The Silent Devil – I (El Diablo Tranquilo)
Posted on | December 15, 2009 | No Comments
Erin, the manager of the hostel and the staff, all from the US, resieved me very, very freindly. I felt extreme comfortable and welcome, telling them about my walks. I felt so much in love with this place, that I was thinking about staying for some longer. But first I had to meet Fabian. I had no money to stay in the hostel…
I met Fabian and we went to his place. Well hidden in the woods. A big field, surrounded by nature: Birds, trees, bushes, plants, horses, silence. And in the middle, a wooden house, where he offered me to put my tent. There he lived, with his 2 children: Luan and Sol. It got night. We smoked a cigarette, drank Caiperinña and philosophised. Alicia, his sister joined us later. An awsome
evening. Suddenly Fabian got a call from the hostel: “Andrej is invited to the hostel tonight… and he can have dinner as well!”.
I bounced back to the hostel.
An awsome night, talking with the travelers, the staff, sitting at the chimney, relaxing in the hammock, and later: Having a good dinner.
Sunrise. The next day came and I did`t want to leave. If there was a possibility to stay, I would do it. So I asked…
Erin, the manager talked to the boss of the hostel, who I still didn`t even see until then. “He`s always busy, running around, doing a lot of stuff”. I can imagine… Brian, as well from the US, like the whole rest of the crew, is now 27 years old and started the whole buisness when he was 24. Incredible. To come from the US to Uruguay, beeing 24 years old, without speaking Spanish and starting a half-a-million-dollar-project. And it`s running. It`s running very well. “El Diablo Tranquilo” is definetly the best equipped and most beautyfull hostel of the town. And of course the most known and most visited, though it`s more expensive than the others.
Anyway… I could stay! I could stay, helping with the construction of the building where they had the bar in the first floor. In the second and third floor they are building up a nother hostel.
Of course I will help… An honor to be part of this progress… and to stay here…
The bar (under construction) with Andy (left) Brian, the boss (right)
I started the work on monday. Full of enthusiasm I went down to the bar at 8 am, when the work was supposed to start… There was one construction worker, standing around with a confused facial expressian. I came to him, saying that I`m coming to help.
“There is no one here”, he said. “I don`t know what to do. We have to wait for the supervisor.”
The supervisor was Nekassio, but he didn`t come at his day, so Pepe, who arrived with his crew at 9 am took over. Work started… without me. I didn`t know what to do, and no one told me. I asked one of the workers, how I can help. He was thinking hard. “Ok, take a shovel and get some earth for the cement”. I grabbed the shovel and started shoveling. I shoveled fast and much. My enthusiasm was speeding me up. The worker, moving slowly with a bucket of water from A to B, stopped between A and B to make a break. Smoking his cigarett, he looked at me confused for a while: “What are you doing?…”
“Shoveling.”
“I see… But you don`t have to kill yourself. Relax.”
I didn`t understand that statement. What did he mean by “relax”?! We`re on work, man. Anyway, I kept shoveling.
Afterwards I asked Pepe, the one who was supposed to guide me that day, what to do. He seemed to have no idea. After a while of thinking he said something to me I didn`t understand.
85% of all what this guys said I didn`t understand. They speak Spanish without opening their mouth. When I explained them that I don`t understand, the started speaking nervously faster and louder…
The guys were very simple. Not the smartest. Not even regarding constructions. They build up the terrace, and days later they remembered that they have to install the water-pipes under the terrace. So they had to repture part of the terrace again. They broke several tools. They skipped work sometimes. They gaped at every single girl, passing by. And they ignored me a lot of times, `cause I wasn`t really able to catch up with theire insider-spanish. Often I felt like the only worker there. I was cleaning the floor, removing dry cement, brushing the rooms, making cement, removing a lot of trash lying arround, etc. until 6, sometimes 7 pm (with a 2 hours break in between). During the work there was alway someone just hanging around and doing nothing, talking, walking around, smoking a cigarette, then another one then another one, while staring at the wall with the look of a professional.
But well… After work I came exhausted back. I felt good. I did something. I gave something. And in the evening I had a nice time, chatting with the travelers and sometimes enjoying a beer, which some guest spent me.
Bar - El Diablo Tranquilo
Soon I met Brian. Indeed: Always in a hurry, but when you got to talk to him for a short time: Calm and friendly.
Anyway… after 3 days, I felt, that there was something missing… I was dirty, my hair was full of cement and dust, my clothes full of dirt. And… I felt a bit weak… I needed food! Until now my sallery for 7 hours physical work a day was a bed and a dinner. Ok,… breakfest as well (some peaces of bread with dulce de leche and a coffee). I started wondering. No one gave me any kind of lunch or money to buy at least a sandwich for me or a peece of soap to wash myself… They don`t seriously think that a human can work 7 hours a day on constructions with 1 meal a day and two peeces of bread in the morning… Do they? It`s physicly impossible. I desided to talk with Erin.
“Erin… Is there something like lunch or a little sallary for me to buy lunch? ´Cause I need to eat for the work.”
“But you get dinner.”
“Well… But just the dinner is not enough for 7 hours work with constructions.”
Erin made a oh-my-god-this-guy-asks-for-too-much – face, saying: “Ok, I make you a sandwich tomorrow”.
The next day I started work, already looking forward for my sandwich.
Slowly I started to get used to my work-mates. And they started to understand, that I understand them better when they spoke slow. Little small-talks became possible and a small but nice conection could develope. It was not the first time, Pepe started again with the same topic:
Pepe: “So, you don`t get paied at all??”
Me: “No.”
Pepe: “You don`t even get lunch?”
Me: “No… Well, today I get a sandwich.”
Pepe laughed, almost rolling himself on the floor. “You know how you will look like after 2 weeks?”, and he stretched out his small finger…
Siesta-time. I went back to the hostel. “Erin… You have the sandwich?”
“Ow, damn, I forgot… Ok, take this cash and see what you can get for it.”
Well, I got 100 Pesos Uruguayos (5 Dollars), which was even better than the sandwich. I could buy pasta.
Well, a week passed. Sunday was free… I went to the backyard of the hostel. It was a nice sunny day. The backyard was full of trash, wood, pest plants. It could be such a nice place, such a nice garden… How can they let it like that? I thought. I spoke to the staff… They planed to clean it up and make a garden there… But until now, nothing happened.
I started cleaning up the backyard, and a square for the garden and digged the earth. It took some days but it was amazing to see the progress. I discovered that I love gardening. Almost as much as walking. I love to dig around in the earth. Anyway…
The next day I woke up very tired. I had no food again. And no money of course. I felt very weak. The constructors shaked their heads: “How much longer do you want to do this?”.
That was actually a good question. I don`t know what still held me there. Maybe it were the nice evenings. Maybe it was, lying in the hammok sometimes, just beeing silent and listen to the wind and the talking travelers. Maybe the curiosity, how is it going to be if th second building is finished. And for sure it was my vision to finish the garden. To plant some flowers and vegetables there. But fact is, I needed food. I start to offer massage at the hostels for 200 Pesos per hour. I hang a sign on the wall in the hostel and hoped that I would get some clients. I went to work.
Pepe and the other constructers bought a package of tabaco for me sometimes. Sometimes they shared their food with me. Sometimes I got an apple. And once 50 Pesos to by a sandwich. It was very nice of the guys. They were not supposed to give me anything. Because I was not working for them, but for the hostel. They shared with me though they also didn`t have a lot. They were not very smart, there was not much to talk about with them, they were not even good constructors, they obviously didn`t travel a lot and were not the wisest men… But they were humans out of flesh, blood and with beating hearts in their chests, instead of business.
Me at work
Pepe
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