Those of you that have been checking the photo section may have realized that this month`s number of photos has been pretty skimpy.  Unfortunately, this is due to the fact that my camera is temporarily out of commission.  I have found that taking my camera to work everyday (for 40 minutes of photo ops during the walk each way) has turned out to have negative effects on the camera.  There seems to be sand somewhere in the mechanism that closes the lens.  Now looking back, I guess it was something about doing construction/concrete work with the unprotected camera in my pocket that seemed to have caused the problem.  Who would`ve thought…

So about a 2 weeks ago I took the camera to get fixed.  I went to the kodak store in town who then recommended me to a shop that specalizes in fixing cameras.  It was somewhat difficult to find the shop, especially since there was no evidence of it even being a public building, let alone a camera shop.  There was no sign and nobody inside.  It was a tiny one room building with the doors opening into an all blue room with an unattended counter.  Very legitimate.

The fact that many people knew about the shop (since I had to ask for the whereabouts probably 5 times) reassured me that it had to be somewhat respectable.

I went in and knocked on the side of the wall.. this brought the owner out from behind a small partition behind the counter.  I went through what was wrong with my camera and asked how much it would cost to fix.  He told me that it would cost Q50 ($6.50) to disassemble the camera and, if it was only sand in the lens mechanism, it would then cost an additional Q200 ($26) to do a complete cleaning and replacement of small parts within the camera.  If there was something broken inside the camera it would most likely cost more money.  Since I have become an old miser with my money during my time here in Guatemala, I wanted to be able to see what was wrong with the camera before accepting to pay 30 pesos to just take out a grain of sand.  I clearly explained that I did not want to invest alot of money into an old camera that was probably on its way out anyways.  I also asked how much it would cost to fix the broken battery cover.  “probably about Q100″.  I told the guy to disassemble it and that I would be back in 2 days to hear what the diagnosis was.  I then took my reciept for Q50 and left.

Then, 2 days later, sensing that there was the possiblilty of BS on the horizon, I returned to the shop with my teacher Aura.  Since we came very early (3pm), the shop was closed.  We were about to walk away when a car pulled up and a man came to open the door.  He let us in and explained that he was the owner`s brother.  I described my camera to him and said that I had come back to hear what the problem was.  The man told me that it was going to cost Q200 to fix the problem.  I then asked to see the camera.  He then brought the camera out and gave it to me.  I looked it over, found that the battery cover had been mickey moused (but done well I`d have to admit), turned it on and off, and realized that the lense was now closing.  I was curious about what was going on here since I had clearly explained that I did not want to do anything with the camera until I had seen it unassembled.  “So he still has to fix it?” I ask.  “Ya, he`s taken the camera apart and found that it needs to be cleaned”.  “So he took the camera apart, found that it was dirty and then put it back together again to see if I wanted to fix it?”.  “Yep”.  “Hmm, that`s kind of weird”.  There was some definite funny business going on here… clearly a sign of the “gingo tax” being put into play here.  I`m almost positive the guy took a can of compressed air, blew out the lense, dislodged the sand, micky-moused the battery cover, and called it a day.  Now that it was fixed, he`d be guaranteed that he`d get the Q250 (for his “full camera maintenance”).

“So why did he put it back together if he needs to fix it?”.  “I don`t know, you`ll have to come back and talk to him, he`ll be here in about an hour”.  I started to walk away when Aura, sensing the shadyness of what was going on, said “are you going to leave the camera here”.  The brother, being the professional that he was, said “oh, ya, here you go” and gave me the camera. We then walked out of the store with camera in hand and the reciept in my bag.

So my plan was use the camera for a week, see if it continued to work, and then return to the store and pay what we had agreed on, Q50.  I figured that this would be the fair thing to do.  However, after a few days, the lense jammed again, leaving me in the same situation.

My next step is to buy a small screwdriver and just do it myself…  I`m still deciding about the Q50.