CHAPTER 3
I was a Roman conquering in Colombia; while my Praetorian guard was guarding the home front.
First day we met she knew I would fly. Her belief in me made me a superhero and my love for her made her my sidekick. Blonde and blue eyed and venomously loyal. We struck out at never striking out.
Lisette has always been my hardest sell yet she buys all my goods. I tell her the moon is worth pursuing. She gives me shit why it's an impossible deal and I make it happen.
Two glass installers installing glass back home in Miami, our small empire was rising.
Confidence building at the start of the the race is the grey matter that matters most for business to rise.
Back to the business at hand; some glass shops I visited where nervous. I could tell they where apprehensive dealing with me.
At first they offered coffee, they would talk about the coffee and pride rolled of their tongue then we would get to the meat and potatoes.
There where a few cars that it was tough for them to get glass for, anything being an encapsulated piece was out of their reach. Encapsulated means a piece of glass that has a molding bonded to it, that technology was not available in Colombia yet. Their installers would spend an entire day salvaging the old molding this was very unproductive. They needed my wares and I needed the sale.
There was a local glass distributor by the airport in the El Dorado neighborhood called Vitemco, Vidrios Templados Colombianos. As I made the marketing rounds one of their representatives named Lucho reached out to me and invited me to lunch.
I had been a coconut street vendor in the streets of Hialeah, I had sold sneakers at the Opalocka flea market, I was a bus boy at Lilas and La Carreta restaurants and here I was being courted by the largest glass company in Colombia. You can just imagine how pumped I was.
Confidence building at the start of the the race is the grey matter that matters most for business to rise.
Back to the business at hand; some glass shops I visited where nervous. I could tell they where apprehensive dealing with me.
At first they offered coffee, they would talk about the coffee and pride rolled of their tongue then we would get to the meat and potatoes.
There where a few cars that it was tough for them to get glass for, anything being an encapsulated piece was out of their reach. Encapsulated means a piece of glass that has a molding bonded to it, that technology was not available in Colombia yet. Their installers would spend an entire day salvaging the old molding this was very unproductive. They needed my wares and I needed the sale.
There was a local glass distributor by the airport in the El Dorado neighborhood called Vitemco, Vidrios Templados Colombianos. As I made the marketing rounds one of their representatives named Lucho reached out to me and invited me to lunch.
I had been a coconut street vendor in the streets of Hialeah, I had sold sneakers at the Opalocka flea market, I was a bus boy at Lilas and La Carreta restaurants and here I was being courted by the largest glass company in Colombia. You can just imagine how pumped I was.
This lunch at Andres Carne de Rez, yes this lunch was the magic wand that would turn my pumpkin into a Ferrari.
Luis Carlos Galán a leading presidential candidate had recently been assassinated on live tv. He was up on stage when he was riddled with bullets from a motorcycle assassin. His was freshest corpse in the battle that brewed.
Sad but what was this to me. As I started on my steak my host began to tell me about the security concerns at Casa de Nariño this being the Colombian Presidential Palace.
Keep in mind I'm in my early twenties. Just a decade and some sunset and sunrises ago I was a guajirito back in Cuba in my hometown of Madruga and now I find myself with these proper speaking refined characters.
I chew on this beef and he tells me that his company's purchasing quota from PPG, the American staple of glass companies founded in eighteen eighty three in Pennsylvania, was maxed out. I heard him but all I could think about was swimming in a pool of gold.
He was tying a string around my neck so my helium filled body wouldn't float away, he was reeling me in. Take note reader; ambition is a heavy scented musk its so powerful it's the only smell that can be seen. And this guy saw my scent.
As the courtship would foster over many of Juan Valdez' and his donkeys aromatic café, design plans where brought to me and analyzed. By the time I finished preparing my quote there would be four sixty foot Mersk containers of bullet proof glass filled. This sale was over a half a million dollars. I would be making twenty percent, can you imagine making a hundred grand I could barely sleep. I had figured out the riddle that would rid me of my poverty.
Wise is the wolf who swallows you whole without as much as a bite.
The small local glass shops where put on notice by my lunch companion Lucho. If they bought as much as a pencil from me they wouldn't be able to buy from Vitemco.
The coffees and the steaks where a meer ploy to mine my price breaks and to distract me from the door to door knocking I was doing.
I wasn't escorted out of the country but some "lava perro" or "dog washer" as the hench men are called paid my cab fare.
Monopoly is a word I would associate with a board game. I had no idea it was alive and well in the streets of Bogota.
This and the stories to follow will drive the point that began to crystallize for me on this first trip:
Luis Carlos Galán a leading presidential candidate had recently been assassinated on live tv. He was up on stage when he was riddled with bullets from a motorcycle assassin. His was freshest corpse in the battle that brewed.
Sad but what was this to me. As I started on my steak my host began to tell me about the security concerns at Casa de Nariño this being the Colombian Presidential Palace.
Keep in mind I'm in my early twenties. Just a decade and some sunset and sunrises ago I was a guajirito back in Cuba in my hometown of Madruga and now I find myself with these proper speaking refined characters.
I chew on this beef and he tells me that his company's purchasing quota from PPG, the American staple of glass companies founded in eighteen eighty three in Pennsylvania, was maxed out. I heard him but all I could think about was swimming in a pool of gold.
He was tying a string around my neck so my helium filled body wouldn't float away, he was reeling me in. Take note reader; ambition is a heavy scented musk its so powerful it's the only smell that can be seen. And this guy saw my scent.
As the courtship would foster over many of Juan Valdez' and his donkeys aromatic café, design plans where brought to me and analyzed. By the time I finished preparing my quote there would be four sixty foot Mersk containers of bullet proof glass filled. This sale was over a half a million dollars. I would be making twenty percent, can you imagine making a hundred grand I could barely sleep. I had figured out the riddle that would rid me of my poverty.
Wise is the wolf who swallows you whole without as much as a bite.
The small local glass shops where put on notice by my lunch companion Lucho. If they bought as much as a pencil from me they wouldn't be able to buy from Vitemco.
The coffees and the steaks where a meer ploy to mine my price breaks and to distract me from the door to door knocking I was doing.
I wasn't escorted out of the country but some "lava perro" or "dog washer" as the hench men are called paid my cab fare.
Monopoly is a word I would associate with a board game. I had no idea it was alive and well in the streets of Bogota.
This and the stories to follow will drive the point that began to crystallize for me on this first trip:
America is where the brave practice free enterprise.
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