Today started with school kids in the streets again. The theme seemed to be school athletics. The teachers were maintaining control from scooters. And the huge speakers were pumping out Guatemalan rock. It’s Lent, so the festival spirit is everywhere.
Like yesterday, this was happening outside of my Spanish school. So back inside the conversation turned to music. I tend to pepper poor Merle with questions and here is what I extracted:
The most popular western male musician is Elton John.
The most popular western female musician is Whitney Houston
The most popular group is Air Supply. Well this was a bit of a shock. Who?? I went to YouTube to check them out and they’re like ABBA but with even less attitude.
The most popular Spanish-speaking musician in Central America is Ricardo Arjona. Merle said his name with reverence. Here’s Ricardo. He was taking a pee at the time by the looks of things. Oh well.
I’m rambling.
After school I head off to the Contessa, a little inside-terrace cafe for lunch
Inside about 100 feet there are tables around a fountain with the Guatemalan equivalent of a crow. They’re everywhere, behaving like crows
The thing about the Contessa and this building is that at one time the Count was away doing Count things and came home to find his wife, the Contessa had been having an affair. This story goes back 200 years. He found the hombre malo and walled him up, alive, in the building. Such is legend. Until 1976, when an earthquake came through town, levelled 3000 buildings, killing 23,000 and lo-and-behold, an upright skeleton was found behind a broken wall right in the courtyard where I have lunch. So keep a chisel in your back pocket I guess.
On my walk home someone had taken a shotgun to the gates of a Hotel. A warning maybe. Or jealousy again. The owner looked scared.
And since we’re on the subject of guns and stuff, here’s the end of the story of the Russian rider in the previous post.
I’ve no comment on whether the crash was his fault or not. But by the guy’s account, when he saw the truck veer left, in his mind cutting him off, he assumed they were bandidos and he was in serious trouble. So as he went down, suspecting the worst, rolled as he fell and reached for the weapon he keeps in his jacket pocket. This is his weapon of choice
