My friend Len is down for a visit during the last week or so of my time here.  He’s been to Guatemala a number of times, but not recently, and has been a sponsor of children down here for many years.  The first young woman he sponsored is now married with a young daughter and another on the way.

Years ago on a visit he had toured this monastery site and wanted to see what it was like today.

As you can see, it was established in 1736 after a five year construction period.  Like many buildings in Guatemala it sustained creeping instability from earthquakes, two in particular in 1753 and then again in the 1770s.  After less than forty years of operation the local authorities declared it too unsafe for habitation.  And, like other sites around Antigua, the restoration efforts devoted to this site were done with and eye on making it a museum and tourist site.

This is looking across the area of sleeping cells for the community.  Each of those individual rooms only contained a bed, a kneeler, and a camode of sorts that sent their “relievings” down to some unholy place. 🙂

The “nicer” cells had a view of the garden area.  Others just looked out onto a stone wall.  I’m guessing there was some sort of seniority at work with cell assignments.

Below, this video clip of the church was taken from the balcony of the sanctuary.  The public attended masses here, but the sisters being cloistered, would attend mass sitting up here apart from everyone else.

A belated Happy Easter to you all!!

And to top it all off, here’s a pic I took of the fam on an outing to what may be Guatemala’s first and only tap room.  This place is brewing five beers, has an amphitheater for music with an excellent view of the volcano as a backdrop, a bean bag toss court that we made good use of, and it’s dog friendly.  We went a bit crazy and sampled a lot of food offerings, including the homemade ice cream, and left here doing a very good beached whale imitation.

I arrived at the Cathedral almost a half hour early with hopes of some good reflection time.  Like I don’t get enough time to think. 🙂  But sitting in church always frames it in a different way.  I knew the Cathedral would be bustling but I wasn’t worried about that.  As I was sitting there an incredible slide show of my trip to the Holy Land began to play in my head.  The images were vivid and varied.  Some went by quickly and some lingered.  It was not a slide show I was presenting.

Even though there were numerous spiritual moments on that trip, I have to admit, that at the time, it did not feel like a seminal event.  But as time grows between then and each day now, it is carving it’s own place, and I might add a big place, of special context to all of the spiritual parts of me.  I so wish I could play it for you all.

But all I have is this video. 🙂

I took these three video clips in the morning on the Sunday before Palm Sunday.  The Procession on this Sunday is one of the longest, best measured by time as opposed to distance.  It starts at 5:30 AM at the Church of St. Bartolomew, and returns to the church at about 1 AM the next morning.  Bartolo, as it’s mostly called, is a small village outside of Antigua to the southwest, and the full name of the church is Templo de la Aldea San Bartolomé Becerra.

As for the videos, I’m already starting to feel a bit frustrated by the fact that I can only post videos that are somewhere between 30 and 34 seconds.  But, that’s my reality.

On one of the clips I wanted to just give you a sense of the Sunday crowds in Antigua during Lent.  And I took this hours and hours before the Procession would actually get to this part of town.  The other two are just of work on the “carpets”, the Spanish word is Alfombras.  I briefly caught a dad teaching his two little kids how to work on them.

I’m within a couple of weeks now of returning home.  As much as I love it down here, it seems like most of us get to the point when we travel, where being back in our own bed and our own environment starts to tug at us.  I enjoy being out of winter and I’ve gotten very close to a lot of good people down here over the years, but the pull of face time with my kids, and Minnesota friends, begins to get very strong.  So, ………, soon. 🙂

In the meantime, ………………., everybody should have my life.  I appreciated you all being “out there”, and I hope you and yours are healthy and happy. ♥

I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to get to this post.  Actually, it’s because of a new learning curve.  You can surmise from the title that these photos and clips are from back at Equinox,…..

…….., which is an important prayer day for Mayan People.  They pray for  for safety and security, for good crops and prosperity, and for family. If you know anything about indigenous history in Guatemala, then you know that first one is a big one.  This ceremony was in the park and some of the prayers were in Spanish and some Kachiquel, a common Mayan dialect.

As for the videos, Blaine pointed me towards the Videoshop app, and with a few tips from him, I’ve been practicing.  As my own toughest critic I’m underwhelmed by my results so far.  But it’s been fun to learn and add videos to my posts.  I think back on all my travels since starting my blog, and of course wish I would have pushed myself out of this box a long time ago.  It’s almost embarrassing.  Like learning that shopping at Goodwill makes the most sense. 🙂

For uploading media, I have a file size limit on my blog site.  So part of my curve has been learning how long my videos can be, and how to trim them so I can “get them through the gate”.  My first videos back at Tikal were short enough purely by accident.

If you don’t count eating too many eggs and drinking too much coffee, I am well and hope you all are too. 🙂  Peace to your day.

I’ve seen this graffiti artist’s work around, but haven’t actually spotted him working anywhere.  My sense is his style does not involve a brush, but that from a guy whose art knowledge is limited to, I like it/it doesn’t do anything for me.  So there ya go.

I’ve seriously limited my procession stuff as promised, but Saturdays during Lent are kids processions.  Smaller peeps, smaller floats, smaller distances.  Here’s a crew preparing to take over carrying duties.  I regretted not making a video of the switchover, ’cause it was the cutest chaos ever.  Maybe another opportunity will arise.

I never cease to be fascinated by the resourcefulness of Guatemalan people for ways to make money or extra money.  This man had probably reversed engineered a DIY tracing device and was demonstrating to some potential customers how he could turn a photo into a sketch.  His work was quite good I thought.  There I go with the art critiquing again.

And here’s a bit of cultural history.  Still in small rural villages there is often only one or two access points to water.  Invariably where the water is are pilas.  Pilas are wash basins, usually made of poured concrete, and usually grouped together in anywhere from two to five or six.  These then become community gathering spots for women to visit and do laundry.  I know what you’re thinking, and most Guatemalan men wouldn’t be caught dead doing laundry. 〈Insert digressive tirade about perpetuating stereotypes here〉      It really was a good one, but I took it out.  Everyday I pray to walk gently on the earth, and some days I think I actually do.  Let’s get back to the pilas shall we?

These are a fancier version of pilas.  They are at the end of a small park that everyone just calls Tanque.  It’s actual name is Union Square but the name is rarely used.   These pilas have been somewhat in disrepair for a long time.  As many times as I’ve walked past this place, I don’t think I’ve ever seen women actually washing clothes here.  Until this trip.  But the Tanque has been spruced up and fixed up, and my take is that the community has been encouraged to return to this age old cultural practice at this particular site.  Good photo ops for tourists, ya know?

This is looking down the length of Tanque.  You can see the pilas and basin at the far end.  Behind it, and across the street are the ruins of the Convent of Santa Clara.  It’s now a museum and event center.

There are lots of church ruins in Antigua.  Many of the oldest ones  were destroyed by massive earthquakes and landslides in the 1500s.  As I walk around Antigua there are a couple of sites that seem to have restoration work being done everyday.  This is a peek inside St. Augustine Church from a side opening.  The work here, as with most, probably has an eye on making it safe so that tourists can go inside the ruins.

Back to Tanque briefly before I go.  I was walking over to San Francisco for noon mass and caught a chance to film these kids practicing for something.

There are two new businesses in Santa Ana since I was here a year ago.  Pictured here is an auto parts store, and below, and infinitely more important if you’re me, an ice cream shop.

Sometimes when I’m observing life, there are pictures that are just their own story.  Like this one.

But there are also those times when I’ll sit and watch a family and just get completely drawn in to all the little things that are going on.  And with a little luck, and a bit of sneakiness on my part, they never give me so much as a glance.

This family is on their lunch break.  They are on the streets of Antigua making their living.  Not in the picture, next to the dad, is a cart full of assorted nuts, which he sells in small bag fulls.  Mostly he sells little snack bags, but his cart is equipped with a small scale so he can sell by the pound if called for.  The young boy in the solid red shirt contributes to the family’s well being by shining shoes.  All of his fingers were completely black.  His tools are the little bench he’s perched on, and the shoe shine kit that’s just to left of where the little boy in the stripe shirt is kneeling.

The mom, as well as looking after the two littlest ones, has her own basket of goods for sale.  In it are things like candy, cigarettes and bics, little tissue packs, gum, small bottles of hand cleaner, anything that makes her and her basket a walking impulse item rack. While I watched them, and snuck the occasional picture, the older boy went off to buy some tortillas for their lunch.  During his absence the littlest boy was walking in circles, with the shoe shine kit in one hand and the little stool in the other, yelling a word that I can only guess was, “SHOESHINE”.  It was cute, but then again not. He was already in training for the family business.  In the second picture, the little girl is giving the stink eye to the little boy who has the fancy push toy.  This is him,

And his sister.

And lest you think this was just an idyllic day in the park, I also watched two drug deals go down.  More street stuff to follow.  No not pictures of the drug deals.

My friend Carlos, who I usually stay with, had already rented his room to someone else for three weeks in April.  So I had to go looking for a place to stay for the rest of my time here.

Living in underdeveloped countries has its challenges, but it isn’t always choking diesel exhaust, doing without, and dysentery.  Witness my new digs.

I found a very nice private room and bath on the roof top of a house owned by a woman named Hilda.  If ever the need arises, you can find her on AirBnB.  This is right in Antigua, on the south end, so it’s a little more expensive than living in Santa Ana, but not by much.  Here is the front of the house, Number 10, right next to the Urban Dance School.  And below is the street it’s on.

This is the little patio area outside my bedroom door, which you can see on the left side of the photo.  Oh, and did I mention it’s a roof top room?  Below are some  photos showing the view in several directions.

Not bad, huh? 🙂

I don’t see anything in this last group that warrants specific comment.  Like any “somewhat serious” photographer, I take lots of shots, often the same shots, in hopes a getting a few good ones that seem interesting.  Then it’s playtime in editing.

On a completely unrelated topic to Tikal, in the last three or four days there’s been a lot of seismic activity in Guate and around Central America.  Nothing big, like 4 something on the Richter, and nothing of extended duration.  As a strictly amateur geologist, (incredible understatement), 🙂  No wait, would that be an overstatement?  ??  Whatever.  Now I’ve really thrown my thought off.  As an amateur blah, blah, blah, it makes me wonder what, if any, impact that has on the volcano.  If any of this sounds worrisome it’s not.  This is completely normal stuff down here.  So, believe me when I say;

I am well and hope you all are too.  Peace to your day.