A Mystery

When we look our our kitchen or living room windows we overlook a house [houses?] and courtyards to the west. The people who live there work on buses usually, and trucks occasionally, in the courtyard farthest to the left, but they often park other vehicles in the other two courtyards. Apparently no more, however. This morning I glanced out the window and saw people at work bricking up one of the gates.
Note that the gates behind the bricks still appear to work just fine, except that now they open onto a blank wall.After they finished one of them, they started on the second one.And finished it as well.We are baffled as to what is going on. We talked to our neighbors, Kevin and Kathy, who live two floors below us, and they were speculating as well. They told us that about a month before we arrived there was some sort of confrontation across the street, and as they understood it, the Honda dealer to the right had bought or foreclosed on the place, but the people refused to vacate, and a bunch of police showed up in riot gear. However, when the police left, the folks were still in possession, and are still there.

It is not like the bricks blocking the gates are a serious obstacle. They have no reinforcement, and I think a good solid push would collapse either one, unless they did something to them that I don't know about. However, as long as they are in place, the courtyards are not as useful. The one to the right has a pedestrian gate, but the middle courtyard now has no access at all, except for stairs down into it at the back. Or, I guess you could just drop things over the edge. Getting them out again could be fun, however.

This is part of the fun of living in a foreign country, and staying in one place long enough to begin to fit into the local rhythm of life. We will be watching to see if we can gain any further insights as to what is going on.

And here's another strange thing I saw today. There was a beautiful carriage being towed down the street by a truck, with a horse in the back of the truck. I don't know if it was used for a wedding or what, but it was quite a sight. I barely got my camera out in time to get this shot.