2.16.2017

Journal, August 8, 1976 AM (Sunday)

I didn’t go into Santa Tecla. Jay {Hasheider} talked me into staying, since we “knew” the doctor’s friends would be leaving last evening. As it turned out, we walked over there {the doctor’s beach house} after supper, and they had left, but only momentarily, and would be back to spend the night. We fixed Jay’s bike & came back over here to Kikilita {the other beach house}. Just before we left the other place, Jay noticed that Modesto, the kid of the cuideros {caretakers} (don Adán y familia {and family}), had some kind of infection on his right leg. It looked like several infected wounds or huge pus-filled pimples around his knee & extending up onto his thigh. We are going to take him to see the doctors at El Maizal today. Jay decided. It looked so bad he felt something had to be done right away. I had to agree.

Yesterday morning we went to Sonsonate to get a tube for Jay’s bike. We stopped by the home of Conrad Ebish’s girlfriend, Ana, and there found her & Conrad, and some baskets Jay had had purchased for him in Nahuizalco. Another of Jay’s schemes was unfolded before me. He plans to send back the baskets and some “pastes” (a plant that when dried & cleaned out makes a natural scrubber) to a sister and have her check into markets for them. If there is demand for something he’ll ship big quantities & go into business.

Anyway, we spent the day buying “pastes”, going to the Post Office to check mailing rates, and shooting the breeze with Conrad and Ana. It was all pretty pleasant and relaxing, and as Jay says, a year or so ago he wouldn’t have spent a day like that. He would have thought it was a waste of time. That goes double for me. It is a waste of time, but also a way of passing the time, and after all that’s what a great part of our lives are devoted to – passing the time – rather than financially or intellectually productive activities.

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