Colourblind

Unbelievable, yesterday Mohamed’s cousins showed up to start building the wall around the balconies and veranda. After a few weeks of “bokra” (tomorrow).

This bunch of cousins is the eldest brother, Chero, employing his younger brothers and some friends. In the morning, he is working with them. In the afternoon, he leaves to go to work. He has got a job paid by the government. I do not know what exactly.

The productivity in the morning is therefore much higher than in the afternoon. Yesterday they all left at 2 o’clock.

On such days, Chero looses money instead of gaining some, as he pays a fixed fee per day to his employees . Instead of being well off, he is in need for money all the time. And he could be a rich man. He and his employees are much in demand. Every day people are coming by to ask when they will start working in their house.

Customer satisfaction is not the objective. Keeping the family employed and having food on the table is and meanwhile having some fun, because the evenings they spend playing cards and the weekends they regularly go on a trip together to the coast or somewhere else.

About 10 days ago, the blinds were delivered. Instead of being dark red, as I asked for, they were brown. After having asked why they were a different colour, first the excuse was that the colour I asked for was not in stock. The following day he said for him the blinds were red. After having persisted several times that I did not want brown but red, he called the supplier of the aluminium in Aleppo and after much discussion he promised to deliver red blind on Saturday.

On Monday 8 o’clock in the evening he arrived with red blinds. I was much relieved, because all the time I feared he would come back with the brown ones to try to convince me again to take them after all. It took him until midnight to install them. It was done with much care

The day before yesterday, 6 weeks after having ordered it, the closet for the sleeping room arrived. It was dark brown and not reddish brown, as I asked for. It was returned immediately. This issue is not settled yet.