Lent, the 40 days leading up to Holy Week and Easter, is a very big deal here in Antigua. Hundreds of people, decorate their homes and business in purple. Particularly on Sundays, boys and men dress in purple robes.
For us, it’s about more photo ops. Last Sunday, there was another big procession around the streets of the city. Along the route and on many of the other cobblestone streets were very many what I call “Christian mandalas”. People carefully make these Christian designs on the street out of flowers, knowing the wind and certainly the processions will obliterate them shortly. The only effort to blunt the inevitability if impermanence is to sprinkle them with water.
Myung took those on our street, and there would have been more if her batteries hadn’t died. Some of the mandalas were really nice. I have never gotten an explanation why some where Roman costumes, except for the obvious connection between Romans and Jesus’ crucifixion.
Generally, it’s been another slow month in Lake Wobegon. It’s been especially quiet with Felix, the primary renter of our place, in England for the last month and a half. When he’s here, there is music all day and general hubbub, as he is an active kind of guy. He had a temporary job there for a lot more money than he can make here. He just got back yesterday. Meanwhile, his girlfriend and the American retiree are here. Annie is quiet and 1) has a day job six days a week, and 2) hangs out in her room when she’s at home and usually goes to her mother’s home on the weekend. Now that Felix is back, there’s already life around here again.
We have our usual routines. Myung putters around, maintaining the outside and doing housework. I chill out. We walk around town together once or twice a day. Going to the market as the excuse for that. One thing we did is go with Eduardo, Felix’s friend, and a few other guys to San Jose for a big fish and shrimp feed. San Jose is the biggest city and port on the west coast. It takes about an hour and a half to get there. Eduardo feels this is the best fish restaurant in Guatemala. He’s been here 14 years, and it was good. We had this big plate of mahi mahi (dorada, true dolphin) sushi and about four pounds of barbecued shrimp. It was not fancy. We bought the mariscos here…
… and ate them at this, coincidentally, Korean owned place.
Embarrassing for me was I fainted after lunch and four beers. I came to fine, but it was embarrassing. There are no pictures of that! You can see one from before lunch.
Really, there is not much else to say. Coming up in April will be a visa run to Tapachula, Mexico, unless we decide to just leave here. At present, my friend, Mary is talking about coming down to visit, along with our old friend Susan. That would be in June, so that’s something to stay for. Another reason to stay is our next major destination looks to be Ecuador. Though we’ve never been there, Ecuador’s residence and retirement visas offer very attractive incentives. We think we’ll check it out. Now, the tourist visas are for 6 months per calendar year. If we get there around the beginning of July we could piggyback tourist visas and see if we actually like it.
Speaking of retirement visas, I applied for Social Security and am a pensioner now. Like most US citizens my age, I’ve been thinking about his for about 40 years. For me and my life, the thing to do is to more than double my standard of living now, decrease the need or temptation to dip into my nest eggs, and chance receiving less money overall if I live past 78. That’s the age I will be when the overall amount I receive if I wait till 66 passes the overall amount I would get if I start receiving it now. I very seriously doubt I will regret the decision. Hey, I might even save some. What a concept!
That’s going to be it for a while. Be well, all of you.