By Ken McCormick
I had been
having an ongoing argument with my Spanish teacher, Pablo, about the use of
screens on windows, or more correctly, about the lack thereof here in
Guatemala. I had had to look up the
Spanish word for window screen in the dictionary. The funny thing is that Pablo didn’t know the word, either. He didn’t even know what a screen was. I had had to describe it to him. They don’t use screens here; they just let
the bugs fly in and out. I find it
really annoying when there are mosquitoes in the room with me when I’m trying
to sleep
I had been
telling Pablo he ought to go into the storm and screen business here. He saw this as being done in the same way
selling is generally done here: by taking a bunch of storm windows under one’s
arm and going about the streets or settling in the marketplace and calling out
"storm and screens, storm and screens." He thought the whole idea of screens was really odd. He couldn’t see why people would want
them. First, with the style of window
they use here, which generally opens inwards or outwards instead of up and
down, screens would be harder to fit, but it could be done. He was skeptical, but I drew him a diagram
to show how it could be accomplished.
He remained
unimpressed, however. He said why mess
with your windows when you can use insecticide and put on insect repellant at
night. I said screens are a lot cheaper
in the long run, and don’t poison you with chemicals. He admitted these would be good slogans for his advertising
campaign, "save money and preserve your health," but I could see he
still thought it’s a ridiculous idea to put screens on doors and windows.