New Home

2nd of March. I've been here for six months, and I’ve moved to another home….less expensive, less beautiful, less private, and further from all the activities I’ve grown to love. But not without charm. This casa in pueblo Santa Ana was the first I considered in the Antigua area, but I kept hearing stories about que peligrosa (how dangerous) the area was. So, on my way to rent this house, I ran into the one that I ultimately rented. But $3600 and no roommate later, I’ve decided there are better ways to spend my money than on rent.
So my new “direccion” (address) is “frente plazuela 36A, alcalde Santa Ana.” Or in front of the plaza in the little pueblo of Santa Ana. It’s a sweet stand-alone house with grated windows, within the walls of a “complex” (but not, mind you, a fancy “gated community,” which there are many of here) with two other identical houses, painted dark rusty orange (mine is golden yellow.) In one of them live five young Belgian volunteers with a loquat project. In the other is a young family from Oregon; the husband gringo, the wife Guatemalan. The other habitacíon in the complex is a small bungalow of maybe two rooms, in which live the “manager” and his wife, and a varied assortment of other people including a grandchild of 4 or so. Fortunately for me they all prefer to speak Spanish, and of course the manager and his family only speak Spanish. It bothers me a little that Tono and Maria and so many other members of their family live in this tiny cottage, and I have a small, but 3-bedroom, house all for myself. But moving here from my former “palace” is all I can do to equalize matters. They live, I understand, on $50 per month rental of each of the three houses. They and the water bill. I hope to find various chores over time that I can pay them to do……like my wash, and maybe cleaning before family comes. The owner advised that they will do these things.
The owner and her family – all very nice people – look nearly white, like many Guatemalans, probably due to the presence of Germans workmen and engineers in this country during a period of massive dam-building and other projects in the early 1900s. Or possibly they are from Spanish forebears.

At any rate I am here, in front of the plazuela on which resides a beautiful old church, and a “papi futbol” court. Right now there are a group of men playing out there, rather poorly, but watched by a lot of people from the community, mostly men. There’s not much to do in this pueblo in the evenings.
Not much for me, either, as neither cable nor internet has been connected.
So I am proof-reading the story of another writer from our writers’ group – a Guatemalan man who spent his childhood in a very poor section of Guatemala, during a time of a lot of violence…..feuds between families over land, honor, and women. It’s a privilege to read the story.
The house I have rented came furnished, but unlike the last house, had no kitchenware whatsoever. Several trips to the Mercado outfitted me nicely for about $45. It also had no table to use for the computer. I found reasonable unfinished tables at the Mercado, hand-made for about Q150, but didn’t know exactly how I would get them over here. So I asked the manager’s wife and she introduced me to a carpenter in this community, and we arranged that he would make me one…finished, and with a wider drawer, for Q200, or about $26, delivered into the room. It is a little tall, as I hadn’t specified the height….but I will borrow a neighbor’s skilsaw and cut it down a bit tomorrow. So I am set up to live here, in that respect.
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Yesterday, in this plaza, an older man had been sitting in front of the church all day long, beating a drum at intervals; at others whistling on a small pipe. I felt a little foolish, thinking of going over to ask him why he was playing; thinking I would look the fool to my new neighbors. I finally decided I didn’t care and went out my gate and across the plaza to ask him. He said it had to do with Semana Santa, nearly a month away.
Will he play all month? I didn’t ask, but I said that it sounded like it was a gift to the church, so I had a gift for him. He was very pleased with 10Q and the young man setting up a table nearby grinned at us. Hearing him beating his drum from time to time, after that, I’m glad I did.
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Just when I was thinking that I would miss all the processions that used to come by my old house, because probably this little community didn’t have such things, I heard singing outside and looked out my window to see 5 or 6 men and some women from the church, carrying a float with Christ carrying the cross on it, with candles, and singing, and the drum beating at intervals. Tiny and sweet.