alex .
Sep 2, 2003, 8:49 AM
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a simple shopping trip : compare & contrast
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So we are in a little town in Baja California, in the hot sun, shopping for some "artesania". I say sort of artesania because the main body of the object de arte is mass produced and the details are added and painted by hand. The kind , 60-something year old gentleman insists on loading up our truckload of purchases himself, wrapping each piece with care, noting which artist belongs to which piece and proudly pointing out the ones he had done himself.
We had just spent nearly 2 hours there, chatting about family, where we are from, and different aspects of the business. Behind the little store front is a parcel of land, I'd say ten acres or so, with 3 large buildings (big enough to park tractor trailers inside) that make up the artesania factory. It doesn't look that big from outside, but we certainly were amazed as the gentleman gave us a tour of the facility: the ovens, molds for ninety different designs, the conveyors and mixers, quite the operation. Not modern by any means of comparison (most of the machinery is hand built by local welders) but impressive just the same.
A tourist happens by, his shiny new pickup towing a trailer of 4 wheel ATV toys coming to a screeching halt. He saunters into the yard, chooses a couple of items, all the while bellowing loudly in pseudo-Spanish about how high the prices are and how the vendor ought to be grateful that AMERICANS WITH REAL LIVE DOLLARS are around to buy his stuff. The gruff tourist loads the 2 items in his truck and returns with a twenty-dollar bill to pay for them, again insisting how its highway robbery. The gentleman, with his pride now hurt, tells the tourist to keep his twenty dollars AND the merchandise as a gift, a gift from the "poor Mexicans" who for each dollar they make the tourist makes ten. "You have money that you can't even decide how to spend, and yet you're crying" says the gentleman, "Dios bendiga." and he turns his back on him and continues packing up our stuff. "Sin verguenza (no shame) " he tells us, "he acts like he's rich and that we Mexicans don't know that the bank owns that new pickup AND his house, he is the owner of nothing." You see, the gentleman is the owner of the store, the land , the factory, the tractor trailers, another parcel just as large with several homes for his family, all paid for. He is the purveyor of flower pots for a little company in the US called "Home Depot".
All loaded up, we shook the gentleman's hand and, even though we spent some money, we left richer than when we arrived.
Alex
(This post was edited by alex . on Sep 2, 2003, 9:07 AM)
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