Wearing a suit and a feather in his hat, Rogelio Condori is hunched over a small table on a sidewalk in La Paz, typing on a typewriter with his index fingers.
Condori, 61, fills out customers at his sloping desk on his vintage Brother Deluxe 1350 typewriter in the Bolivian capital, filling out a tax form here, a divorce application there.
For a fee of up to seven bolivianos (approx.
Condori and his colleagues also offer advice on what they can.
“We can’t complain,” he said of his living, which covers “the bread of the day” in a poor country with a monthly minimum wage of about $320.
Condori competes with nine other typewriters on the same street, but says he has regular customers.
In Bolivia, many administrative records are not available online and must instead be submitted in typed form.
About 60 percent of Bolivians have internet access, but connections are often slow.
“I haven’t had good experiences with accountants and lawyers,” said Lazario Cucho, a 56-year-old farmer who has used Condori’s services.
“And on top of that, they charge a lot.”
– love letters –
As the sun rises overhead, Condori opens an umbrella to cast some shade over his workspace.
He looks up from his work to see a couple, both with grim faces, who have come for help with a divorce form.
Another customer wants him to fill out a bank loan application.
“Once in a while we write love letters,” Condori said, smiling amidst the traffic noise and street vendors on the corner that has been his field office for 37 years.
Once a man in a difficult relationship asked him for help.
“I wrote, ‘My love… don’t let our years together go to waste. Please reconsider our situation,'” Condori recounted the letter he wrote for the man.
The man “sent the letter and came back a month later to say, ‘Mr. Rogelio, we have reconciled thanks to the love letter,'” the typist said.
Condori has recently set up an office with internet and computers, but he prefers his “exciting” seat on the sidewalk.
“Typewriters are easier to use and they’re fast,” he said.
At 3:00 p.m., Condori packs his mobile desk onto a cart, which he pushes to a nearby camp, where he will stay overnight.
“I think this typewriter thing is going to continue,” Condori said of his craft.
“You will always come for love letters.”
#Bolivias #sidewalk #scribes #prefer #typewriters
