We are open, check that, La Casa Amarilla has been open almost a month and the backpackers and tourists are trickling through.  Well, that was until Semana Santa when we struggled to find beds for eveyone. I would say that we are nowhere near, in my personal opinion, to being really truly prepared, but the very fact that people have started to come looking for La Casa Amarilla is positive. Capacity is around the 14-16 mark depending on whether people care to sleep in hammocks.

These past few weeks have been a struggle to say the least I would attribute a fair few of the grey hairs burgeoning at my temples to the continual trials put forward by the foreman and his staff. Some days he shows up, others he doesn’t. Some days he is here and has quite clearly planned on doing very little.

One can reprimand Eddy a bit but only to a point since there is the very real risk that he will walk away and there will be no one else qualified in Mompós to finish the job. The real issue is not with an individual but with a general attitude. Think Latin, think South American, think Colombian and then add some Caribbean to the mix and you get an idea of what we are dealing with. To the left of where I sit in my front room I can make out someone blowing snot onto cement in that familiar funnelled spittle trajectory of noise. I shudder.

There are also some interesting conundrums mixed into the blend. The general labourers work harder and faster when solo gringa travellers show up looking for accommodation, it is as if (and I have a sneaking suspicion) they make plans in their minds as to how they would like to “wine and dine” these limber fair skinned North Americans and Europeans so different to the local girls. Eddy, on the other hand works faster when there are more young muscular labourers about and indeed puts in an extra effort and drops his prices for jobs when my girlfriend’s brother Ponchito is about. 

When I realised a certain pattern was emerging I mentioned it in a throwaway fashion to Eddy’s brother who happens to be working on the zinc laminate gutters. It occurred to me that Eddy must have a hard time of things in a macho isolated society and in an even more macho industry. His bother just frowned and said:

“My parents had 37 children and only one turned out wrong.”

***

I left yesterday for fifteen minutes to get some supplies in the mid afternoon and upon my return found there to be only one person remaining on the site. Six employees, ranging from casual labourers to skilled carpenters had decided that their time was best spent elsewhere.  It took me a while to fathom why anyone would do this? Leave the gutters half suspended from the newly installed colonial roofs by rope, break a number of tiles and leave cement hardened to the kitchen floor.

But these are negatives. I should praise what has happened. The roofs are completed, they are beautiful restorations of the original colonial style, and a carpenter has completely renovated the corridor that runs around the internal garden, hand fashioning eight vast pillars from which shall swing some hammocks in the near future. Everywhere has been painted, the fridge, mattresses, beds, tables, bathrooms and washing machine have all either arrived or been completed.

It has been an adventure thus far, these adventures are sure to continue.