Referencias on the street!

Today’s Preparation Day/PDay Activities- August 2nd, 2008

This morning, Saturday, Sarah wanted to finally have a day to sleep in, not getting up at 6am like she has been doing all week long. It is noon, and Mike and I went early for a walk to pick up paper & a medialuna/crescent roll at a local Castaño bakery chain here, close to our house. We didn’t find the kind we liked, as they sell out from the night before and don’t bake in the mornings like the US bakeries do, so we walked on down to a large main street, Apoquindo. We passed these beautiful, towering penthouse buildings, where the private owners occupy the total floor of the building, as their home. They have gorgeous entry/foyers on the bottom, main floor, with a private concierge and guard, set up with designer furniture, art, flower arrangements, etc. This gives you an indication of the types of apartments located above in the building. I hear that the church owns two floors in one of the buildings, on the street over from us, and this is where Elder Holland lived while he was here, and now Elder Carlos Amado is living. I wish they would hold an open house for real estate in any one of these some day, so I could go and poke my head in and see how others live here. Outside on their mulitiple private balconies, they have sumptuous plants, greenery of all kinds of descriptions, flowers, rose bushes, etc, that are tumbling over the sides and down, creating a continuous waterfall from the top floors and going down. These are so spectacular and just a treat to enjoy, even for me from the outside, looking up.
We wandered down to Apoquindo, a huge street with many nice business buildings, housing companies like banks, Nestle, 3M, Computer technology, Cell phone, etc, and while turning left and walking another few blocks, Mike noticed these alto-altura trabajadores/high altitude workers up on this skyscraper, making their way down on repelling ropes, with hardhats on, (ironically to protect them from the fall?), buckets attached to their wooden swingset-type seat, swinging rhythmically back and forth, dipping their soapy brushes in their buckets to slop it all over the windows and metal/steel moldings, and then swiping their long squeegees methodically across all of the glass, to get it to a shiny clean. They were attached by 1 rope & 1 security rope.

Apoquindo, Las Condes, Santiago High Altitude Workers, (Skyscrapers=Rascacielos)
Window cleaners who were more like gymnists Co-Owner, Maximillian Gonzalez, de Argentina

As we watched them work, amazed at their efficiency, along with their bravery, we found 2 men standing by at the base of this huge bank, with a placard stating, “Peligro/Danger” High altitude work is going on above. Please proceed with caution.” One was obviously watching and there as the supervisor, so I walked up to him to begin the questions. (You in our family all know how inquisitive I can be, even to your dismay. Sorry, it happened again!)

How long have these men been trained to do this? 3 months before they go to this size bldg.
How old are these workers, typically? Age 22-40yrs. Depends on physical strength and abilities.
How long does it take to do a whole bldg of this size? This size; 2 days, others w/60 floors; 4days.
Do you have contracts with other bldgs in this area? We do this along with replacing windows, silicone sealing, cleaning stone blgds, not just windows, etc. Anything job with high altitude needs.
Are you the owner? My dad owns our company in Argentina, but we’ve branched here and moving into 3 other countries soon. I’ve lived in Spain, Paraguay, Panama doing work.
Dad asked, “how much do these men typically make, on the average?” about $500. monthly. We pay for their insurance here too. We’ve had incidents, close calls, but no real accidents.

This of course got him to start talking….and he made a few comments that made me ask, “where are you from originally?” and he said, Argentina, so then we really started chatting. He had lived all over and started talking about society, how life is different here than Argentina. He played Rugby growing up, but that the youth now don’t have the same focus on sports from their young age, maybe families splitting more, and the kids don’t have same thrill to go and play. Mike and I of course began to talk about our church, why we are here, what we believe about families, how important it is to take time for them. He is really sad that people just meet in bars, restaurants etc instead of having people over to your home, like he grew up with in Argentina. He feels like we need to invest more time in our families. Mike told him we’d love to invite you to attend one of our churches. Mike found out where he lives, what area basically, and asked if he had a business card. He told us just a minute, and ‘ran over to his car.’ (I wish all people were that eager to share about themselves and hear more about the gospel that they would RUN!) I felt like that was just another moment for us to see how the Lord moves in His work here. He led us to this man, and gave us the opportunity to share our thoughts and testimony with him. We will definitely send the missionaries to his home and hopefully he’ll be as receptive with them too. We felt that his spirit was genuine and sincere. What a sweet experience to see how the gospel really can bless and influence our lives, and hopefully will for Maximillian Gonzalez. It’s not numbers, it’s people!