Dusty Old Investments

In the Argentinian desert, where the pace of life is almost protesting against the alternative, there’s a town called Patquía. Blink, and you’d miss it. Though, if your car’s brakes happen to go out while blinking, you’ll probably end up finding this unique mechanics yard.

Joao is a mysterious, kind man, probably in his fifties. He wears a blue jumpsuit stained with oil, ancient yerba mate leaves, and what might be barbecue sauce. Or blood. No one asks.

But make no mistake: this man is a legend.

Years ago, he came across a life changing amount of money. Not like a "free sandwich with your tenth coffee" win. The sort of fortune that would usually come with cameras, confetti, and suspicious third cousins suddenly remembering your birthday. He could have bought a sleek flat in Buenos Aires, joined a polo club, started wearing cashmere socks, and used the term "capital gains" without irony.

But that would've been utterly gross.

So instead, he disappeared. Moved back to the dusty little town where his grandfather once grew up. Joao showed up in Patquía one morning in an old van, a vintage socket wrench set, and a fierce determination to make absolutely zero fuss.

He bought the old garage no one wanted. Fixed it up with whatever didn’t electrocute him. And ever since, he’s been keeping the town’s beat-up pickups and rust-addled combines alive. No one quite knew how he was pulling off these miracle fixes. They just felt safer as his reliability became palpable.

But here’s the thing: no one knew he was rich. The local government official loved taking credit for the new playground renovation. Oh and air conditioning installation at the local library. The broken-down football pitch too that locals swore was now better than Boca Juniors’. All paid for anonymously.

Of course, people had talked. No one really believed it was an entrepreneurial politician. Some believed it was more likely to be aliens.

Joao kept quiet and didn’t engage too much in the community gossip. He just tightened bolts, replaced tyres, and occasionally muttered cryptic wisdom like, “The trick to a carburettor is the same as happiness, make sure you don’t flood it.”

He was a quiet man. His past? A shadow. It clung to him like the grease under his fingernails. He never spoke of it. But some say it was grief that led him back. That he was rebuilding, not just engines, but something far older, the dignity of legacy.

Every peso he spent in Patquía had ROI, but not the kind measured on spreadsheets. His returns were found in the laughter of kids on a new slide, the humming tractors at harvest, the old women smiling at their favourite bench finally being re-varnished.

And that was that. Joao was an investor now. His app and his investment portfolio was Patquía. He’d help out at the local schools when caretakers were off sick. This was a great way to hear what the local community were really bothered about. He’d overhear someone at school drop off moaning about the new graffiti just off San Benito. Well, that just made the to do list.

So if you ever find yourself in the Argentinian desert, and your car starts making a noise like a haunted blender, head to Patquía. There, under the hot sun and the scent of gasoline, you might just meet the only mechanic on Earth who thinks compound interest is less interesting than compound kindness.

And he’ll probably fix your car for free, too.

Unless you’re a banker. Then you’re paying double.

Wrench turns in silence
wealth leaks into playground slides,
desert blooms with joy.