In Which I Discover that I Can be A Total NooB About Technology in Multiple Languages and Cultures

...So, mom has been suggesting that I post photos on this thing. Prior to yesterday, however, I had what I considered an airtight excuse: camera was demonstrably not working. I could take pictures, but the window that shows you what you´re doing stayed black.

Thus, off the the camera store. Well, first, off to figure out where the camera store was. The first place that looked like it might fix cameras did not, and the guy suggested I go to the Feria Libre. Literally, ¨free market¨, this location is an absolute sprawling riot of commerce and theft, kind of like if you took the Ashby Flea Market, doubled it in size, and surrounded it with hungry wolves.

Not so much, then, with the Feria Libre. Raul, after snickering politely at the camera guy´s suggestions, gave me a few more promising leads, and I finally found Foto Ortíz in the middle of a completely jacked-up block of Calle Bolivar: piece by piece, small portions of Cuenca´s roads are being renovated, but at the glacial Ecuadorian pace which means the crew spends a month hammering the existant road to bits, then goes somewhere else for a season, then talks for a while about how nice new concrete might be. Meanwhile, business continues as usual, albeit with a bit more dust and the occasional need to scamper up a trench.

Foto Ortíz, as it turned out, has two levels: one for your day-to-day needs in film development and passport pictures, and a secret bonus level where cameras get fixed. Upstairs, there was even a waiting area (complete with receptionist!) for consultations with the technician, as though you´re bringing your dog to the vet. There was a family in front of me, and I eavesdropped while I waited: felt very proud of myself for understanding that alkaline batteries were bad news for that camera.

My turn! I gave the guy the camera, explaining in my typical adequate but mangled Spanish that, ¨The picture, yes you can take it, but the seeing, it is not possible to see what one does. Maybe is problem. With lens.¨ Oh so eloquently, and with such perfect subjunctive, the technician took the camera, fondled it for a minute, and returned it in perfect working condition. I asked him how he performed this miracle, and I will now take the liberty to translate the extremely polite Spanish response into what the guy was most likely thinking beneath the genteel veneer: ¨Hey dumbass, I just pressed a button.¨

Thanks to his tutelage, I now have the power to break and un-break my camera several hundred times a day, with the previously unknown anti-viewfinder button. Lord only knows what other secrets my camera hides from me.