El Afilador de la flauta

Here is something I though was cool in a very old-fashioned way:  El Afilador de la flauta (as I am choosing to name him) is a man who walks around five different neighborhoods of Santiago pushing a cart with a single bike tire and a rubber belt on it, and he plays a wooden flute (flauta).  He is the guy that sharpens knives and scissors, and his flute lets the neighborhood know he is nearby if they require his services.  His bike tire that he pushes along the streets of Santiago gets flipped up onto one side so he can pump a foot petal to make it spin, allowing him to sharpen the knives.

I think it is awesome to see ancient professions like this still in existence in parts of the world, and was happy to get to help out his business by having our three very dull knives sharpened recently.  It took about a minute per knife, and only cost about $2 each knife.

I had heard his flute a few times before, and had always meant to ask the building concierge what it was from, until I started to Google where in our area I could have knives sharpened.  The first thing I came across was an article about this guy in a local newspaper (article in Spanish): http://www.lahora.cl/2012/11/16/01/noticias/la-hora-s-d/103-21618-9-el-afilador-un-oficio-que-se-niega-a-morir.shtml.

Below is a video of el afilador walking through our neighborhood last week, or click here.  I was up on our balcony and had a good view of him...