Dave Boone, for whom Marlo did an engineering drawing, enters an an adjacent rocker. He asks how the book is going and says he’ll be talking with Marlo about some small additions to the project.
Then he works on wireless Internet access for his Ipod.
Then he works on wireless Internet access for his Ipod.
I know Marlo’s first-love among his projects here has been the engineering one.
And he has been frustrated by a repeated delay in receiving the promised numbers for an accounting project.
I eagerly offer, “Shall I get Marlo, for you? He’s in the office next door.”
Dave declines. He has to finish a couple of things first.
I smile wryly, and say. “I know—I’m still in North American mode. Marlo teased me the other day, “Empuje, empuje, empuje. (Push, push, push.)”
Marlo had said that last week when I asked our guest house hosts if the swing would be back in service by Tuesday—since the promised Monday deadline would be missed.
Dave, a Californian who has been in Central America for 18 months, smiled back. “You adjust,” he says. “What it takes is two or three projects where you get uptight when things don’t go as planned.”
“And then it turns out all right in the end.
“Last week we had a Canadian work team here, and one man said, ‘Come, on. Let’s move. Let’s move. Time is money.
“And I hadn’t heard that in so long it was a shock.
“Sometimes time is money. Sometimes it’s not.
“It’s not that one way is better, that one culture is right and the other wrong. They’re just different.
“And perhaps the ideal is somewhere between them.”
I nod and opt to stay seated.
But as soon as our Subway-sandwich-lunch is delivered, I eagerly summon Marlo to the lobby, alerting him to Dave’s presence.
Marlo can eat bread and have that conversation, too.
I've neatly maneuvered that one.
Now, if only that swing, promised last Tuesday, will be ready today. . . .
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