Yesterday we sadly went to the funeral of Montse and Manuel’s dad, Manolo, and grandfather to a lot of my students. He died Wednesday morning and was buried Thursday morning – but we’re pretty used to the quickness of it all now and the way things work. We went to the funeral in the church, and similar to Mike’s funeral, there was a lot of milling around and people coming and going. While it seemed odd at Mike’s funeral, as people were coming in from the swimming pool, again it’s something we’re now used to and rather than it feeling disrespectful, I’ve learned it’s actually a big mark of respect that people stop doing what they were doing and come into the church, even if it is only for a few minutes. I noticed the ladies from the day center came in for just a couple of minutes – no doubt in between preparing food for lunch. Unfortunately, both of the doors of the church creak, so noone comes and goes quietly.
The men wait outside and come in after the coffin, but we went inside and sat near the back, but a lot of people stood. At the end, the family stand behind the coffin and people parade around past the coffin and the family. I feel uncomfortable with this, however it is people’s way of showing respect to family and their last goodbye. The doors of the church were opened wide when this took place and lots more people came in just for this and to pay their final respect. We didn’t go to the cemetery. We did with Mike, because he had no family there other than his children, however Manolo has such a big family and friends we headed off home.
It was the first time we’d been inside the church, other than once briefly before with Jim and Viv, when Adelardo showed us around. It is very grand – lots of gold. One thing we both commented on was that there was no organ or choir, although the singing was obviously led by some ladies in the front. This seemed oddly moving, as the voices bounced around the inside of the church.
Our little lovebirds are doing well. They have got used us and are eating well. They’ve both put on weight, The bigger one was 25 grams and is now 31, which isn’t a bad weight gain for one week. I put some apple in the cage, as we are determined that we are going to introduce them to a wide range of food so we don’t end up with finicky birds like Larry. I left them this morning stood on their apple, so that didn’t go quite as well as I hoped. It won’t be for another few weeks before they start eating properly, so we don’t need to worry just yet. They are living in my workshop at the moment,however next week we’ll probably bring them into the house. We still have to keep them away from Larry until we are sure they have no bird diseases.
I’m counting down now till the end of classes before the summer. I’m planning what I’ll do during the summer. I definitely want some time to spend on modme, so what I’d like to do is to just do three days of classes. We’ll see…