Out of touch

All of our key people have cell phones here. It is pretty much a requirement for communication. They need to talk to suppliers, to workers deep in the fincas, to each other, and to the office to keep everything going.

The one person who is hard to find is me. I like it this way. Everyone has a cell phone except me. Even those rare times everyone has conspired for me to have a cell phone, we expand and my cell phone is needed by a new person. Often we have to wait to get a cell phone line, so I can then avoid a cell phone for a while again.

I find this great for Finca Leola. The temptation is always there if you can contact the president, to do so. It is a way of dumping your responsibilities on him. This is bad for development of department heads, and it is particularly bad for me, since I might not get the subtle hints of which way they think we should go.

But, if they are in a situation and can’t reach me, they will make the decision and inform me later. Very rarely is it a bad decision, and everyone knows how far to go on decisions without talking with us.

By staying out of touch, it allows me to focus on research and future plans — and of course, writing this blog. I really get very few interruptions during the day. I do make time most mornings to talk with all our key people so they can bounce ideas off me and discuss various things, but the thousands of mundane decisions are in their hands — with guidelines.

I like to base guidelines on a concept called a Pareto, or the 80/20 rule. Applied to management, this means that anyone doing their job should be able to handle 80 percent or more of whatever comes up and should seek outside help with between 10 to 20 percent. This percentage is usually when there is interaction with other departments or when there is a decision that only the owners are authorized to make. Handling these overlapping decisions is where I spend most of my time, because they usually require research.

When someone does something that isn’t exactly what we wanted, this is the opportunity to train. I find that if people aren’t making any mistakes at all, it means they have not yet learned that we value their input. They key is to teach concepts so that mistakes are few and do not put at risk the overall goals, then review the work frequently enough so that guidelines can be adjusted to deal with what we have all learned.  It works best to explain the purpose of what is to be done rather than give someone a 3-inch-thick manual for their job!

Posted in Spanish, campo, cell phone, communications, finca, language learning | 3 Comments »

Riding bikes

Since I have been in Costa Rica, my inspiration for riding my bike is seeing so many people riding bikes of all ages — all ages of people, too. The skill level is incredible. Not for chicken hopping, of which I am the local king (they don’t have clipless pedals) but for the ability to ride a bike in the weirdest of possible combinations. Imagine the following: A woman 35 or so riding down the road and between her and the handle bar  is  a 3-year old sitting on a plank cut to fit snugly on the top tube. It is raining, so she is holding an umbrella with one hand and steering with the other. There is a bulky package dangling from one side of the handle bar. She isn’t riding on pavement, but on a challenging road made of river rock dumped on it and hammered into the sand and mud by traffic. For her, this is no big deal. The ones she considers skilled are the guys who commute to work with their wives. She sits on the plank in front of him. On the way, they are going to drop off the baby she holds in her arms at the sitter, and they will swing by the elementary school to drop off the kid standing behind Dad on the posts that stick out from the wheel hubs. No need for diamond lanes — cars give these bikepoolers a wide berth.

Most people here are small, but I have seen two ladies, each about 50 and each weighing more than 300 pounds, riding on a BMX — yeah, both of them on the same bike. One was pedaling, the other was standing on the posts. They were chatting and laughing the whole time.

Then there is the crazy old geezer around here who rips through town at 30+ kph (19+ mph) on a well-used Cannondale F900 hardtail. Today he caught up and passed two policemen on a motor scooter who waved and smiled at him as he passed. He is quite the sight, I am told, with his white hair whipping behind him and his legs spinning like crazy.  I have never seen him myself, since I don’t look at my reflection in store windows as I pass…but I have heard the stories.

Posted in cultural adaptation, cycling | 1 Comment »

Recycling resources

Now that our new furniture factory/millworks is taking off, a very important project is making kilns for drying lumber. Our part of Costa Rica is pretty humid most of the time, but in the USA homes are much drier, and so are homes in Guanacaste. To sell to these markets, we need to have kiln-dried wood. The nearest kiln is 2 hours away.

 One thing that you tend to get any time you buy a farm is a corral, which is the name for an open-air barn. It might have a concrete floor if you are lucky. If so, by replacing the roof with clear plastic panels and enclosing with scrap wood and installing a few fans, you make a solar kiln. If you need more than that, you can supplement the heat with a wood fire or dry the air using a dehumidifier.

The great thing is that the basic construction is already done, and the location is usually very good as well, near to the road and house.

This is how it goes with many things — we might not make things totally pretty (except our furniture), but we get it done.  One thing that you notice after a while here is that there is nothing left by the side of the road like up in the states. If you don’t use it, someone else will for sure, even after it is way past looking nice. And the remains can always be used for something else.

Posted in drying wood, kiln, off the grid, wood | No Comments »

Making Myself Understood in Spanish

What a challenge it is to make yourself understood even in your own language and culture, much less when everything is foreign!

When we first arrived in Costa Rica, more than 3 1/2 years ago, my Spanish was pretty much non-existent. I had filled myself with enough vocabulary so that I wouldn’t be totally lost but understanding another person was beyond my ability unless they spoke very slowly, with little words and looking straight at me.

Even though now I am pretty functional in Spanish — most people are impressed  since it hasn’t been that long — it still is challenging to communicate. If I want to merely get myself fed, no problem at all, and I even have a very good chance it will be what I ordered, but when I try to get into the details, that’s when it gets hairy. I still deal with the ever-expanding scope of communication. For example, as Finca Leola continues to grow (30 workers now) we also are moving into new areas of doing business besides just planting trees. Every time we start doing something new, like furniture making, I get a whole new set of words to learn.

I have learned not to try to give too many details, because that is what gets me in trouble. Let’s say we need to build something with nails. Perhaps I know that you normally use a 10 penny nail to secure it. I won’t say that; I will just say, secure it. The reason is that if I say “use a 10-penny nail” they probably don’t use the phrase — no pennies in Costa Rica, for one thing. Second, I might be distracted and say use a different size nail from the one I want, and because I am an engineer and the owner, my wishes will be carried out even if it is not what the person would normally do. Third, there might not even be 10 penny nails within 2 hours of us and it requires a special order. Fourth, it is possible that the wood itself will eat nails and you should use galvanized…you get the idea.

So I have learned to just describe what I want to achieve. In the campo, often one word is used for everything. Want to connect something? That would be “pegar,” which I remember by thinking of a peg, as in stick a peg in it. It does not say what to peg it with — just get them together. But even that is fraught with risk. Usually I find it much more effective to merely describe the end result I seek (keep the horses off the lawn) and let people do whatever it is they normally do.

This also allows me opportunities to learn how they do things here where our hardware store isn’t exactly overflowing with options. Usually there is only one way to do almost any given thing because nothing else is available to buy — unless of course you want to drive to the central valley for it, 3 1/2 hours away!

I have at times researched in books for the proper word for things, but it doesn’t always help.  Once I needed to talk to our workers about putting horseshoes on our horses. After having people look at me strangely for saying zapatos de caballos I decided to look it up. The dictionary says herraduras.  Great, so I used that word — even blanker looks until someone showed up from Nicaragua where they use that word. Here it is cascos.  This means the hooves of a horse, but also means a helmet.  So, if you were to ask someone for a casco without being able to explain the context, they could hand you a horseshoe, a helmet, or left the leg of the horse!

As I have said before, I can now confuse people in three languages. Is it possible to be fluent in confusion?

Posted in Spanish, business in Costa Rica, cultural adaptation, horses, language learning | No Comments »