La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

The other day we heard many voices on the other side of the fence; voices of children and women just talking and laughing. We approached the windows on the second floor to see what was all the commotion; then we saw men, women and children harvesting the coffee. At this moment, you can see the turning point of coffee from green to golden yellow and finally cherry red.

Come back tomorrow to see the next door coffee plantation and the different colors of coffee.

Well, you may be wondering what SAT office means. Behind this placid view of this government building hides one of the reason why Guatemala is so poor; a beggar really if we consider that Guatemala begs money for road repairing, road building, new modern national identification card, fertilizers, schools, libraries and the list goes on and on. The picture above is the local office of the Superintendencia de Administración Tributaria, SAT for short and the equivalent of the IRS.

The SAT is in charge of collecting the taxes and to funnel this money to fund all the government needs. The SAT does such a poor job at collecting taxes and thus the government is not autarkic and needs to beg for international funds. The reasons the SAT does a poor job at funding the government are complex and it would require huge and extensive entries to cover them. Suffice it to say that most Guatemalan earn their money in the informal economy, which does not pay income taxes, like town market vendors, street vendors, convenience stores, et-cetera. Then, we have the many small businesses who do not hand out facturas (invoices) for which they are charging sales tax, yet not passing this collected tax money to the SAT. Finally, we have the big businesses and wealthy Guatemalans who have very creative accounting departments to do every imaginable thing to withhold the taxes due on their accumulated fortunes; how fortunate for them! In the mean time, it is mostly the salaried workers, the independent service providers and the honest businesses who transfer the collected sales taxes and income taxes to the SAT. As you can see, tax evasion is a huge problem in Guatemala. I don’t have with me actual figures, but I am sure that less than 20% of the population pay their income taxes.

Perhaps Edgar or Mauricio can provide the actual figures and even expand on or clarify the subject.

Every once in a while is good to stop eating Guatemalan food and eat something healthy, like a chef salad from La Fuente restaurant. A salad and the New Yorker Magazine is what I consider a healthy lunch. The article about an unknown photographer by the name of Eugene De Salignac and his photo of painters spreading out like musical notes on the Brooklyn Bridge, over the sky line of New York, was most definitely the best dessert I have had in a long while.

Bon Appettite, mes amis!

We are off to the Silvio Rodríguez concert in Guatemala City.

Sol Latino is a band that plays mostly Andean and Latin American music. For a long time Sol Latino wonder around the different venues and bar/restaurant circuit in La Antigua Guatemala. Eventually, they managed to get an investor to open up a restaurant-bar so they could have their own stage where to play every night. La Peña de Sol Latino became their home base; thus, they needed to wonder no more.

Just wondering, how many signs from La Antigua Guatemala do you think I have published here?

The photo above has two traffic signs: The Stop Sign and the Must Turn sign. First you stop and then you must turn; but which way I must turn, you ask. The answer is it doesn’t matter. In Guatemala traffic signs exist to give visitors a false sense of civilized drivers. Along the roads, there are all kinds of traffic signs, including speed limit signs, which nobody obeys.

Here’s a hypothetical question for you. In Guatemala, who has the right of way among these options: pedestrian, bicycle, motorcycle, car, bus, truck, eighteen-wheeler truck? If you plan to visit Guatemala, you must know the answer before you arrive.

The weather gods decided long time ago to sent into exile the fascist dictator of Cold to the vast lands of maple leaves and bacon; originally known as Kanata. Thanks to the wise weather gods, in Guatemala any time of the year is good for grilling and barbequing and to meet with friends for what is known locally as El Chuparrasco (chupa for drinking and rrasco, short for churrasco or barbequing). Nevertheless, I have said several times that the dried season, or rainless, that goes from the end of October to end of April is the best weather in Guatemala (which covers part of the Fall, full Winter and part of the Spring seasons). Well, if I had to pick one month as the best to visit La Antigua Guatemala, I would pick February. See, in February we have the Carnival, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, San Valentine’s Day (Día del cariño), the best temperate weather, Silvio Rodríguez in Concert (at least this year for the first time ever), just to mention a few highlights for the month of love.

Ojalá is the Spanish word for ‘I hope [that]‘ or ‘God willing’ or Insha’Allah which is the etymology for the Spanish word. Ojalá is also the name for one of Silvio Rodríguez songs. Ojalá one day you and I can share a chuparrasco. Ojalá you can tell me what famous folk singer from the U.S. wrote a song about Silvio Rodríguez?! Ojalá you enjoy this song below.

Rellenitos (little fillings) is the name given to a food made from plantain dough which is molded into a semi-round shaped and filled (thus the name) with a black beans sauce or stuffed with manjar (custard). It is a sweet meal and normally eaten as junk food or as dessert. It is one of my favorite Guatemalan desserts and I am sure I am not the only one with a soft spot for this kind of meal. Check out this close-up shot of rellenitos to see the black bean sauce filling.

This photo of rellenitos was requested by Carmen, back in December, as a response to the Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food series. No, I did not take this long to take the photos of rellenitos; I emailed her the photos of rellenitos back in December, but I forgot to post it here.

Are pirujos and shucos sandwiches getting out of hand? Come on, who can eat a sandwich this big.

Just to clarify, the sandwich pirujo takes its name from the pirujo bread, which is a sort of elongated French roll. On the other hand, shucos is the name giving to the Guatemalan hotdog. Both sandwiches come with guacamol, yes without the ‘e’, a sauce made with avocados.

Follow the links for pirujos and shucos if you want to learn about these Guatemalan sandwiches, which you make at home, your home, if you know how. Right?

Domain name side note: Guatemalans find the spelling of domain names enchanting and they use them as the name for their companies even though they do not own or even plan to own the actual domain name. For instance, the sign above for an internet cafe has the logo of Roy dot com, which is not by any means the domain name for that cyber cafe.

Connecting the dots

Dot 1: A few weeks ago, I read an short note about how China will forbid the giving away of ultra fine plastic bags (below 0.025 millimeter of thickness) starting June 1st. The article appeared in the business supplement Pulso of the Guatemalan Siglo XXI newspaper. The article produced some scary numbers: The Chinese consume about 3 billion plastic bags daily; “… the plastic bags are convenient for the consumers, but they generate grave contamination, waste of energy and resources”, according to the press release by the Chinese government. The article ended with the suggestion by the Chinese government to go back to bags made from textiles and baskets.

Dot 2: The very same day, after reading the article above in my lunch hour, I walked back to the office and sure enough a plastic bag came dancing towards me, just like in the American Beauty film. So what was I to do, but to pull my camera and to start shooting this new enemy. This incident happened right in front of Doña Luisa Xicotencatl restaurant; one of LAG’s landmarks.

Dot 3: I don’t know if it was inspired by the muy loco Guatemalan photo shooting a plastic bag in front of their entrance (can you imagine what kind of show that must’ve been). Nevertheless, the owners of Doña Luisa Xicotencatl decided to stop giving away plastic bags in their business, beginning with their 30th anniversary, a couple days ago. So to celebrate their 30-year anniversary, they gave away reusable, recyclable vinyl bags to all their frequent customers. You can see the all different sides of the bags and learn about their campaign by clicking the thumbnails below to get a blowup image (No. We are not talking about Cortazar’s Blowup kind of images). According to the tag in the Doña Luisa Xicotencatl’s bag, plastic bags take about 450 years to be fully destroyed by nature alone.

Dot 4: What are your feelings about plastic bags?

So you wanted to know what happened to the Indigenous singers from February 2nd, right? Well the municipal police told them that they also needed to work and that if they did not have a permit to sing on the streets their supervisor would get on their case. Sure enough, less than a half of block away, these two tourist police were stopped by their supervisors. The Indigenous singers were told to go to the ‘Muni’ to get a permit to sing on the streets. I am not sure such permit exists, not for the Indigenous people, for sure.

It was Patsy Poor who requested photos of Guatemala chickens. Well Patsy, you are served. These garden chickens are known locally as gallinas criollas (creole hens) or gallinas del país (native hens) as opposed to the chicken grown in farms.

The two blocks from the 5a avenida norte (5th North Avenue) that separate El Parque Central (Main Plaza) and the La Iglesia de La Merced (church) are known as the Calle del Arco (the Arch Street) and the weekends this strip becomes a pedestrian’s throughway. In my humble opinion, the whole city should turn the streets in pedestrian only walkways before it’s too late.

Old worn out wood can be beautiful too. I think. What about you?

If you can have a corner window, why not have a corner door, really why not?

Can you tell me why doorways are so big in La Antigua Guatemala? Hint the answer is in the archives of this site. Go happy hunting!

No Food, No Cameras, No Guns, No Backpackers and No Private Guards inside, the sign reads. Only in Guatemala you can find this kind of signs (I think). Guns are a big trouble, you know; people do crazy things with them and not only in Guatemala; naked guns are worn in the belts like cellphones or keychains; even banks and offices have an unusual piece of furniture to deposit customers’ guns at the entrance. Certainly Guatemala is not the only gun-crazy country in the world, nevertheless, it sad to see signs like the one above, captured at Angelina’s Doorway.

My condolences to the families and friends of the students who lost their lives yesterday in Illinois.