First day in Antigua

Primera vez en Antigua

After some weather delays, my plane landed around 10PM in Guatemala City, and after I cleared immigration, got my luggage and cleared customs, it was about 11pm when I found Edi, my driver waiting for me outside the airport. Actually, it did not look like the picture of Edi that was emailed to me but he was holding a sign that said 'Marvin Gibson'. The 'does not look like Edi' said, "Uno momento, señor", and the real Edi appeared in a moment. It seems my plane had delayed long enough such that the call of nature was stronger than the call of duty to hold my 'Marvin Gibson' sign. After a few, "Buenas noches", "Buenas noches","Mi nombre es Edi","Mi nombre es Marvin", et cetera salutations were exchanged, Edi ran out of English and Marvin ran out of Spanish and we quietly drove to Antigua.

About midnight, we arrived in Antigua and I do not remember a rougher cobble stone road. I do not think it would be possible to speed in Antigua without throwing all your hub caps, your hood, your trunk and possibly a few doors. Señora Jeanette de Navas, the better half of my host couple, was waiting up for me. After a few more introductions and salutations, I ventured a "Yo tengo poco hambre", which I hoped translated to "I am a little bit hungry". It must have been understandable because in minutes she brought me some mango and bread, very nice.

Then it was almost off to bed, but first I was compelled to unpack and see how much I forgot. I would be embarrassed to list all that came out of my pack, my camera bag and my bolsa, but it appears I had not forgotten anything, and I probably had more than I needed. I have much difficulty attempting to be a minimalist. Then it was off to sleep, which was really welcome ... until about 2AM when some party in the next house to us cranked their 120 amp speakers up full blast playing music that was not meant to put you to sleep. Apparently there are no noise laws in Guatemala because this continued for over two more hours. But, as I said earlier, I am not a minimalist, so I dug around my stuff and found my ear plugs and soon I had every thing, other than the booming base, silenced. Next morning Señora de Navas was very chagrined to ask, "Did you hear the music?" I made her feel better when I told her I had ear plugs.

In the morning I got up and had desayuno (breakfast) and Señor Carlos joined us. He is a lawyer. I let them know I wanted to visit the school, change my dollars to quezales and get a SIM card for my phone. We pulled the map out, they suggested where I should go and I was off. The de Navas do not have wifi, but the school did, so I caught up on my email there. After I got a working SIM card for my phone, I was able to text Dennie, Clint (DSC missions pastor back home), Eder in San Miguel Chicaj and Hector. It turns out Hector is traveling, as usual, and will be in Antigua on Monday. So we look forward to getting together then. I also texted a local pastor that Hector was going to introduce me to. So I beat him to it and invited myself to the local pastor's church for Sunday services tomorrow.

I decided to walk around Antigua some, and found an empty park bench in the plaza and did some people watching. Soon a local man sat down next to me, let me know that he was Catholic, wanted to know if I thought he worshipped statues, said that he taught English and said he had one out of body experience and two real vision experiences of Jesus Christ, one of which included Jesus accompanied by two of his disciples. He also told me the story of the rich young ruler who went away sad when Jesus told him to sell all he had. And he told me it was more difficult for a rich man to get into heaven than a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. We talked for more than an hour and when I thought it was about to rain, I got up to continue my walk. He let me know then that he was out of work and could not afford his epilepsy medicine and does not drink anymore. I gave him a few dollars and we went our ways.