Shrimp anyone?

NB*** for some reason this formatted without any spaces. I am not going to take the time to fix it so ... instead i apologize... **** sorry

There is a sound I hear often these days. It is the sound of Luis saying “HOY!” That is his way of calling us. If we don’t answer to hoy then he will say, Hoy Bob, hoy Deborah.

So this morning I hear HOY! (really loud!) I go to the door to see Luis standing there with a shrimp in his hand. I smile and say… “oh shrimp” He begins to ramble in Spanish and points to the road. I gather there is someone there who is selling shrimp. He smiles and says “come”

I say, “wait I need Limpera”

So I go to the road and see a man with a red wheel barrel carrying a cooler and a scale. I know there is shrimp and perhaps fish inside because I have bought shrimp from vendors like this in Coxen Hole many times. I just didn’t realize they delivered!!!

So we negotiate a price. The price is 75.00 Limpera per pound. (about $4.00 a pound) That is a good price since I had paid 90.00 the other day. I want to see the shrimp. They are frozen so that is good. (you don’t want to buy fresh here because of the heat .. it could go bad pretty quick!)

I agree to get 2 pounds of shrimp. He reaches into his cooler and begins to fill a small bag with shrimp. Then he gets his ancient, hopefully reliable scale assembled and weighs it. Pretty professional I’d say!

Now here comes the problemo!! I have a 500 limpera note (which is about 25.00) I show him this and he shakes his head saying … no, no. Oh oh… that is all I have on me. Suddenly the Spanish jabber starts and he points to the Pulperia (small shop) down the road.

I say, “Oh you want me to get change?”

“No, No .. Luis go”

At this point Luis is running up the hill to our place to get his bike and within minutes I give him my money and he rides off. While he is gone I ask Mr. Shrimp Man if I can take his photo?

“Oh photo?? Si, Si!”

Good, so now I run up the driveway (yes I really did run) to grab my camera. I find out that his name is Lino,(pronounced Leano) and he lives up the road. He says he will come again on Saturday to bring more shrimp. (well he doesn’t say that he points to the ground and says Saturday!) Wow home delivery!! People love to get their pictures taken here which is good but few of them smile. I guess they think they should be serious or something.

After about 10 min of picture taking and small talk (very small talk since we don’t speak each other’s language!) Luis zooms up on his bike , and hands me my money. I pay Lino. He is happy. I am happy. Luis is really happy

All of that took about 30 minutes.. a little interruption in my day but it saved me a trip to town and now I have shrimp to make coconut shrimp!! oh yeah!!

Try and imagine this happening in Canada. The closest we get is the icecream truck!!

A note: I wasn’t sure how to spell Mr. Shrimp Man’s name. I thought it was Leno but it didn’t seem right so I just meandered outside and after awhile I said to Luis… “umm.. Luis… senoir who sold shrimp…Leno?? How do you spell his name?”

“His name?”

“spell it por fa vor"

So he cleared off some leaves in the ground and with a stick wrote “L I N O”

Who needs paper and a pen when you have dirt and a stick??! It works! J