The Gringo Shuffle Once Again...

 

A small island off of Quepas

Jim's been having a very frustrating few days. Dealing with what I keep calling 'The Gringo Shuffle' He's getting frustrated with certain aspects of the culture here. I get it, culture is so super hard to adjust to, and no matter how much you think you've cleared that hurtle it bites you in the butt. Like me losing it over the pool guys beheading a four foot long iguana in my side yard before taking it home to make soup.

The English teaching job Jim is working hasn't paid him. It's been over a month. First the school owner showed him a form that the money would be wired into his account, that was two weeks ago. We're six or eight weeks in, I'm not sure how long, and he hasn't been paid. Asked today and told there was no money to pay him. Jim's unhappy with that, and the huge amount of prep time. There's a fair amount of disorganization too. The owner isn't Tico, but he's picked up some Tico habits in the fifteen years he's been here from Europe.

The gardeners have been here. We're using different guys this time, some Tico jacks of all trades and masters of none. Jim's been grumbly because of the fact that once they knocked it off for an early lunch, came back very late and then started working at the speed of turtles. That's actually pretty common when day laborers here I've found. Jim paid them cash at the end of the day and they're supposed to be returning tomorrow. I seriously doubt they'll be back tomorrow, it will be that endless 'Manana' (please add that accent over the first N, my browser does not support Spanish accents) I've talked about in the videos. 

Truthfully you know better than to ever pay these guys either upfront or day by day. Once they have a little money in their pockets their cultural view is 'why work tomorrow'. I think we need to just stick with Ernesto. He's been good. These guys. Very fast, long lunch and then very slow. They overturned my table full of orchids when one of them fell down into them. One of these guys is so old. I guess I'm repotting orchids tomorrow. Pray for a good walking day tomorrow so I can repot. 

We're under new Covid restrictions again. The daily rates have jumped up. Before we went to New Orleans the entire country had only 300 new cases a day. We're up to 1,600 new cases a day, with no opportunity to get the vaccine. Yet tourists have zero restrictions. We need another lockdown to end this I think.

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