Pencils

Lorenzo told me what the schools need he didn’t have in his basement: pencils and notebooks.

Got it. Pencils.

I went to the “chino” store in Tenerife: a pack of 5 for 85 cents (€). No, too expensive. I asked the girl how much if I buy a thousand. She took my phone number. Back home on the computer, Amazon.com showed 12 – 16 cents ($) per pencil to the USA. Amazon.es showed 30 cents (€) per pencil to Tenerife. (Why is Europe always twice the price?) Aliexpress: 16 cents per pencil to Tenerife, getting better. Then the girl from the store called me: 6 cents a pencil! With an erasor tip! I bought 2900 pencils.

Back to Lorenzo’s house, I was in the hands of an expert. I distributed the pencils among 5 boxes that Lorenzo got out, then tried to help as he masterfully filled the boxes with other school materials and used clothes. We weighed the boxes (good, under 23 Kg), that taped them up, threw them in my car and was left marvelling at Lorenzo’s mastery of the craft of Gambia care packages.