The Puzzle
In America we take shopping for granted. I don't know if I've ever given it much thought. If I want something I can head head to one of my 3 favorite stores plop Miss. K in a cart or simply order it on Amazon and wait a day for it to arrive.
This is not the case in Bolivia. In Bolivia if I say I would like a television stand for example, I will be carted to an entire street full of furniture vendors. This at first seems like a great place to shop, that is until you realize that every single shop on the street carries the exact same products, just with slightly different prices. So after you've been in the 3rd store you know number 4-7
are not going to have what you're looking for. And so does your kid who is over walking and looking at the same piece of furniture again and again.
When you have searched all seven stores to no avail but happen upon the exact piece of furniture you were envisioning on day 2 of the hunt it's like finding gold! Which makes it hard to look disinterested when attempting to make a deal. Even harder still when the guy selling you what you want to use as a TV stand and toy storage can't get over the fact that it was intended to be a kitchen cabinet, thus you have to explain for the millionth time that, while you realize this is not it's intended purpose it will in fact work.
See. I was right.
Sure, they have furniture stores here where I could have paid a rediculous amount of money and had the perfect American furnitue delivered to my house, but with a lot of leg work, patience and one squishy car ride I have what I needed at a fraction of the cost. Though to be sure there are a lot of Bolivians rolling their eyes at the crazy American woman who wants a kitchen cabinet for her livingroom.
Keep in mind this was just one piece of the puzzle that is making a home here. Yesterday instead of buying a crazy expensive couch I was encouraged to take a old used one, replace the cushions and get it covered in a material of my choosing. So, project couch is also afoot.
The biggest piece of our new home puzzle arrived late last night a week later than promised, but more beautiful than I imagined. Before coming I had requested a kitchen cart that would serve as my entire kitchen. Hubby found a place that would in fact make it to our specifications and ordered one to be made for me based on a picture I had found on Pinterest.
Well, my dream kitchen cart arrived in the back of a pickup truck but it turns out the thing weighs about as much as a baby elephant (I imagine) so the guy who came to deliver it with a bum knee and those of us in the house had no chance of moving it up our steep steps to the second floor apartment. Alas my perfect kitchen cart is sitting downstairs in the kitchen until we find some macho men to move it somehow.
After seeing the couch and the size of my cart I took another look at our two rooms and came to the conclusion that the beds really had to be moved into the smaller of our 2 rooms if everything were to fit comfortably. So this morning after a cup of coffee I moved our very solid very heavy wooden beds from one room to the other, and now I can better envision our new space as a functioning home. Once we get all the pieces into place.
This is not the case in Bolivia. In Bolivia if I say I would like a television stand for example, I will be carted to an entire street full of furniture vendors. This at first seems like a great place to shop, that is until you realize that every single shop on the street carries the exact same products, just with slightly different prices. So after you've been in the 3rd store you know number 4-7
are not going to have what you're looking for. And so does your kid who is over walking and looking at the same piece of furniture again and again.
When you have searched all seven stores to no avail but happen upon the exact piece of furniture you were envisioning on day 2 of the hunt it's like finding gold! Which makes it hard to look disinterested when attempting to make a deal. Even harder still when the guy selling you what you want to use as a TV stand and toy storage can't get over the fact that it was intended to be a kitchen cabinet, thus you have to explain for the millionth time that, while you realize this is not it's intended purpose it will in fact work.
Sure, they have furniture stores here where I could have paid a rediculous amount of money and had the perfect American furnitue delivered to my house, but with a lot of leg work, patience and one squishy car ride I have what I needed at a fraction of the cost. Though to be sure there are a lot of Bolivians rolling their eyes at the crazy American woman who wants a kitchen cabinet for her livingroom.
Keep in mind this was just one piece of the puzzle that is making a home here. Yesterday instead of buying a crazy expensive couch I was encouraged to take a old used one, replace the cushions and get it covered in a material of my choosing. So, project couch is also afoot.
The biggest piece of our new home puzzle arrived late last night a week later than promised, but more beautiful than I imagined. Before coming I had requested a kitchen cart that would serve as my entire kitchen. Hubby found a place that would in fact make it to our specifications and ordered one to be made for me based on a picture I had found on Pinterest.
Well, my dream kitchen cart arrived in the back of a pickup truck but it turns out the thing weighs about as much as a baby elephant (I imagine) so the guy who came to deliver it with a bum knee and those of us in the house had no chance of moving it up our steep steps to the second floor apartment. Alas my perfect kitchen cart is sitting downstairs in the kitchen until we find some macho men to move it somehow.
Comments
Post a Comment