En Fuego

I'm looking out the window at great plumes of black smoke rising from a building I can't see, but it's just four or five blocks away. This is the third structure fire -- visible from our apartment -- in the last two weeks. The first one was just two blocks away and brought sirens from all directions.

Not only that, the hills have been burning. It is dry season and the lack of rain does put the foliage at risk, but we also heard a story about one of the forest fires (that has been burning for days) was the brainchild of someone who wanted to do something with that land but wasn't allowed to do it because it was a protected area. Sad deal.

It's interesting to see so much fire, which I associate with transformation, at a time when we're undergoing a lot of it.

In what sounds like a grievous setback for Brent's office, he fired one of his employees, who then took the secretary with him (we suspect a bit of a love affair, otherwise it just doesn't make much sense) and they proceeded to call and reschedule every client to their new location. Theft, plain and simple: they stole those people's private information from the company.

Then they had the gall to ask for "liquidation" which is, by Colombian law, basically a bonus for getting fired or quitting. Seriously. When someone willingly leaves her job, like the secretary did, her employer is obligated to pay her an extra month's salary.

We'll see.

So it looked bad, and for a couple of days it felt really bad, too. But then things started shifting. Dramatically.

The phone rang: people looking for a first appointment. Other people came in off the street when they were walking by -- something which, Brent told me, just wasn't happening before. A retired chiropractor with lots of experience and success in marketing called us, saying he was new in Medellin and just wanted a place to work and play. The other secretary and the new one Brent just hired are great people and they're getting along wonderfully. The negative energy, which we already had associated with the former chiropractor but hadn't realized the former secretary was responsible for it, too, is gone. The place is blossoming, and we're feeling great.