Day 104: The Beauty Before the Storm

I slept in an extra half hour this morning. That was nice, but I had a strange experience during the night: at about 2.30 in the morning, I was woken up by a group of people singing. It was the strangest thing, it sounded like they were very close to the house, but I could not tell what the lyrics were. I have no idea what that was all about.

After munching on my pieces of bread, I walked down to Josh and Courtney’s house to get the key to the school gate. In my short visit there, I discovered that Josh drank mate. What amused me even further was that his mate had ‘Argentina’ written across the side. I had a drink, and along with the drink came a flood of memories.

When I got to the school, only a dog, Leroy, was there. The sunlight was beautiful and I got some nice pictures of the campus, albeit without people. I was happy to see that my painting had survived the night’s rain, and that the paints, sponge and buckets were dry. There was not a lot to do on the painting, I just put a bit more color to balance out the dark/light scale and I brightened up one of the lighter parts. When I first arrived the sun was hitting directly on the wall, and it made it hard to see what the painting depicts, so it will have to be an view-after-ten o’clock piece of art. I am quite happy with how it turned out, and I took some photos of the final product.The idea was to capture the St. Michael theme in more of a symbolic versus graphic sense. Although the concept is a little mature for kindergarten students, hopefully the central idea of good taming evil will transcend the painted wall of the bathroom. I also have a bit of a personal connection to St. Michael and Michaelmas, so I am pleased to leave the Escuela Caracol with this memento.

Once my work was done and I had cleaned everything up, I decided to go on a bit of a walk along the side of the lake. I had been told about an area where people swim and a nice café on the beachside called ‘Moonfish.’ I found the path fairly easily that Josh had told me about, and I got a beautiful view of the surrounding waters as well as some of the more jungle-y parts of the area. I stopped in the Moonfish cafe for lunch, a burrito and a pineapple smoothie.

I went back up to the house after lunch just to relax a bit, although sitting the cafe reading El Eternauta was not too bad or stressful. And it was not until about 4.00 that the rain started.

When the rain started, I jumped into my raincoat and headed down to the town, wanting to eat before night fell. I stopped by Josh’s house on the way down and told him of my plans to leave on Monday morning, just so he was aware. I went to a different restaurant than the previous nights, just to try something new. I had seen some signs for a brick oven pizza place, and although I know everyone who is reading this will think ‘what’s he doing eating pizza in Guatemala?’ I just really wanted some good, fresh pizza. And boy, was it good.

Although I had to sneak through a meditation center to get to the restaurant since the path was flooded, the ladies there were very friendly, especially for Guatemalans who are a much more modest and quiet people. I was the only guest there, no surprise, and I sat upstairs and could watch my pizza being made outside in the back in a large brick oven.

I was eating rather early, and I knew I would get hungry again later in the night, so I asked the servers if I could order a pizza to-go. They said I could, but the issue was the rain. I had to wait for the pizza to be made, but I was also waiting for a break in the rain. It was literally pouring it down. True monsoon-in-the-jungle style. Eventually, though, I had to come to terms with the fact that the rain was not letting up, and it was growing darker by the minute. The ladies wrapped up my pizza in tinfoil over a piece of cardboard and put it inside a plastic bag, which I tucked under my raincoat.

As I ran, I tried to keep dry, but that soon became obviously impossible. The rain was coming down very quickly along all of the roads, because of the steep incline of the whole city. When I finally made it back to the house, I was surprised that my raincoat had kept parts of my tee shirt dry. And the pizza was still a little warm. In fact, it had kept my stomach warm while I was battling against the uphill rainstorm.

So, I just finished my second pizza for the evening. The rain just recently died down to a light patter, it is now 8.45. I do hope my shoes will be semi dry tomorrow; I might have to put them in the sun, if there is sun that is.

Now that I am warm and dry, sleep is calling to me. I had a great day, even the days when I do not have much going on, things seem to happen.

Chao.