Sometimes I can’t get over the ineptitude that is just business as usual with these people in the refinery. I’ve been chasing a couple of purchase orders this past week. It’s amazing the circles I've been running in. Every one tells me a different story about the PO status and none of them are right. How do they get anything done?
Oh well…
Went to a flea market Saturday on the way to the grocery store. Arubans take their flea markets seriously…as in everything is very expensive. And they give you the price in dollars and then convert to florin in hopes that you don’t know the math. I bought something from a girl and she said it was $10. I only had florin on me, so I gave her a 25 florin bill. She said “okay, thank you.” I just looked at her for a few seconds until I realized she was serious. So I reminded her that $10 is actually 17.5 florin. By the time I got my change from her (lots of discussion and calculating ensued) I was exhausted and feeling guilty. My impression was that she was trying to wait me out. That may work for tourists, but not this worldwise seasoned international traveler.
Friday, as I was leaving the refinery, the Canadian from across the hall (Alex) called me on my cell phone and said him and a couple guys were on their way to eat “at a Chinese place” and asked me to join them. Of course, I jumped on it. When I got to town, I had to call Alex to find where the restaurant was and he told me to meet him at Wendy’s. So I met him and followed him. We went down some “streets” that are really just paths…just wide enough to drive through. I was almost driving through people’s living rooms These streets went through the poorest neighborhoods I've ever seen. I should have gotten a clue from the route we were taking.
We finally pulled into a shabby little “restaurant” and we went in. Well, it wasn’t really a restaurant. It was what we call a beer joint but in Aruba, it’s called a rum shop. The only thing on the menu was beer, cigarettes, and potato chips. The guys looked at my face and started laughing and said they had to lie because they knew I wouldn’t go to a rum shop with them. So I drank guava nectar and bought them beer and chips till about 8 o’clock when we all called it a night. They all thought it was funny and they enjoyed their free beer.
Yesterday was my grandson Carson’s birthday (he’s 3 years old now) and his mom told him he could go anywhere he wanted for lunch. His answer? “Grandandy’s!” Ya gotta love a kid like that...although I think he settled for Whataburger.
The internet access has been practically non-existent this week. When I do get online, it drops off about every 10 minutes. Kinda hard to conduct any business like that. I’ve actually been writing messages in MSWord and when I get online, I cut and paste them in the bodies of emails as fast as I can.
You gotta be flexible living on this rock…
OUT
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