A TYPICAL SUNDAY IN ARICA

Sunday, March 7, 2010

In the corner of the dining room hangs an enormous chime made of flat shells. If you touch it,  you hear a soft cling, cling, clang.
Between the large parrot cage and the dining room table no one can really reach it, so you seldom hear its wonderful chime.

But this Sunday morning, as we sit down for breakfast, wea actually hear it’s sound. We stop our conversation when the dog starts barking really loud and we hear a sounds. The shells of the chimes are touching each other. We look at each other. Paulina and Maria stay casual and Ramiro grins. “Un tremblor”? I ask. “Maybe”, is the response. I am learning not to get excited about it anymore and continue with my breakfast. It’s part of life remeber?

We take it easy today, I do some Rotary work in our room upstairs and at 1:00 pm, I am called down. We are going to the cemetery with Grandma and for lunch after that. I am all game, for anything I do not have to plan or find directions for.

The cemetery is a totally different experience I had expected. It is a park, where people often take a picnic to and enjoy the afternoon. No dogs, just lots of grass with flat stones and flowers.
The flowers we bought yesterday at the market, have been made into beautiful arrangements by Paulina. Two are being placed at Grandpa’s grave stone and two at Dad’s which is right next to it. Maria polishes the stones and Ramiro trims the grass around it, while Grandma relaxes in a chair.


We drive by one of the roadside restaurants, where they sell bread. It smells like pizza bread to me. They have Oregano flavour, red pepper and onion flavour and you name it.




We continue to the country club,  we get to meet Blas and his wife. Blas, also a Rotarian has kept in contact with Ramiro ever since the Group Study Exchange in 2004.
We have a fantastic lunch with way too much alcohol.

Paulina drives by a one of the large mountains in the area where she points out a large number of Geoglyhps, that clearly show the various shapes of Llamas.

When we return home late in the afternoon, all we want to do is sleep.
I do some more work on my computer and am perfectly happy to skip the tea and bread meal at 10:00 pm. I am going to bed.