The Day the Donkey Yelled Back….

The first time we went to Huancaquito, it was an eye-opener. Dirt roads, little running water or electricity, and houses with dirt floors. Life there depends on the land. Nearly everyone works in the fields. The main mode of transport seems to be by donkey. After the first time, it has been more frustrating than interesting. We have two business there.
The first one is a guinea pig farm. This project has been going for nearly 2 years and has yet to make a single payment. Guinea pigs have disappearing from this place like magic.He says that they are dying but doesn’t have any bodies to show for it.
The second place is a bakery that will be completing their loan terms this month. Their accounting records are a nightmare and introducing a new idea is next to impossible. Since everyone there works in the fields, paydays usually come around the 15th and the 30th. To facilitate sells, much of the bread is sold on credit until they can pay at the end of month. They have a notebook where they write down each day who bought bread on credit. The problem is that there is no enforcement to pay. People pay on their accounts, but they consistently have a balance of S/. 100 . To further complicate things, they only write down first names. That means that if ‘Carlos’ comes in to buy bread, no one really knows who ‘Carlos’ is.

Back to Huancaquito

Last week we headed out to Huancaquito again. Elena had to run an errand so we went a little bit ahead of her. There is a cab service that runs between Viru and Hauncaquito for S/. 3 that we used to get out there. A short, cramp, bumpy, taxi ride later, we arrived at the Cuye farm. Much to our surprise, in 2 weeks time, Carlos had ‘lost’ 60 cuyes. When he only had 180 to begin with, that was a large chunk.

After counting, we started walking the 2 miles back towards town.

Walking back to town…

On the way back, there was a donkey tied up on the side of the road. he was giving me a pretty nasty look so, being in the middle of nowhere – I decided to let him have a piece of my mind.
He didn’t like that.

The Day the Donkey Yelled Back

ok. He actually may have scared me a little bit when he first started ‘yelling’ back.

Bakery

We finally got back to town and headed over to the bakery. I wanted a water and that’s when I realized it. My wallet was gone. Drivers license, debit card, etc. all gone. not to be found anywhere. By this time, Elena had caught up with us. Elena and I walked back to the Taxis. They called the driver we had used and he said that he didn’t see anything in the back of the cab but there had been someone else  back there. Long story short – there was a fat chance of ever seeing it again.
We headed back to the bakery and started working with them. My mind was obviously else where but we finally started making some head-way with them. We convinced them of the problem with credit sales and worked on a new system for them to use. We also discussed goals for after they had paid of their loan.
Three or four hours later, we headed back towards the taxis. We started to climb in a Taxi and then decided to take a last ditch effort and ask one of the locals if they knew the person that had gotten in the cab after us. Of course they didn’t. Twenty minutes later we headed back towards the taxi’s.
In a one in a million chance, the same taxi that had taken us in the morning had returned and was sitting there waiting on people to take back to Viru. After talking to him a moment, we climbed back in the taxi and waited for a few more people to show up before we left (have to have at least 5 people in the cab before it will leave). Out of remorse I sat in the same seat I had sat in that morning. While we where waiting, I started looking around. The cab was so small, my legs where kind of bent up. That ment my pocket was kind of upside down. I thought, “yep, that’s probably what happened. It probably just fell right out of my front pocket.” Then I realized there was pocket in the door. With a brief moment of hope I thrust my hand in to see if by chance my wallet had made the leap from my pocket to the door. No joy. All hope of seeing my wallet was gone.
Then it happened. I stuck my hand back in the door pocket and there it was! My wallet! Can you believe it?!?!
Not a bad day after all;)
Dale Out.