Betrayal

Things are getting a little weird up in here. Things are happening and I'm not sure where they are going to go. For starters, a bunch of the directors of our artisan/business group along with myself just found out/realized that Solomon had been receiving 5% of sales of everything they make or sale including tours. I'm sure there was a meeting at some point where Solomon said something like “so I'm going to take 5% of the stuff we sell because we will sell more” and everyone nodded yes while staring into oblivion. I'm glad the others eventually realized that this is outrageous and that it is probably not right that the person taking the order over the phone is getting more money than the person creating the product that takes two straight days. Everyone also just realized that the tour guides are making about half as much as we are paying the owners of the farms to walk through them. This is absolutely ridiculous and when I saw this almost lost my shit.

I specificly remember when we planned out all this that there was no percentage for anyone selling the tour and that we would give about .50 to each farm for each tour. It just so happens that the tourists walk through Solomon's and his brothers farm during the tour so you can see where the money is going. It's not that all this is shady. I guarantee that he presented this to the group and they stood there in silence. It more that he about 10x smarter than most people in the group and he knows he can get away with it. Here is an example of the pure genius of another member of the directors. To measure out sugar quantities for each bag of hot chocolate mix he was filling up small plastic bags of sugar of once ounce and then stapling them shut to later be used to put into the mix and sell. There are 2 ounces of sugar in each bag so the next person had to open the staple on two bags and pour the contents into the mix. I simply asked why he didn't just measure out 2 ounces each time and pour it into the mix and he said that was probably a good idea. Solomon has the advantage.

So since a couple people are just finding out all this crap about how he is raking in the dough while everyone else is scraping by me and three of the other guys had to hold an emergency secret meeting to talk about how they were going to go about presenting all this to the rest of the group and wanted to know what I thought about it. I kida felt bad going behind Solomon's back but I knew that if we brought all this up with him present that he would take over and get his way. We talked for hours and they are going to have a meeting with the whole group to try to resolve all of it. I think my best word of advice was for them to do a silent voting system so no one can see if they are going against them. We will see. I won't be there I can tell you that.

As for the other stuff, well that's getting weird too. Well not weird. Just changing. We have a lot of tourists I'm pretty sure it has a lot to do with the article that I wrote and the time of the year, but the thing is that is has been raining non stop and people seem to be slipping everywhere. I think it's funny when I see tourists show up in sandals and shorts like this was the beach.

I've started some preliminary stuff in looking for good houses to make water tanks for as I've been starting to plan for a group of high school kids to come down for 3 weeks with their teacher from the states to bring some money and do a project. I that sounds like pure hell to a lot of volunteers as they usually don't like sharing their site with anyone and the don't like young adults usually and especially from the states. I on the other hand don't mind. I worked at a summer camp for most my life and loved it. I think it will be a great learning experience for the kids and for the community and it will be kind of a last big hora as I will be leaving 3 months after they arrive. That's right I only have about 9 months left. Crazy huh? It's gone by so fast at some moments and slow as a snail in others. The next couple months are going to fly.

Other weird stuff. I got two types of amoebas at the same time and had blood in my stool. That was fun. I sat on the couch at our regional house and watched movies all day trying to forget about the knifing pain in my stomach. I had to be close to a toilet anyways as their was no warning as to when the little worms wanted out. Tonight is domino night and its right next to my house so its going to be loud. I've found the only way to get around it is to play along with them that way I'm less annoyed at the slamming of dominos. Until next time....