There are four more hours left for speculation in the Pangururan market so I have some time on my hands. I should find a mechanic for my car Azuria, as its rear axle is in great need of “surgery”.
Azuria and the mechanics, part one
The repairman lifts the car on the ram, takes off the wheels and removes the shock absorbers. He flashes them before my eyes.
– These are busted, bapak. Completely destroyed. You need to change them at once.
– Then change them.
– We don’t have any shock absorbers this size. Your car is a new model.
On the market for about three years, Azuria was like a UFO on Samosir. We got on a becak and went from one spare parts store to another to find what the doctor ordered.
– We’ve got shock absorbers, but they’re a bit shorter.
– Oh, we do have them, but a drop longer then what you need.
– No, it’s a new model. Sorry, but we don’t carry the exact dimensions shock absorbers.
– … You could try some longer ones. Not much longer. Just a dash. There’s no problem.
Where I come from, a repair shop is the place where they fix cars. You bring your wreck in, they change what needs to be changed and you take it home. But the shop in Pangururan was much more than that: it was a designing shop. The owner himself was turning a spare part on a machine lathe. Two employees were welding a car frame surrounded by big pieces of sheet metal, pipes, grinders and sledge hammers. These people weren’t fixing cars. They were building them.
– No, sir, we don’t make shock absorbers. You should buy the longer ones. Better longer than shorter.
– Now that’s a line to remember.
Fitted with its new shock absorbers Azuria was clonking and rattling as bad as before. I should have left it in the designer’s hands for a total makeover but I didn’t have the time. It was already 2 o’clock and I had to see the closing price for the coffee on the market.
This is how coffee is sold at the market in Pangururan.
– 15,000 Rupiah for a kilogram (that’s approximately 1.2 Euro)
– Is it negotiable?
– That’s the price the buyer has set. It’s already been negotiated.
– Negotiated by whom?
– How much are you looking to buy?
To be honest, 15,000 INR for a kilogram of green coffee was not such a bad deal. Even if drying it lost me half of its weight, it was still a bargain.
– I’m not looking to buy. I just want to learn a thing or two.
And there was one more thing I wanted to learn. If the dealer sells one kilogram of coffee for 1.2 Euro, how much does the farmer get? Only one way to find out – from the farmers themselves.
Korupsi
Do you remember the terrible Sumatran roads I was telling you about? Well, once we got on the way to the villages of Samosir I changed my mind. That wasn’t hell. This was. It felt like I was driving through a dry riverbed. Half an hour and only one kilometer later, I got out of the car and let Posmen behind the wheel as I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
– This road was paved with asphalt about 3 years ago.
– Posmen, you’re pulling my leg. I can’t see any trace of asphalt here.
– That’s because they did a bad job. They didn’t build a foundation for it. And they used less surfacing material then needed.
– Why would they do that?
– Korupsi. The Government paid the money but the contractors used only 10% of that amount for building the road. The rest was divided between some high class pockets. Ada korupsi, tidak ada jalan (where there’s corruption there are no roads)
– Korupsi. The word sounds the same in about every language I know. And they say “Love” is universal…
There are about 30 coffee varieties in the world, out of which Arabica and Robusta are the two most common.
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