You know, I really like living in Antigua! This weekend there are many festivities celebrating the famous Arco of Santa Catalina. No one has really explained the gist of the whole thing to me. Someone said it was the 500th Anniversary of the arch, but I’m not sure I buy that. Liana and I want to a concert tonight in what I’m pretty sure was the Convent of Santa Catalina, adjacent to the arch. We got there about 20 minutes before the concert started, and sitting and waiting was hard. Then there were about 10 minutes of introductions, most of which I missed because I was tempting the princess with cheerios and putting her shoes back on her feet, but I did hear the Santa Catalina was a virgin and a martyr, both facts being sad in my opinion, which of course, no one asked. Once the music started, we got through about 20 minutes. All and all pretty good I think. The setting was surreal ruin lit with hundreds of candles, the stars serving as our roof. As we left, I saw two firefighters with helmets and a fire extinguisher standing outside. The thought of candles catching someone’s dress or scarf did enter my thoughts. I am glad the city was prepared.
Ruins here are more surreal than I could ever get you, dear reader, to believe. My lovely apartment complex is right next door, literally, to an amazing ruin of an ancient church. I will post pictures some day. Statues whose heads and arms long disappeared grace the front entranceway, and an enormous piece of stone or something, the size of a volkswagon, has fallen just past the main entranceway. Have I visited this ruin next door, you might ask. Well, no. It is actually in use. As a men’s prison and meeting place for local boyscout troop 73. I know you think I am joking, but I am not. Young men with machine guns wander around the roofless edges. I tried to take a picture once, but the young man with a machine gun wagged his gloved finger, making that universal sign of “no.” I don’t argue with men bearing automatic weapons. I nodded, put my camera away with exaggerated motions, and waved politely. He waved back. Family of the prisoners line up in the mornings for visits. Boyscouts in full uniform meet there in the evenings, in a room with a side entrance. A woman who babysits for Rose’s kids here at the apartments told me that the building’s use as a prison/boyscout center is quite controversial, because many residents believe that it should be treated as the ruins of a church, and open to the public, who have not seen it in years. In the US, a facility housing a prison/boyscout center might in itself be controversial, even if it were not occupying the ruins of an ancient church. Here, I can’t get any of the locals to see the irony.
Ruins here are more surreal than I could ever get you, dear reader, to believe. My lovely apartment complex is right next door, literally, to an amazing ruin of an ancient church. I will post pictures some day. Statues whose heads and arms long disappeared grace the front entranceway, and an enormous piece of stone or something, the size of a volkswagon, has fallen just past the main entranceway. Have I visited this ruin next door, you might ask. Well, no. It is actually in use. As a men’s prison and meeting place for local boyscout troop 73. I know you think I am joking, but I am not. Young men with machine guns wander around the roofless edges. I tried to take a picture once, but the young man with a machine gun wagged his gloved finger, making that universal sign of “no.” I don’t argue with men bearing automatic weapons. I nodded, put my camera away with exaggerated motions, and waved politely. He waved back. Family of the prisoners line up in the mornings for visits. Boyscouts in full uniform meet there in the evenings, in a room with a side entrance. A woman who babysits for Rose’s kids here at the apartments told me that the building’s use as a prison/boyscout center is quite controversial, because many residents believe that it should be treated as the ruins of a church, and open to the public, who have not seen it in years. In the US, a facility housing a prison/boyscout center might in itself be controversial, even if it were not occupying the ruins of an ancient church. Here, I can’t get any of the locals to see the irony.
