RICO’S DIGEST – Here is a little story about living in a small town, OK, Santa Ana is not a small town, but it acts and feels like it on some days.
Yesterday I was at the local hardware store, buying some wood for one of my latest projects.
My purchase was more than I expected, and since I didn’t have my “chapulin” (my old Toyota), and didn’t want to damage the inside of my car, I asked for delivery, (about 2 kilometers, a little over a mile for those not attuned to the metric.
Cost, 3,000 colones (like $5).
But that is not the story.
Here I am in a store I have never been in before, don’t know the people, nor do they know me. Asked where to deliver, I delve into the usual, “from here, left at, some meters south….” when I was interrupted and asked “by the pulperia?”
“Yes, a few more paces up from there,” I replied.
“Oh, by gallina,” the kind man helping me arrange for the transport.
“Yes, he’s my neighbor, I live next door,” I said, thinking back to the first time I met “gallina”, my neighbor, whose name, in this small town is not important, but his nickname is, that everyone, as it appears, knows.
Enough said. I needed not to provide anything else. Not even a phone number. The driver would know exactly where to go.
And that he did.
Thinking the delivery wouldn’t be that quick, I made a quick stop along the way. But the driver, who had been called in my presence, had already picked up my order and was at my house, at my front gate.
In Santa Ana, at least the west side in communities like Piedades and Rio Oro, everyone knows of everyone.
Me, as I have come to know, I am known as the “Italian, with the dogs”.
It seems that although no one knows me, everyone knows me.
