I can’t sleep past 6 a.m. Cali woke up at around 7 a.m. because she wanted, no, needed food and flip flops, in that order. After meeting both of those needs, I went for a coffee, something I needed.
At the cafe, the dog whisperer came and sat in my little chair pod (little grouping of chairs), which surprised me. He kept staring at me and I couldn’t figure out why. Turns out he wasn’t being friendly, per se, I was just sitting in his and his friends’ regular spot.
The gringos here, if they don’t know me, start the conversation in Spanish. Apparently I look more Ladino than Gringo. That’s what this older gentleman thought, too. He was surprised to hear how good my English was. I asked him about the dogs. He has been feeding the stray dogs here for nine years. He has four dogs who are daily regulars and then others that come and go. He’s a regular one man doggie soup kitchen. My mom would like his mission. Another woman came and sat next to me and told me I was sitting in “Bonnie’s chair” the one she has been sitting in for five year. It wasn’t the most welcome introduction I’ve ever had, but as I’ve said before, people are frank here. I’ve seen Bonnie and even though she has a cane, I think she could take me.
Unfortunately I had to head home rather than hold my chair and win over the feisty group of seniors. I suggested they should write Bonnie’s name on the chair or put a Reserved sign on the pod for those of us who don’t instinctively know this information. See, I may look Ladina, but I have unflinching German frankness coursing through my veins. Filter-free directness is my natural state of being, so they’ve unknowingly met there match here. I’m probably going to be just like them when I’m 70, but I’ll have my name on my chair.
When I got back home I got a call from the director of the school asking if I wanted to go out to a garage sale in the gated community. She is the same person who I spent Valentines Day with. Her partner goes back and forth from Vermont, so we are both alone a fair bit.
First we had to go for food, so we went to the Deli for breakfast. She likes the melon smoothies they make there, I like the homemade English muffins.
Then we went to the house sale in the gated community. It was interesting going there. You had to give your name at the gate, once inside it was like a regular neighborhood, you could see the houses from the street. That is unusual here because you can rarely see the houses from the street. The walls are too tall to see over. The gated community, not surprisingly had beautiful. Some were very European, one looked like it belonged in Greece, another was very open with lots of outdoor living space and flowering vines.
We both bought a few things, but everything was priced too high for a garage sale, especially one here, in my opinion. But I did buy a blanket, a little owl for Kier’s collection, and a decorative hand stitched Mayan belt. My friend bought some constumes for the play and some cds. This woman works for the UN and was moving on to a new assignment. She remembered me from the last time we lived here.
After that we went by the market and my friend bought a large bag of misc. veggies from the woman she normally buys from and I bought a pineapple from the woman I normally buy from. The two stalls ended up being adjacent. We both talked about how we each found a person who won’t charge us inflated gringo prices and have stuck with them.
By this time we were both carrying a couple of heavier bags. We ran a few errands for my friend, bought cds for the school, ink for the printer, went to the bank, paid the internet bill for the school, dropped off a trapeze at the tailor to be sewn. I showed her where to buy amazing chocolate croissants at MayaPan. She was very pleased with this new discovery.
We went to the Women’s festival down by the lake. There must have been 25 tables of handicrafts and textiles that women from all around the area are selling. The organization sponsoring the event issues micro loans for women to start their own businesses. This was a time to both celebrate and promote their accomplishments.
There was one table with items made by men, who happened to be in wheelchairs. It was a women’s festival, not sure how the guys got a booth in that festival. Both my friend and I ended up buying something from the guy’s booth, go figure. They made things from newspaper. She bought a pair of earrings for her mom and I bought a small bowl. I decided to pass on all the great food. I remembered the last time I ate yummy festival food and how my gut felt the next day. I’m still not fully recovered from the cold, so I think I’ll tackle one malady at a time.
Our last stop was a store owned by someone we both know. I showe her the pillowcase made out of a traditional Mayan top that I’ve had my eye on for two months. She told me about a quilt she once saw in the street that was one of the most beautiful things she had ever seen. She was putting off the decision to buy it and one day it was gone. She, like me, isn’t over attached to possesions, so her shopping regret-story spoke to me. The quilt was also a bit of a life-metaphor. She convinced me and even loaned me the money, since I didn’t have enough Qs with me. I certainly don’t need one pillowcase to stand between me and a regretfree life!
We went by the shuttle service office that Jobi uses to book Paul’s shuttle for Monday. They were randomly closed, on a Saturday. Argh. But Jobi had their phone number, since she uses them all the time, gave the information to them over the phone. While we were sitting on the curb, taking a break from carrying our market and garage sale purchases, and making sure the tuks didn’t run over our toes in the narrow street (important work since I’ve now heard multiple stories of people getting their feet run over by tuks), she told me the story about the building we were sitting directly across from. She and her husband are into theatre, that’s their main passion, their dream. They want to develop a theatre production that depicts the history of the Mayan people–a show the tourists would pay to see. That’s their ultimate dream. We happened to be sitting across from the empty building they had dreamed of making into a theatre and a performing school of the arts. The owner, who lives in Europe, will not sell it or rent it to them. So it sits there unused. It’s in a perfect location, just a block from the main street. The building is ideal for their purposes. They would live upstairs and do the live performances downstairs, also set up a small museum. They have the determination and creativity to make it happen. I have little doubt that if I come to visit in two years, they will have something up and running because their passion to make it happen is that pressing. I’m looking forward to it.
Then we went by PanaSuper to get some butter, because Madi had called and said we needed more for grilled cheese. Jobi bought stuff for hotdogs in macaroni and cheese. See, there is at least one other adult on the planet who eats that.
When I got home Kier was already at her guitar lesson, but I had to walk up there to pay her teacher. She was learning some pretty cool stuff. I was swinging in the hammock waiting for her when I realized I was covered in little black ants, and they were biting me everywhere. They were in my clothes, biting me. I was jumping around in the yard like a crazy person, trying to get them out of my clothes without disrobing. On the creepy scale, that one went to 11. On the walk to and from the lesson there was a drunk(?) guy sprawled in the street. I cannot get used to turning a corner and seeing a person lying in the street.
Cali had Laura and her little brother Jose over for most of the day. They went home at about 5 p.m. so Laura could get her overnight stuff. While she was doing that, the younger two girls went some friends to see a puppet show. The performers were from France but did the performance in Spanish. Kier and I had a coffee next door while the kids watched the show with their friends. We went shopping for a hair clip for Kier and managed to find one at the dollar store equivalent. After the show we picked up Laura for the sleepover and went home. Madi had her two friends over, so we ended up with five kids for the sleepover. They were incredibly rowdy, which is fine except that our house shares a wall with our neighbor, which isn’t terribly soundproof.
My friend called. Apparently on Thursday she wasn’t feeling well, started throwing up, became severly dehydrated by Friday. A doctor came to her house and put an IV in her arm, and they thought they were going to have to take her in to the city to go to the hospital. The doctor spent the night at her house, but she got better. Here I was wondering if my text to go for coffee didn’t get through to her while she was incredibly sick. Her condition actually scared her husband, and he seems like a fairly unflappable fellow. I went and bought her a bag of Lindor chocolates, the only bag which was left over from Valentine’s Day at PanaSuper.
She was feeling better tonight, and wanted to get out of the house. So four of us met at Chapiteau and heard an amazing concert, classical guitar and hand drums. The guy on the drums is from Cuba and is a chef here in town, the other guitar player is from Hawaii and is already in town for the music festival happening next weekend in Santiago. This concert was one of those spiritual experiences, the music was fantastic. Both musicians were unusually gifted. Difficult to describe other than the crowd floated on each phrase, hung on each sustained tone, and when the final note faded to silence the audience was torn between not wanting to break the magical silence and the urge to explode into appreciative boisterous applause.
After they finished playing, we walked over to Solomon’s Porch to hear the other band–my friend’s husband is in that group. I stayed for only part of one set and then went home. I knew Kier would want to meet up with her friends and the sleepover chaos was in full swing.
It’s very different having a sleepover in a small house. Can’t really escape from any part of it, the kid’s movie, the running around playing tag upstairs, the stories as they are going to sleep. It’s like being one of the participants. Right now Cali is trying to get the older ones to be quiet so she can sleep–good luck with that one. It’s fun to hear the mix of Spanish and English they are throwing around (some more fluently than others). Lucky for me it didn’t go too late. By 11:30 they were all asleep, five kiddies in a row. Sweet.
Spoke to Paul on the phone for the last time before seeing him here. Very exciting. I gave him instructions on how to find our house, since we don’t have an address. We will try to put up some kind of sign to mark the path.
Kier went in to town to meet her friends for the evening. They often gather at The Porch to play pool, then they’ll go over to PanaRock and get a big booth until it’s late enough to go over to the main “discoteque.” That’s the standard Saturday night routine. The guys in her group always make sure the girls get home safely. It’s one of those machismo latino things I actually appreciate. The boys in the group consider it their responsibility to look after the single girls in the group. If you have a boyfriend, that’s his job and the other guys are totally hands off (figuratively and literally).
It was a full day, a good day.