Big little men

This winter, throughout my stay in a beach house south of Lima, I retained the services of a promising young man to take care of the pool.

Luis Alonso came initially to the house with the certainty of Julius Caesar, an engineering degree in water stuff and one big smile.

We shook hands, we had a deal.

Immediately after, he explains to me that he was about to travel to Argentina for some fancy internship and so, my pool would be taken care by his younger brothers, under his direct-whatsappian supervision.

I said whatever man, you do you and like that another little adventure begun.

The next day the brothers knocked the door and to my surprise there were 3 very young kids; 14, 8 and 6 years old.

Nevertheless, they all came to work and when needed, would call their big brother with questions, video calls and everything they needed to understand the mechanics of a pool system built in the most ad-hoc way.

Sometimes they would bring their even younger brother, a 4 year old. And they all worked.

A couple of times the older kid brought what I think was his girlfriend, and she worked as well.

I was fascinated.

Day or night they would come by, extremely polite, do their work with a big smile and roll away on their bikes.

I learned a lot from them. Truth be told I'll miss their visits.

What a work ethic at such young age.

One late afternoon the father came with them, a very humble man, who stayed to make sure they'd come back home to study.

I think he knew that one day, they would also travel to some fancy internship as long as they kept working, kept studying and kept smiling.

We both sat down, had a beer and let the kids work.

And we drank our beers quietly, enjoying the sound of the ocean in the background, letting the kids become big little men.

Big little men working nights.