Purchases Continued

There were a lot of clerks in the school supply store, most of whom were not doing very much. You'd never see that kind of inefficiency in an Israeli shop (not to mention an American store). Wages are apparently low enough in Peru that employers can afford to hire a lot of people. That's good for the customers, and the store, which was very large and carried a large and varied stock, was also well organized and clean.
Boaz and I waited on the sidelines for a long time, while the two school principals consulted with the salespeople, diligently writing down the prices of every item. Then, without buying anything, they told us they wanted to get the computers first and then come back to purchase the school supplies, when they knew exactly how much money was available. So off we went to buy computers. On the way we were joined by another teacher from Cabanaconde, a short man wearing a well pressed sport shirt, who seemed to know his way around.
Like the visit to the school supply shop, this quest took us to places where most tourists in Peru would never think of going. The first stop, a brisk ten minute walk farther away from the central square than the market, was an electrical appliance shop, which sold televisions, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and a a huge assortment of other appliances, but not computers. As carefully as the principals had done their homework by compiling detailed lists of the supplies they needed, they hadn't found out where computers were sold in Arequipa.
Upon the advice of a salesperson in the appliance store, we then took two tiny taxis a branch of the Saga Falabella chain of department stores, where you definitely don't feel as if you're in a poor, underdeveloped country. We were out of the tourist zone of Arequipa and out of the lower class neighborhoods as well. Saga Falabella doesn't sell to the kind of people who buy in the central market. As composed and self-confident as our school principals seemed, it was pretty clear that they don't patronize Saga Falabella either. Norma, who could probably hike up and down the Colca Canyon without any problem, hesitated before stepping onto the escalator.
There was a small computer department on the lower floor, but no one seemed very interested in selling anything to our group, which would have seemed a bit puzzling to anyone who noticed it: three rural educators, an unsophisticated looking teen-aged girl (Norma's daughter), and two Gringos. Boaz thought that the sales staff might have taken the people from Cabanaconde as a bunch of country bumpkins who had come to gawk but not to buy, but finally someone did pay some courteous attention to us, but, as it happened, they only had one computer in stock, and we wanted to buy two.
Not having been to Cabanaconde yet, I suggested to Norma in my rudimentary Spanish that they might deliver the computer there, and she dismissed the idea out of hand. Now that I've seen how far away it is from Arequipa, and how bad the roads are, I understand why my idea was preposterous.
So off we went in search of another computer store. Time was passing, we weren't making much progress, and Boaz and I were getting a bit antsy.