Archive for Uncategorized
A Robbery Story
Posted by: | CommentsA woman is approached in her car at an intersection in the capital and a guy puts a gun up to her window and says, “Give me all your money!” She says, “All I have is 25Q”. He motions for it, and she digs it out of her cleavage and hands the warm, wadded up bills to him. He frowns and looks the car over and frowns. “Give me your phone then.” She fishes through her purse and hands him her phone, one of those little 200Q Nokia bricks that you can drop in water or run over with a chicken bus and it will still work. He looks at it frowning, and then throws it back through the window at her, rolls his eyes and tells her to go.
Moral of the story? Carry ‘walkin’ around money’ in your bra and two phones, the nice one, and the throwaway.
Where Can I Get Water Tested?
Posted by: | CommentsAs I mentioned in a previous post, I’m looking for a laboratory that can run a proper test on water. Specifically, I want to know parts per million for all the usual suspects. I’m going to compare the well water I get in my residenciales with the agua pura from HunaPur and the water that I’ve run through the BioSand filter. Any ideas?
When It Rains It Pours
Posted by: | CommentsThe rainy season is definitely here; it has rained every day this week. But what I’m talking about is the putatively random events that seem to congregate around particular days in my life. Right now I’m dealing with a bunch of kids who got sunburned on our trip to the beach (more on that later); if you don’t have first hand knowledge with such an experience let me assure it makes children crank(ier), and this morning The Wife announced a dental emergency. This woman has delivered children without painkillers without as many complaints as she registered this morning so I figured it merited some immediate action. That put us on the doorstep of Clinicas Ovalle this morning at 9am.
As always they were as gracious as ever, despite the fact that we didn’t have an appointment. ”Fijese…“. By the time The Wife finished filling out the patient form they escorted her back, took xrays, and within about an hour the Dentist was going over the cost of extractions, root canals, bridges and porcelain caps with us. It seems that having children has an adverse effect on teeth; there’s an old wive’s tale that you lose one tooth for each child you have. At some point The Wife said, “Oh, just pull them all out and give me those implants”, which no doubt delighted the Dentist but would set my cigar & liquor budget back an unacceptable number of months.
The Wife was delighted with this visit, if such a thing is possible. The Dentist spoke excellent English and everyone was as polite as could be. They even have WIFI in the office, so I was able to compare their price list with what we were paying in Phoenix. It seems prices are about 35 to 50% of what they are in the US; a root canal is Q900 and a porcelain cap is Q2000. Some services are apparently free; a local school girl came in complaining about her braces and one of the secretaries grabbed a pair of needle nose pliers and made an adjustment right there in the waiting room. Talk about service!
If I do have a complaint about Clinicas Ovalle it’s that they don’t offer massages to waiting spouses. They didn’t even offer me a Bloody Mary, Irish Coffee or a room to smoke a cigar in. Oh well, but as I told the 90 year-old nun that was waiting, we all have to make sacrifices, and I love my Wife enough to make this one for Her.
Chapins Love Babies
Posted by: | CommentsOccasionally I´m walking the streets of Antigua with one of the kids and undoubtedly a local will come over and marvel at how beautiful the baby is. When the toddler was small, he attracted particular attention with his pale white skin and bleached-blond hair.
Of course, the females are predictably interested here. Whether 12 or 80 they all want to see the baby, pat the baby, comment on how beautiful the baby is (whether true or not), and hold the baby. I went to a party one time and without exception the local women all wanted to hold the baby while, conversely, the gringas made clear they did not want anything to do with the little crumb cruncher. That makes for interesting speculation…for another post.
What really struck me was how Guatmalan males react though. In the US, a female might be fawning over a baby while the guy is looking around, wondering how long this will take, and worrying about whether a baby of his own might be in the future. Here I´ve had males of all ages come up and admire the baby, even stop on the street to watch the passing baby like they might a babe.
Along those lines here´s a story from Jimmy and Shelley who have their own new babies:
Walking through the market with two little white babies is quite the trip. Everybody is commenting about the twins and several of the more outspoken ladies yell at you to come over so they can hold the boys, talk about twins and smother them with kisses. While standing around talking to Cristina, an indigenous lady in her typical dress (we don’t see too many dressed like that here because of the heat) came up to Shelley and handed her a Q5 bill. She said, “Take this for your children.” The look on Cristina’s face mirrored what I was thinking and she said, “For WHAT?” The lady responded, “It means something to me” and walked off.
New Comment Functions
Posted by: | CommentsI discovered this morning that hundreds of legitimate comments were stuck in one of my several spam folder, so I’ve made some more changes. Let me know how it works!
New Poll for Maid #4
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve been remiss in updating the poll lately, but now we have a new one so check it out, to the right of this column, below the ads.
A Delusional Trip to Havana
Posted by: | CommentsIn the July/August edition of La Cuadra, Washington, DC, Attorney at Law Philip Fornaci takes readers on a delusional little journey to Havana. The timing of the essay is apropos, given the United States’ current hasty descent into Marxism.
Mr. Fornaci glorifies the national slavery which exists in Cuba, just as leftist sympathizers have done with dictators since Lenin’s day. I trust readers remember how so-called ‘mainstream’ journalists in US in the 30’s and 40’s proclaimed the Soviet Union to be a “worker’s paradise” where men and women worked free of hunger and oppression, only to learn the stomach-churning truth of the 30 million killed by the communists and the millions more who spent decades in concentration camps while the regime did its best to export death and suffering around the world.
Fornaci goes on to exclaim that the streets of Havana are free of Read More→
Caravan de Zorros – Info Please!
Posted by: | CommentsGuest Post by Marina K. Villatoro, Travel Experta
Since I started writing for Mark’s blog, I’ve failed to mention my absolute addiction and NEED for travel. While living in Costa Rica there was no village from the Nicaraguan border to the Panamanian border that we didn’t visit. Plus, we indulged ourselves in trying to keep up with the local festivities as well. Like the different parades, festivals and other stuff that after a few years became mundane as we realized it was all the same only the faces changed from town to town. Although I recommend it for everyone who is visiting Costa Rica to experience a local event!
Now it’s Guatemala’s turn! Since I met my husband here eight years ago I traveled the entire country. But, that was eight years ago, I was a backpacker. What that means is that I traveled with other backpackers whose main goal was to spend AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE. And trust me, I will never recommend the $1.50 hotel finds we used to stay at. I’ve stayed in places that I was too scared to take off my jeans and sweaters because the beds hadn’t been changed since 1960’s, or there were more ants in the bed with me than you’d find in an ant farm or taking a shower was less hygienic than being dirty for one full week. Needless to say, we are exploring Guatemala in a whole new light and I’m loving it! I will start posting more about my adventures in this country!
For now, I am hoping to get an exact answer, since no one seems to know specifically and I can’t find anything on the web as well. I keep hearing about this awesome Caravan de Zorros. A caravan of motorcycles that leave from Guatemala City and head to Esquipulas. It’s supposed to be a pretty amazing experience since there are over one thousand of all sorts of motorcycles that head out together.
Naturally we want to go! But for the life of me I can’t figure out the exact date and the location of it. Plus, I would so love to hear a first hand experience if anyone has had one!
Bio
Marina has been living in Central America for over 7 years and her site Travel Experta is all about traveling in Central America. Marina loves to help people plan the perfect vacation to this amazing part of the world! You can sign up for her RSS feed and join the fun on her facebook fan page and follow her on Twitter at @MarinaVillatoro.
Loading ...