This was my favorite kind of day, full of surprises and serendipities. We saw there had been a missed call from the previous night from our realtor. He told us the good news that we had an offer on the house! We were very excited, but cautious, as last April another offer had fallen through at the last minute. So we called Osh and spoke to him about next steps. After breakfast, we then took the bus to Ibarra to check why the phone wouldn't charge. The agent discovered that there was a tiny break in the cable, just enough to keep current from going through. We replaced it for about $15 and then took the bus to Otavalo.
Our mission today was to find new products and meet new artisans. Also, Aída had gotten up at six to bring her jewelry and glassware to the market, and we wanted to meet her there and bring her some lunch, as she is there all day by herself. We arrived around 11 and brought her what she wanted to eat, then wandered around the market for a while.
We met two artisans who had products we were interested in and got their contact information. The last one had some really beautiful reconstituted tagua pieces. We have seen these from another artisan and even sold some to our customers, but these were really elegant, a better quality than we've ever seen. The vendor was not present, but his neighbor told us he was at lunch and would be back. So we went to lunch ourselves at our new favorite vegetarian restaurant.
It is so pleasant there, outdoors under the trees, with flowers and music all around. It takes about 20 minutes to have the food cooked, so we just took it all in, like thirsty little plants. Afterwards, we returned to the stall of the tagua jewelry maker. We were approached by a man who spoke mostly Spanish, but his brother saw that we were gringos and came over to help out with the English. They were very friendly, cooperative and outgoing. I started to explain to them that we were looking for artisans for Minga, but I started by asking if they knew what fair trade was. When they said they knew it well, Vincent stopped me telling them why we were there and asked them instead where their workshop was. Oh it's not really far--we're up above Lake San Pablo--little town called San Rafael. All the little sirens went off. We have been selling this man's products for five years! His name is Armando, and that kicked in, too--we met him in 2011 at his home in San Rafael, where he has planted a very large and beautiful garden that he told us we could come to visit at any time. His jewelry skills have improved so much that we didn't recognize him at first. It would have been embarrassing to tell him all about a client who regularly orders from him, so we left as soon as we could. We have sent the photos of the product to the U.S., so he will likely be getting an order, but we didn't want to look like dummies. We laughed at our own folly all the way down the street.
After several blocks, we looked up and saw Cristhian, the leather artisan, coming towards us. Otavalo is a really small town if we can meet two artisans with whom we are acquainted within just a few minutes of each other. It was hot today, sunny, but with a nice breeze. Altogether a delightful day, with many sweet surprises.
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