My friend Anne left yesterday to go back to the States. I am spending the weekend in a bed & breakfast because the student house is now very empty and not very comfortable--my room there is cave-like with no windows. A single lightbulb hangs out of reach. There is a bed and a small wooden table with no chair: very institutional feeling. So here I am in a very comfortable room with wifi. And windows. And a chair.

This weekend is the celebration of the founding of Antigua, so it is very crowded with lots of tourists from all over and just as many men carrying obnoxious and scary shotguns of some sort.

Late this afternoon I heard the drums of a parade, and I set out to watch. The sky was dark, so I grabbed my REI rain jacket and followed the sound of the drums. Three different marching bands followed each other through the streets of Antigua. As I was walking along side, the rhythm of three separate beats pulsed through the air and seemed to rearrange the molecules of my body. At the tail end followed a large wooden platform, ornately carved and carried on the shoulders of 16 men and women, all clad in black suits. The platform was the vehicle of a large, finely dressed image of Jesus. Life size dolls, my daughter Lisa calls these old-fashioned Catholic statues, but they are not really dolls and are also much bigger than life-sized. I am not able to fully put into words what the experience was like, what with the drums, the dedication and utter seriousness of the men and women shouldering such a heavy weight, and the rain. It began to pour in that wierd, warm way that makes no sense to Pacific Northwesterners: heavy sheets that should chill a body to the bone, but don't.

The three bands of young people marched on, rapidly gettintg saturated. Jesus was covered with a Hefty bag, yet his carriers didn't miss a step. People crowded into store fronts and under inadequate overhangs in unsuccessful attempts to stay dry. Some gave up and settled into the restaurants of Antigua, but watching those musicians in their startlingly white uniforms valiantly marching through the small rivers that earlier had been the cobbled streets of the town, I felt compelled to stick it out. So I plowed on. The parade finally made it to the final destination, the cathedral, which sits on the main plaza of Antigua. Each band put on a final show, and then Jesus was solemnly carried in and placed in his glass fronted show case where he will wait out the year until it is time to do it all over again. Kind of like the Thriftway drill team that marches in the Strawberry Festival parade on Vashon Island, only not.

Next week I will be moving into the school, which will feel a bit like starting over, I think. I am falling a bit more in love with Guatemala every day.