" . . . Every Minute"

A quote that is attributed to P.T. Barnum, but is disputed as being uttered by others, greatly describes our adventure. "There's a sucker born every minute." Some have said these words are out of character with Barnum and should be attributed to others. However, Barnum never denied the quote and was even grateful for the publicity.

On our recent trip to the Southern Province we saw several hawkers alongside the road. Some were selling fish. One even had a large turtle for sale. Soup, anyone? Where Barnum's quote touches our lives is when we encountered a semi-precious stone seller. Or, so we thought.

Bundled up in tight packets pictured in the first snap are stones of "aquamarine", "garnet", and one he called "citra" something. He even had a chunk of amethyst in his hand which was not bundled, but which we recognized. I'm sure in his pockets he could've pulled out samples of the other stones. These packets were tied together like a bunch of bananas and really looked like gems. He only wanted about $2 per bundles, although his starting price was much higher.

Because they were nigh impossible to open (wonder why?) the gems stayed in our glove compartment. Later that night we heard a knock on the door and Tim Hilty's father-in-law, Stan, thought we ought to check our purchases (we had bought four packets).

We waited until we got home to Makeni to investigate, having taken Stan's word. And, sure enough our "gems" turned out to be semi-precious pieces of glass. We had a good laugh over our foolishness. And, somewhere out there is a "gem seller" in the bush, snickering up his sleeve, agreeing with P.T. Barnum.