Living Rootless: Antigua, Guatemala: The Sunday Blues

Friday, May 20, 2016

Antigua, Guatemala: The Sunday Blues

Closed market stall across from San Felipe de Jesus church, near Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016.

I heard about a local church that drew many, many folks from the countryside for the first Mass of each Sunday. This same church was allegedly the home of some miracles.

Obviously, I had to check it out. I like to go to places of miracles.

Like the Santuario de Chimayo in New Mexico, where I gathered up some holy dirt and placed it in empty receptacles of some sort that I had in the car, and which I later gifted to my mother and, I believe, re-gifted to my Georgian hostess, Neli, after I discovered my mother did not have the full appreciation for such things like Neli did:

And the Holy Tree in Opelousas, from which I harvested a holy stick:

But back to Antigua.

Although sleeping in on the chosen Sunday morning was inviting, I got up early so I could walk to the bus terminal, find the bus to the village, and arrive in time for the early-morning Mass.

My intel was that I'd find the right bus behind the municipal market down this lane and over by this other place. I went to where I thought it was. No buses yet. Upon asking someone, I learned the first bus wouldn't depart til too late. So I grabbed a tuk-tuk, paid too much (though negotiated it down), and was dropped in front of the church doorway.

Well, I was damn early. But I did see the makings of a post-Mass breakfast at various stations in the area next to the church, plus the stirrings of a Sunday market across the street from the church.

Truth be told, the church wasn't all that memorable for me. It was yellow. Which makes it just like all the other churches in and around Antigua.

Ooh, but the blues of the market across the way! The blue of the tortillas! Seas, skies, pools, precious stones of myriad blues!