ok.