I went to Miguel Angel and Maria Griselda's wedding. And Miguelito, having compassion on a gringo who obviously doesn't know any better, had given me a time that was only one hour ahead of the time I needed to be there.
Griselda and Miguel Angel were among the most naturally happy couples I have ever seen. Miguel Angel, when he was standing in front of the church, waiting on his bride to arrive, had the look of a child in the hours before Christmas. He shifted from foot to foot, eyes always scanning the street as he looked for the car that would bring his bride. He did, however, stand still long enough to have his shoes mirrored by one of the passing shoeshine boys (see photo). As soon as the job was complete, he resumed looking for the vintage 1965 Nissan on loan from a family friend carrying the lovely Gris.
The wedding was one of the most touching scenes I have ever seen. The civic ceremony was simple, and held in a back chapel presided over by a family friend, who just talked about love for a half hour. The formal church wedding really grabbed me, though.
Griselda walked with her teenage son to the altar – at the front, he handed him over to Miguel Angel, who reached over and touched his new stepson on the shoulder. And in a beautiful moment, Griselda's son leaned forward, placed his head on Miguel's shoulder and gently wept. Completely without embarrassment, totally unselfconsciously, Miguel stroked the hair of the weeping boy. It was one of the most mutually loving gestures I have ever seen.
A humorous aside that I have to share. The wedding followed several others – Saturday afternoon is the big wedding time. The previous wedding had a hired band, complete with the customary two marimbas, mandolins and violins. After several songs, the band ripped out a wonderful rendition of the Beatles' "Yesterday". The words were not sung, but I just started laughing, running through the lyrics in my head:
Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go, I don't know – she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong (i.e. "I do"), now I long for yesterday.
Lost love. What a beautiful sentiment for a wedding march.
So I am still in Antigua, working up old paperwork and waiting on a shipment of screens from the US. Quite possibly the best and worst thing about Antigua is how European it is. The city has worked very hard to make it an appealing tourist destination, and have succeeded incredibly in doing so. The streets are clean, the restaurants are nice (and all serve bottled water), the market is attractive, and the panhandlers are few, and are spread out enough to allow the tourist to feel safe. Most languages can be negotiated by most of the population, at least enough to make you feel comfortable (and, if you can't make yourself understood, just speak your English louder – the locals are all hard of hearing). Local color is abundant, but safely marshaled within certain sectors – meaning you will not be accosted at every turn by Maya women in brightly colored costumes hawking cheap tourist trinkets. It does happen, but the places where it can happen are very carefully circumscribed.
Amazing ruins are everywhere, and the grass is kept carefully manicured for visitors. Your bed and breakfast will undoubtedly have a stunning view of the volcano, and you do not have to go more than a block from anywhere to find an internet café so you can write home and share your experiences.
Which will be almost as genuine as the world experience at Epcot. Not to malign Epcot, of course. But it seems a little out of place in Guatemala.
The artisania market (now safely tucked into a nice niche where the tourist can safely shop for their souvenirs) is nice, and as is the case at Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want. Many of the things you can get are hard to come by elsewhere in the world. The allure of inexpensive antiquity purchases is hard to bypass (but is, for the casual tourist, illegal), and colonial art is still available, albeit at higher prices than was available even a decade ago. The handmade textiles are stunning in their variety and their cultural significance – clothing is particular to the village, and some of the designs have great antiquity, showing up in iconography from before contact. And the quality of artisan work is impressive, and pretty reasonable.
Exhibit A. This past year, I managed to obtain a gift for my mom, on my dad's behalf, that she has wanted for decades. She has loved carousel horses since she was a child, and decided when she and my dad built the house in Easley that she wanted to buy one to put in a niche next to the entrance of the house. Dad immediately put out feelers to locate one, and started getting information back. Disturbing information. Carousel horses are in high demand. Even modern plastic horses fetch thousands of dollars, and an antique wooden carousel horse in any condition is astronomical in price.
So Dad sat on that one for a couple of decades, knowing that it was something that Mom really wanted, but that was probably not going to be something that he was going to be able to give her.
Enter Crorey, stage right. A couple of small antique hand-carved wooden horses showed up, one literally on my doorstep, and I set about pricing them. The one on my doorstep was headed to the US, and was being offered at US prices. But one in an antique store could be had for a reasonable sum, and after a quick consultation with Dad and a rapid transfer of funds, I bought it.
It was a pretty piece, and obviously well used, if not loved. It had been long ago repaired with sheet metal where it had been broken. The tail had been replaced with a (somewhat sad) plywood substitute. The paint had been reapplied numerous times, often sloppily, and the result was a multicolored piebald mare.
And it was beautiful.
Next came the problem of transporting it to the US. Kathe and I looked into shipping it. (In my narratives, the phrase "Kathe and I" usually equals Kathe, and the term "I" either means "I" or "Kathe and I". But I am the narrator, and it is my story, after all….) "We" found that shipping costs were roughly four times the price of the horse. So we packaged it up and checked it with our bags. One oversize fee and some strange looks later, we had passed airport inspection and were on our way.
In the process of transporting the horse, a leg and the mismatched plywood tail were broken. Otherwise, it was in good shape. Dad made the brilliant decision to remove the tail altogether, and replace it with a horsehair tail from a tack shop. A family friend repaired the leg, patching some other holes in the process. A quick application of paint to the repaired places (fitting in with the rainbow piebald theme), and the resulting horse was beautiful.
And he brought it to the store. Dad was at lunch, and the guy in charge of receiving knew nothing of the gift. He walked into the office, and asked "Where's Mac?"
By chance, Mom had not gone with him. "Gone to lunch," she said.
"Tell him his horse is here." Mom looked up, confused. Roger immediately beat a hasty retreat, but the damage was done.
Christmas came, and everyone got to open presents under the tree. We all went outside to watch the grandkids play on the new swing set, and we snuck the horse in the back door while attention was elsewhere. We grabbed Mom and brought her in, got her to take pictures of us in front of the fireplace. While taking the pictures, she almost tripped over the horse, while taking shot after shot.
Finally we told her to look down before she fell over it.
And she went crazy. She had not put together the slip from Roger with the fact that we did NOT want her to pick us up from the airport. She was totally surprised, and was delighted with her gift. But not as delighted as we were to give it. It is so nice to be able to give a gift that is both wanted and unexpected.
On a different note, Tuesday night I went out with some friends to eat pizza, as a "thank you" for the help they gave me while I was out of the country.
See, last week I wrote that my car died, and that its dying created an exciting hurdle for the trip to the border. What I didn't mention is that when it died, Doña Ana's husband, who had been called in to move it, took a drastic step. It died in the middle of the street, and would not move completely out of the way. If left as it was, the car would have been broken into and stripped, or towed by the city police (other cars so towed have been stripped to the frame within 48 hours). Rather than risk that, he grabbed a friend and they spent a very cold, uncomfortable night sleeping in the car. The next day, Jeanne, in whose house I live, made arrangements to have the car towed (furthering the debt I owe her…).
I figured that a sleepless night is worth at least one family pizza night. So I invited Gilberto (my friend who accompanied me to the border) and Ana and her family (including daughter-in-law and three grandkids) and carried them into town for a night on the town.
What I didn't expect was the gravity of the occasion. I am far more comfortable in my role as class clown than in my role as benefactor. But Ana showed up in a beautiful hand-embroidered tangerine-colored dress, and the rest of the family was scrubbed and gelled and in their starched Sunday best. And the conversation was formal, as befits the relationship between patron and beneficiary. I am quite uncomfortable with that attitude, at least on the giving end (and it was only pizza…).
It also does not fit either my personality type or my linguistic talents. My conversational Spanish is acceptable. I cannot hold forth on politics or current events for very long, but I can talk about just about anything for a while. This was a struggle. Everyone was really nice; it just needed a little levity to make it a little more easy for me. I missed Kathe as much that night as ever. Her ability to converse naturally in any group, Latin or gringo, is so impressive, and it comes so effortlessly. She simply fits into any group she is a part of.
The struggle with the Bureaucracy continues. Apparently, the way around writing a complete project up, complete with co-director, is for only one archaeologist to work, and to do it under the supervision of a Guatemalan archaeologist. Adriana is my supervisor.
This is not such a bad thing. The amount of supervision depends almost entirely on her, and her level of interest in what I am doing. I have to pay her expenses when she is in the field, and I have no idea what that will be. Might be that I have to pay for her time and lunch. Perhaps just for an occasional visit, or as an everyday thing.
Either way, I will be grateful for the company. And I hear from Matt that she is on top of things and pretty responsible, so I win either way. If she is only in it for the paycheck, she is likely to get bored with the work after a few days and disappear. If she wants to help with the archaeology and is interested, all the better – I can always use an extra set of eyes.
Now the last bit of intense waiting awaits. The head of Monumentos, Gustavo, with whom I spoke for the first time this week, was supposed to go over my proposal on Tuesday when he got to work. Wednesday, I called and left a message. Thursday morning, I called and he said that Adriana had given him the paperwork just that morning, and he was going to discuss it with his boss that afternoon – he'd call me.
My phone was silent.
I finally figured it was just my ringer, and called him back. Immediate voice mail. The guy had turned his phone off, possibly to avoid dealing with me.
Friday morning, afternoon? See previous paragraph. Rinse, repeat.
I wish C.S. Lewis were here right now. He'd learn a thing or two about bureaucracy...
...
The wedding was one of the most touching scenes I have ever seen. The civic ceremony was simple, and held in a back chapel presided over by a family friend, who just talked about love for a half hour. The formal church wedding really grabbed me, though.Griselda walked with her teenage son to the altar – at the front, he handed him over to Miguel Angel, who reached over and touched his new stepson on the shoulder. And in a beautiful moment, Griselda's son leaned forward, placed his head on Miguel's shoulder and gently wept. Completely without embarrassment, totally unselfconsciously, Miguel stroked the hair of the weeping boy. It was one of the most mutually loving gestures I have ever seen.
A humorous aside that I have to share. The wedding followed several others – Saturday afternoon is the big wedding time. The previous wedding had a hired band, complete with the customary two marimbas, mandolins and violins. After several songs, the band ripped out a wonderful rendition of the Beatles' "Yesterday". The words were not sung, but I just started laughing, running through the lyrics in my head:Yesterday, love was such an easy game to play.
Now I need a place to hide away.
Oh, yesterday came suddenly.
Why she had to go, I don't know – she wouldn't say.
I said something wrong (i.e. "I do"), now I long for yesterday.
Lost love. What a beautiful sentiment for a wedding march.
So I am still in Antigua, working up old paperwork and waiting on a shipment of screens from the US. Quite possibly the best and worst thing about Antigua is how European it is. The city has worked very hard to make it an appealing tourist destination, and have succeeded incredibly in doing so. The streets are clean, the restaurants are nice (and all serve bottled water), the market is attractive, and the panhandlers are few, and are spread out enough to allow the tourist to feel safe. Most languages can be negotiated by most of the population, at least enough to make you feel comfortable (and, if you can't make yourself understood, just speak your English louder – the locals are all hard of hearing). Local color is abundant, but safely marshaled within certain sectors – meaning you will not be accosted at every turn by Maya women in brightly colored costumes hawking cheap tourist trinkets. It does happen, but the places where it can happen are very carefully circumscribed.
Amazing ruins are everywhere, and the grass is kept carefully manicured for visitors. Your bed and breakfast will undoubtedly have a stunning view of the volcano, and you do not have to go more than a block from anywhere to find an internet café so you can write home and share your experiences.
Which will be almost as genuine as the world experience at Epcot. Not to malign Epcot, of course. But it seems a little out of place in Guatemala.
The artisania market (now safely tucked into a nice niche where the tourist can safely shop for their souvenirs) is nice, and as is the case at Alice's Restaurant, you can get anything you want. Many of the things you can get are hard to come by elsewhere in the world. The allure of inexpensive antiquity purchases is hard to bypass (but is, for the casual tourist, illegal), and colonial art is still available, albeit at higher prices than was available even a decade ago. The handmade textiles are stunning in their variety and their cultural significance – clothing is particular to the village, and some of the designs have great antiquity, showing up in iconography from before contact. And the quality of artisan work is impressive, and pretty reasonable.
Exhibit A. This past year, I managed to obtain a gift for my mom, on my dad's behalf, that she has wanted for decades. She has loved carousel horses since she was a child, and decided when she and my dad built the house in Easley that she wanted to buy one to put in a niche next to the entrance of the house. Dad immediately put out feelers to locate one, and started getting information back. Disturbing information. Carousel horses are in high demand. Even modern plastic horses fetch thousands of dollars, and an antique wooden carousel horse in any condition is astronomical in price.
So Dad sat on that one for a couple of decades, knowing that it was something that Mom really wanted, but that was probably not going to be something that he was going to be able to give her.
Enter Crorey, stage right. A couple of small antique hand-carved wooden horses showed up, one literally on my doorstep, and I set about pricing them. The one on my doorstep was headed to the US, and was being offered at US prices. But one in an antique store could be had for a reasonable sum, and after a quick consultation with Dad and a rapid transfer of funds, I bought it.
And it was beautiful.
Next came the problem of transporting it to the US. Kathe and I looked into shipping it. (In my narratives, the phrase "Kathe and I" usually equals Kathe, and the term "I" either means "I" or "Kathe and I". But I am the narrator, and it is my story, after all….) "We" found that shipping costs were roughly four times the price of the horse. So we packaged it up and checked it with our bags. One oversize fee and some strange looks later, we had passed airport inspection and were on our way.
In the process of transporting the horse, a leg and the mismatched plywood tail were broken. Otherwise, it was in good shape. Dad made the brilliant decision to remove the tail altogether, and replace it with a horsehair tail from a tack shop. A family friend repaired the leg, patching some other holes in the process. A quick application of paint to the repaired places (fitting in with the rainbow piebald theme), and the resulting horse was beautiful.
And he brought it to the store. Dad was at lunch, and the guy in charge of receiving knew nothing of the gift. He walked into the office, and asked "Where's Mac?"
By chance, Mom had not gone with him. "Gone to lunch," she said.
"Tell him his horse is here." Mom looked up, confused. Roger immediately beat a hasty retreat, but the damage was done.
Christmas came, and everyone got to open presents under the tree. We all went outside to watch the grandkids play on the new swing set, and we snuck the horse in the back door while attention was elsewhere. We grabbed Mom and brought her in, got her to take pictures of us in front of the fireplace. While taking the pictures, she almost tripped over the horse, while taking shot after shot.
Finally we told her to look down before she fell over it.
And she went crazy. She had not put together the slip from Roger with the fact that we did NOT want her to pick us up from the airport. She was totally surprised, and was delighted with her gift. But not as delighted as we were to give it. It is so nice to be able to give a gift that is both wanted and unexpected.
On a different note, Tuesday night I went out with some friends to eat pizza, as a "thank you" for the help they gave me while I was out of the country.
See, last week I wrote that my car died, and that its dying created an exciting hurdle for the trip to the border. What I didn't mention is that when it died, Doña Ana's husband, who had been called in to move it, took a drastic step. It died in the middle of the street, and would not move completely out of the way. If left as it was, the car would have been broken into and stripped, or towed by the city police (other cars so towed have been stripped to the frame within 48 hours). Rather than risk that, he grabbed a friend and they spent a very cold, uncomfortable night sleeping in the car. The next day, Jeanne, in whose house I live, made arrangements to have the car towed (furthering the debt I owe her…).
I figured that a sleepless night is worth at least one family pizza night. So I invited Gilberto (my friend who accompanied me to the border) and Ana and her family (including daughter-in-law and three grandkids) and carried them into town for a night on the town.
What I didn't expect was the gravity of the occasion. I am far more comfortable in my role as class clown than in my role as benefactor. But Ana showed up in a beautiful hand-embroidered tangerine-colored dress, and the rest of the family was scrubbed and gelled and in their starched Sunday best. And the conversation was formal, as befits the relationship between patron and beneficiary. I am quite uncomfortable with that attitude, at least on the giving end (and it was only pizza…).
It also does not fit either my personality type or my linguistic talents. My conversational Spanish is acceptable. I cannot hold forth on politics or current events for very long, but I can talk about just about anything for a while. This was a struggle. Everyone was really nice; it just needed a little levity to make it a little more easy for me. I missed Kathe as much that night as ever. Her ability to converse naturally in any group, Latin or gringo, is so impressive, and it comes so effortlessly. She simply fits into any group she is a part of.
The struggle with the Bureaucracy continues. Apparently, the way around writing a complete project up, complete with co-director, is for only one archaeologist to work, and to do it under the supervision of a Guatemalan archaeologist. Adriana is my supervisor.
This is not such a bad thing. The amount of supervision depends almost entirely on her, and her level of interest in what I am doing. I have to pay her expenses when she is in the field, and I have no idea what that will be. Might be that I have to pay for her time and lunch. Perhaps just for an occasional visit, or as an everyday thing.
Either way, I will be grateful for the company. And I hear from Matt that she is on top of things and pretty responsible, so I win either way. If she is only in it for the paycheck, she is likely to get bored with the work after a few days and disappear. If she wants to help with the archaeology and is interested, all the better – I can always use an extra set of eyes.
Now the last bit of intense waiting awaits. The head of Monumentos, Gustavo, with whom I spoke for the first time this week, was supposed to go over my proposal on Tuesday when he got to work. Wednesday, I called and left a message. Thursday morning, I called and he said that Adriana had given him the paperwork just that morning, and he was going to discuss it with his boss that afternoon – he'd call me.
My phone was silent.
I finally figured it was just my ringer, and called him back. Immediate voice mail. The guy had turned his phone off, possibly to avoid dealing with me.
Friday morning, afternoon? See previous paragraph. Rinse, repeat.
I wish C.S. Lewis were here right now. He'd learn a thing or two about bureaucracy...
...
No comments:
Post a Comment