Three weeks under our belts and lots more

By this time three weeks ago we were on our way to our separate niditos (nests) here in Antigua. The adjustment time was instant as it seems like our second home here. In our little town of Prescott in Arizona, we eat out the majority of times and wait folks come to know what we want. Well, this morning at breakfast in the patio of Doña Luisa we seated ourselves and within minutes our orders were under our noses without having uttered one word. I told the wait person that she knew. We all smiled now knowing full well that the preliminaries are under our belts and we are well on our way to becoming known guests.

And, we have befriended a couple of indigenous vendors from whom John has made a purchase and may make another. She and another friend come by bus each morning and set up in the entrance way of La Aurora Hotel just a handful of blocks distant from where we stay. Each time that they are there we get a knowing nod and greeting.

That goes for our daily trek too. We have a routine as do others and we can calculate easily when one of us is not on task or simply has bypassed the exercise routine for the day. Everybody here greets while passing on the sidewalks or hiking trails. And, most folks smile and tell us to enjoy ourselves and our food while eating out. It would be difficult to be a stranger here or certainly to maintain that label. One would have to try diligently.

The newest tenants in the compound are settling in and we finally got their Internet going full and strong. This at the expense of pulling my plug entirely - at lest for the moment. No more outages we hope. Paul’s friend and in-house expert at Internet and networking was over here yesterday and assisted with the rewiring of much of the network. There were four wireless routers installed within the network with all of them dynamically assigning Internet addresses which has continued to cause consternation to us all with the web going up and down like a yo-yo. Hopefully there will be consistency and continuity of service now that we have eliminated all but one router. I have ordered a switch which will act as sort of an extension cord for additional devices that need to have access. That piece of the puzzle sits in the home of Paul's daughter Becky in Florida. And, this Sunday, Paul will be flying to be with family there for over one week. It is a plug in “out of the box” so it should cause no conflict and hopefully then I too will enjoy being reconnected without interruptions. It is a “dumb” switch which cares not other than to pass along the signal to each additional device. It assigns no Internet address and lets the one router take care of that task. Good for us. The downside of it all is that I am without Internet until the switch arrives. In the interim, I go to Paul's office or outside near enough to the one wireless router and connect or I waddle up to John‘s apartment and help myself there. Wireless routers have far less reach here though as there are thick walls (some over one yard in width) which cut their signal almost down to zero. So, I sit in the yard just outside of the one emitting signals and do my thing.

A few more words about the new tenants might be in order. Dick, the husband is very restricted in his diet which makes eating out almost impossible for them. He and Jenny both take their turn at preparation of their food and, as far as I have seen, they do eat healthfully. I have been offered tastes but I have refused each offer. Until I am so restricted, I see absolutely no reason to eat food that to me has no interesting odor and is most likely tasteless. Dick has also many additional physical challenges including asthma. He has had some severe attacks and has found it difficult to maintain good breathing. Instead of joining Jenny in bed some nights, he has resorted to propping pillows under his body on a non-flexible chair. Of late covering their pillows in their bedroom with plastic has seemed to help.

They have had a passel of other challenges including inability to adjust the shower for hot and cold water, stoppage of their commode and kitchen sink and just yesterday both of them ended up at the dentist. It seemed that Dick’s false choppers just did not fit properly. Strange since they were new to him six months ago and prepared by a fine dentist in the USA. Not to be outdone, Jenny complained of a discomforting tooth or jaw. Neither of them is conversant in Spanish so Paul took them both to the dentist where he dropped them off for a check-up. After a reasonable amount of time, Paul received a call from the dentist in which the dentist told Paul what he had found in the mouths of each of Dick and Jenny. Then the dentist handed the phone to Dick and Jenny and Paul switched to English to give them the good news. It seems that the dentist here found that Dick’s plate was hanging on by two hooks and he found that the plate was ancient and did not fit properly. He suggested that he would be happy to exchange a new plate for USD600. As for Jenny, he suggested a root canal and a new crown on her troubled tooth. He told Paul that although there was absolutely no evidence of decay or abscess under her existing crown, it would be like putting a band aide on a cancer if he were to put a new crown on her existing one without a root canal. After consultation, Dick decided to call his dentist back home and I have not heard what that outcome was. Jenny ended up with having her current crown ground down a tad and she reports a much better feeling immediately.

I told Paul that I felt he was going to hear a continuous stream of challenges and I was amazed that he had the patience to contend with them. I suspect that the USD850/mo prompts him to have a smile in his heart and face when high-maintenance folks like these appear on the scene. Of the four or five years that we have lived here, we have experienced none others who have been so trouble-prone. No strangers to suffering - you know!

I could not understand from day one why a couple with those challenges would opt to come down here. I found out that they are attempting to avoid the wiles of the winter season in South Carolina. Strange to select a place where tripping on cobblestones in the streets and sidewalks is a guarantee. Where also one can count on having several cases of the trots. As sister Grace used to ask, “why pay money for discomfort?” They cannot take the most common and cheapest mode of transport either as the tuk-tuk passages have been too severely rough for them. So they are dependent upon the rides they can muster from Paul and Ruth. Else they do have taxis available. Of course once they are out of the hen house, they are dependent upon others to translate for them as they know no Spanish - ni una palabra (not one word).  Dick does have one or more modules of the Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish loaded into his trusty laptop but he admitted to me that he is dyslexic and cannot distinguish the differences between and among the words and sounds. I suspect that might be a severe limitation. So, Spanish is out for Dick and the only interaction that I see Jenny doing with the Worldwide Web is playing rounds of Scrabble.

Dick and Jenny have found our evenings and nights a bit cold too so Paul and Dick ventured out into the community to purchase an opaque plastic covering which they have installed over all of the windows in their dwelling. At best, those with very ripe and thick cataracts would have the same vision in peering out of doors  without obstruction as I have now from inside looking out after the installation. It is not a pretty sight either from within or from without. Now, I suspect that some would say it is cold but neither John nor I feel that is an accurate rendering of fact. It does fall to the mid-fifties at night but daytimes can push up to the high seventies. Almost all days the sun shines unimpeded by clouds and there is rarely sufficient movement of the air to cause the wind-chimes to jingle. When I have gone into their dwelling to assist in restarting and restoring their Internet, I have sensed a dank, moist and heavy warmness that would not be my companion should it be my dwelling. We are in the dry season so those who might complain about the cold and moist combination would not be correct. I do know that when my 90-something friend Chuck from Arizona entered that decade that he felt a need for more heat but Dick and Jenny are just a few years my senior so they have quite a wait. I don’t know and I have neither been asked for an answer nor a comment. So, why the commentary? What’s my point? Guess I just needed to vent. I have been independent way too long.

As for Jenny, the reason for their being here at Casa Philippi and not somewhere else in Antigua is simple: she tripped and injured her ankle or foot while maneuvering about a cavernous home they were renting elsewhere in the city. There were bedrooms sufficient to accommodate a small army and their living quarters included hopping up and down a long set of stairs without railing. Well, you can easily see that being deliberate and unsteady as she is, she quickly fell prey. Well, when Dick and Jenny realized that their former casona (large house) would not do, they broadcast through a network of ex-pats the need for different digs. Paul responded so here we are. It is not my problem and for that I am thankful because I would not smile as does Paul.

A few general challenges of Casa Philippi might be worth noting here. Our landlady Ruth has been tormented by the three or four pip-squeak dogs resident just over the wall. They do bark without ceasing and it is just over the wall from her open kitchen window. Windows and doors here within the compound are almost always open providing easy access at all hours together with the lack of containment of outside sounds. I have no lock on my door and the only reasons I would close my windows at night would be to eliminate the smoke from the refuse burning which can occur at any hour of the night and the noise originating from the reception or group hall of Casa Santo Domingo, the walls of which we share. Closing the windows helps to eliminate most of the sounds. But, back to the dogs: Paul did go over and talked with the owner of the dogs. He plead with him about the noise and told him that when we leaves for the day that the dogs complain without ceasing. The owner was unconvinced to take any action whatsoever so Paul has ordered a battery-operated device which emits a very loud and high-pitched frequency in response to any bark. Fortunately for humans, we are unequipped to register the sound so the machine can continue until the sheep come home as far as we are concerned. Good too for the neighbor who has proud, vested title in the curs because he will be oblivious to the distressing alarms. Paul intends to place the emitting machine on the common fence and point it towards the culprits. You can imagine that Ruth was immediately concerned because she felt her non-barking curs would also be affected, unduly punished and react unfavorably. Paul assured him that the machine would be pointed towards the offenders and that the need for such would or should soon disappear. She was and is not totally content with this idea but is far less amused by the continuance of the noisome pestilence. Perhaps she can install earplugs in the four orifices of Chico and Sandy. We shall see and I will be happy to report the outcome of this scheme to quiet the neighbor curs. Paul returns from the USA on 8 February and will be aptly armed to control the problem.

As for upcoming activity, John and I are planning to take a week’s trek in the direction of Belize. Life is very slow here and it does take time to pull oneself together for such trekking. Neither of us is a beach person nor do we occupy ourselves in the diversion of skin-diving so we will have to see what that new-to-us-country has to offer. We plan to take a first-class express bus for about five hours from the capital city. It will involve the taking of some ferries over to Belize. For those of you unaware of that country’s position, it is just south of Mexico and eastward from Guatemala. Nothing is distant here in Central America and there are always some types of transportation between and among the several countries. We are looking at leaving Antigua either on the upcoming Saturday or Sunday. I shall have reports for you on our journey and perchance may include some images from our journey.