Curve Balls...

One of the things about being incapacitated and unable to work in Mompiche is that there is no back up plan unless you can find a way to somehow create your own safety net. When life in the jungle throws out a curve ball, there’s no unemployment insurance. No savings in the bank to fall back on. No one to borrow from. I’m pretty much left to my own devices. Fortunately, over the years, I have found ways to cover my ass in case of emergencies, even if just for a short time.

During those productive times when business is good and financially flush, I’m in the habit of keeping any small change from store purchases in old soy milk powder tins. Separating five and ten cent coins, and another tin for those valuable quarters, I drop the coins into each tin for the entire season and keep that going until the tins are full. Each year, around the same time, the quiet season at the end of winter after the trickle of income runs dry, I bust open those tins and see what’s in them. That money gets stretched out as far as possible in the hopes it will fill the gap between the last customer of the last season and the first customer of the next season. Sometimes, it does.

This year, there has been a much bigger gap between those seasonal customers and getting hurt forced me to shut down the restaurant for a month so I could recover. Unable to walk, I had to turn clients away, knowing full well they were only in Mompiche for a few days as tourists and wouldn’t be able to come back another day when I was feeling better. That lost income felt almost as painful as my pulsating knee. It sucked to feel so helpless. It also sucked to disappoint a family who had come a long way to eat at Secret Garden. Unable to stand up, there was nothing I could do.

When the last dollar from last season’s last customer was finally spent, I opened up those three tins. The stores would take the coins. They always need small change. I just had to count it, bag it, and deliver it. I divided the five cent, ten cent, and twenty-five cent coins into five bags of $20. There were still quite a few coins left over but not enough to make up a bag of $20 in total. Over $100. It was more than I was expecting. This year, I’ve been way more thrifty than I’d previously thought. As long as there are no more curve balls, this will be enough to cover the basic food bills for about a month. Enough time to breathe a little until the next customer walks through the door. Can’t ask for much more than that really…