I went into Antigua for the final portion of the dental work that was absolutely mandatory last week, and did a little bit of traveling from there. When I was stopped at one of the bus stops along the way, I met Manny, or Manuel, or whatever… Manny seemed really nice, spoke some English, and was actually talking to me rather than one of the women on the bus.

Manny is from Mexico, his dad’s Mexican, and his mom Guatemalan. Manny lived in the states for a little while, and even claimed to have a US Social security number. I’m not sure if I believe the last part, since as he was naming off the states he was a “resident” of, he included Florida, Miami, and Orlando, each as separate states.

This was when things in the conversation began to get kinda weird. Manny lifted his shirt to show me the tattoo he had, which read “MEXXXICO” and perfectly framed his beer gut. After that he proceeded to tell me that the reason he left the states was because he had killed three people. “@$%)*^’s needed to die” was his explanation. Afterward, Manny proceeded to curse at and make rude gestures to a group of Nun’s that walked by, and then ran after them, calling them names and opening the fly of his pants.

Sadly, such occurrences aren’t that terribly uncommon here. I’m just glad Manny doesn’t live in Pana, I have enough “friends” that act pretty similarly here.

Still having about an hour a day of water here… oh well, at least I can flush my toilet once a day.