José Luis Delgado Herrerapiscazo, wife Amparo, and Papeleria Laso

[This is the fourth in a series of five blogs in honor of my feature-length drama, Domino:  Caught in the Crisis, which I have very recently completed.] 

Papeleria Laso is located in Jerez de la Frontera, at the corner of two major avenues, right on the edge of the historic district in the city´s center.  It´s next door to a bank, and right around the corner from many small business and a grammar school.  It is a great location for Papeleria Laso, which is a a paper good/copy shop/ and school and office supply store.

Luis (José Luis Delgado Herrerapiscazo) has been running the shop for 50 years.  His wife, Amparo, helps him out.  They explained to me that they´ve had hard times before but this is definitely the worse.  No one has any money, everyone is just scraping by.  And like Francis, what they sell is not a necessity so people who used to purchase now often go without. 

José Luis Delgado Herrapiscazo and his wife Amparo in their shop.

Luis told me that the businesses that are suffering the most are the small businesses.  He and his wife have no idea how the country and the economy are going to get out of this mess.  They take the government at its word when it says things will get better after another year simply because they don´t know of anything better to do.

I´ll give a short story here to illustrate their situation.  They are motorcycle enthusiasts, each with his/her own motorcycle and they belong to a motorcycle club.  (The wife is very small, and I find it charming to imagine her on a big, muscle motorcycle.)

About five years ago, they had planned to go to the United States and drive their motorcycles across the country, but then the crisis struck, and they weren´t able to go.  Now, they can no longer even afford to leave the city for a vacation, so last year, they stayed open all year and didn´t take any time off.  They expect to do the same this year.

OUR NEXT POST will be about Antonia Balao and her bar/restaurant.