La Antigua

Tuesday the 10th, being off school for Mother's Day (see post further down), we decided it was time to enjoy some May birthdays' funds for a good trip to one of most famous tourist spots in Guatemala, the historic town of La Antigua. It should be quite close, but it involves three buses, so in the end it takes us 2.5hrs to get there (and even longer coming back, making it quite a long day). 

Definitely a nice day out and a beautiful town, as you can see from our pictures here, with colourful old colonial-style buildings and plenty of ruins (mostly caused by the 18th century earthquakes); actually, the main attraction for us was the chocolate museum, which unfortunately turned out to be quite disappointing as it was more of an expensive shop with some instructive panels and items on show, plus a quick view on a small, final part of the process and the opportunity to enjoy some workshops which we've decided to keep for another visit (maybe on special occasions), not to spoil all the entertainment chances in the first month. Anyway, we tasted some good chocolate, we learnt something and we bought some cocoa-tea to replace the waning supplies (still from Giacomo&Anna's Mexican travels), together with a fancy earthen cup for our morning chocolate milk, even with a wooden stirring stick.

In the lovely Parque Central, the main square, we also purchased a traditional flute; unfortunately, unless you keep emptying your pockets for very pretty but mostly unnecessary artisan objects, the town itself (excluding the monuments) becomes a little boring, as there's not so much else, apart from an endless series of shops (including those in the big market) showcasing the same kind of material, some exquisitely beautiful but still bordering on the oppressive for the amount on display. 

A perfect case of tourism spoiling the inner beauty of a place (though, of course, this way local artisans find a market, so in a way tourism is good...). 

From a sign seen entering the town, it seems this is even supposed to be a World Heritage Site and actually the historical value of the ruins and the preserved old colourful buildings are charming, but cars driving on cobblestone along 16th century decorated facades look too much out of context to allow a complete appreciation of the place and, for us Europeans, church ruins are not exactly a novelty and for their age they're nothing astounding, as we've already seen buildings way older and still perfectly intact. 

Too picky? Maybe, though it must also have been due to the grey sky, which didn't bestow any good light and contrast on the town and most of all made us forsake the uphill walk to the lookout, as there was no way we could have enjoyed any view of the marvellous volcanoes nearby. Moreover, not being a week-end, we missed possible live street entertainment (music, dance...) which would have taken away the prettily-painted-town-selling-crafts feeling.

However, anywhere is nice if it means to leave the cement and metal-sheets of La Esperanza (our barrio - neighbourhood), and even Guatemala City, for a day and by any means La Antigua is not just anywhere: a lovely place, with some interesting spots (we visited a half-ruined convent and the garden-ruins of another) and a few little museums we've kept for the next time, which we must choose carefully to get a clear blue sky.

Happy Birthday Elena!

35 is good looking number, so it deserves a post and even something more:

Enjoy

  Loads of 

Exciting

  New

Adventures

Extolling

  Lilies

Express

  Never-ending

Appreciation

Shots, shots... quiet.

10 to six, yesterday evening, dinner on the roof interrupted by explosive sounds, so the usual question arises: firecrackers or gun-shots? On this occasion, after a week of loud cracking celebrations of mothers, the answer is the second one. Mattia goes with Michele&Sam to the roof's wall (we're high and far enough, no real danger), from where they can see people in the alleys below going back indoor. We hear about ten shots, then another round of ten, then nothing. It sounded to us as if they were coming from behind the last houses in an alley a couple of blocks away from our building and actually there are other people on their roofs watching in that direction. Michele and Sam ask whether it's another police operation against the gangs, but this time it's only "baddies" shooting each other and the saddest, most serious and hardest to explain aspect of it all is that the police won't come soon, or not at all: their presence is constant (we've got two policemen at the corner just under our place), but quite aimless, or at least it serves only to keep violence away from the main road, given that, as we can easily show our boys, those two are there right now, too... and there they stay, without budging, without any intention of moving less than two blocks down the road to do something or even only to check, just as if nothing had happened. The rumours go that it's not just fear or feeling powerless, but being on the gangs payroll, but that is still too hard to explain to M&S...

Anyway, once the shooting is over, life goes quickly back to normal, as around here all this is exactly so, normal.

Mother's day

Big thing around here (click!): on Monday, celebration at school, with all morning dedicated to show mothers the various dances and other presentation prepared by the classes, give them all the crafts and feed them, then off for the afternoon. Mattia's classes prepared something in English too, nothing special but a good excuse for some good work in class the previous week, a bit as it happened with Poetry Day.

On Tuesday it was official Mother's Day, so only some classes had lessons (those with non-mother teachers), but only for the morning and anyway all English teachers were off.

Michele and Sam enjoyed their acts and working on the crafts, Mummy enjoyed receiving gifts, so all was good, apart from our ears not enjoing hearing the latest Mother's song over and over again: at school on Monday, then on the radio everywhere on Tuesday and even later in the week...

Addition: when we thought it was all over, on Saturday afternoon there was a Mother's Party right opposite our building, with plenty of action, though we skipped it as we first took Michele and Sam to a friend's house and then preferred taking advantage of the quiet time to get some things done at home and rest a short while. However, at the beginning, from our terrace, it was fun to see some performers on stilts and other acrobatic devices and to hear music played on the national instrument, the marimba (quite similar to a xylophone), though it was very soon replaced by useless pop or by the silly shouts of the clown, from the loud speakers.

Fuego!

Nasty times for the people living at the bottom of one of the short alleys just behind the sandy football pitch: yesterday afternoon, just after school, a fire broke out, sending black smoky billows up and scattering ashes as far as on our roof. While the boys were playing at Jovi's place (one of Michele's schoolmate), Mattia went down to see if he could give a hand passing buckets of water and despite the arrival of the bomberos (firemen) that was actually the case, as the fire was so big it took the hoses some time to quench it, so in the meantime people kept resorting to their buckets, throwing water from a nearby house's terrace, entered to their eyes and lungs peril, reason why volunteers were taking turns (Mattia did it just once). Luckily, no-one got injured and only one house got badly damaged as the fire then raged through the wood spreading downhill; however, Abigail, in Michele's class, told us this morning that her roof caught fire and her bed too.