Big Spenders

Usually when my alarm is set before 6:00 I’m not so happy about waking up, but last Tuesday was an exception.  I had an exciting task ahead of me- several coworkers and I were going in to the capital to buy $10,000 worth of books.  Every year we receive over a million dollars worth of books in donations from book consolidators in the States, and then we pass on those donations to schools and libraries we work with, but since those donations come from surplus from publishers, there’s no guarantees to what we get. This year, almost all of our books were at the 3-5^th grade reading levels, so we were in search of some quality early grades books. 

As we walked into the store, Fondo Cultural Economico, the manager came down the stairs to meet us, handshakes and kisses on the cheek were exchanged, and then we were ushered through the store area to a separate room.  Tables had been laid out, books carefully displayed, a careful selection they thought might interest us. We flipped through, quickly discarding books that were too advanced. We asked the price of a book and another employee appeared with a laptop, looking up prices and marking them on a sticky note for every book we were interested in.  Another table magically appeared for us when we wanted to put all the books we were tentatively interested in together.

I found a new favorite, about a little boy with a stubborn pet mastodon and giggled over a wordless picture book of some animals who chase after a fox who stole a hen, only to find out that the fox and hen are actually friends. There were the books I set aside too- Beautifully illustrated poetry that was way to abstract for 6 year olds and moralizing value tales that were too boring to read.  But choosing $10,000 dollars worth of books goes surprisingly quickly when you’re buying for 70 schools and would like best if every school received the same set of books. 

While we were waiting for our order to be packed, the manager invited us to coffee at the bookstore’s adjoining restaurant.  We sipped tea and coffee and talked about book publishing in Mayan languages in their upstairs lounge, and then, urged by the manager to accept his offer of lunch, moved down to the restaurant floor below for cheese stuffed cauliflower and rice. We talked about international book fairs and his plans to expand the bookstore into more of a cultural center, and as the book packing continued, he invited us to try dessert, and we were rewarded by some excellent crepes. There’s a saying here in Guatemala- “full belly, happy heart”.  That was absolutely true at that moment.

We browsed the bookstore as they finished packing out order, and then arranged for delivery and headed back home.  I’m thankful for spending sprees, especially book buying ones, and as we were driving away, I couldn’t help but think I could get used to spending $10,000 at a go if the customer service was always so great.