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As read on Prensa Libre recently:

According to the legend, each November 1st the God-world releases the souls of the dead from the underworld and for 24 hours the spirits are free to visit their live families, whom must provide a warm welcome, otherwise the spirits can cause harm to the crops and harvests. It is for this reason, that the live must built kites the cleanse the air and the atmosphere of bad spirits and vibes, so they can welcome their dead relatives. (free translation on the fly)

Today, for a mere random act, I ended up in Jocotenango and because we’ve talking and learning about jocotes, I remember to take a snapshot of the jocote monument at the entrance plaza in Jocotenango. The jocote monument is the giant jocote on top of the white pedestal, right after the flowers.

I am sure I was also influenced by all my recent readings of Rex’s presidential decrees. Rex, alias Rafael Romero, is the democratically elected president of Mulamala who also claims Jocotesburg (Jocotenango) as his birth place. Warning: before you head over the Mula que es uno (Mulamala) to read all the official presidential press releases, be aware of three things: (1) you need to have a great command of the Spanish language. (2) you need to have a large Guatemalan Spanish vocabulary at your disposal. (3) you need to have a lot of patience or understanding of the Guatemalan culture. (4) you need a handle on Guatemalan slang. (5) Rex’s language can be as colorfully offensive as the script for Pulp Fiction (that’s if you understand Spanish fairly well.) End of warning.

By the way, I have no idea why my minds tends to remember the most obscure trivia; like the fact the Rafael Romero was born in Jocotenango. Do you know why our memory works that way?

Camotes en miel could be translated as sweet potatoes in syrup or in preserves. Camotes en miel is also another popular dessert for the Day of the Dead (Dí­a de los difuntos) in Guatemala. Camotes en miel, unlike jocotes en miel, can be found in La Antigua Guatemala year round.

Jocotes (/hoe-ko-tes/) or red mombin are often eaten raw, but you can find them as often in tasty preserves. Jocotes en miel or red mombin in syrup (literal translation of miel would be honey, but in this instance it means syrup or almí­bar in Spanish) are prepared as dessert to take to the cemetery on Day of the Dead or Dí­a de los difuntos. The idea is to take foods that are prepared in advance and that do not need heating up or that spoil quickly. That’s why you take fiambre, and whatever fruits are in season prepared as dessert.

To turn any fruit to en miel (in syrup), basically you have to slowly boil it down into a syrup made from water, cinnamon, clove, and panela. Panela is an unrefined food product, typical of Central and South America, which is basically a solid piece of sucrose and fructose obtained from the boiling and evaporation of sugarcane juice.

Come back tomorrow for the camotes en miel. By the way, I take orders… Q2 for the serving , I do deliveries!

I became contagious with the regular twitter updates about gasoline prices going down in Guatemala, so the very next time I went to the gas station, I took my own shot of the “low” gasoline prices. The prices for fuel in gas stations, as you can see on the board, are around Q28 for regular, Q29 for super and Q27 for diesel. Just two weeks ago, the prices were Q10 above the current prices, so it is normal to assume the current gasoline prices as “low” even though before the price of oil began its unprecedented hike fuel prices were around Q20. As a historical perspective, let me share with you that when Mr. Bush took office in 2001, fuel prices were around Q11. At one point at the end of September 2008, fuel prices reached the Q40 at some gas stations. Minimum wage salary for a day in Guatemala is about Q45.

The Gasolina Aside:

Gasolina is the name of the opera prima of Julio Hernández Cordón, a film maker from Guatemala. Gasolina will begin showing in movie theaters in Guatemala City on October 31st. My wife and I were invited to the premier of Gasolina last Thursday at Cinepolis theaters in the Miraflores Mall.

Shortly after we arrived in Guatemala in late 2001, we went to see a short film festival at one of the cultural centers in Guatemala City. It was there that we were introduced to the work of Julio Hernández Cordón through a short film (about 3 minutes) entitled KM 31. The best short film we saw at the time. We were hooked on Julio’s work and since then we followed his work and life events and even became acquainted. So it was no surprise to hear that when Julio Hernández Cordón began looking for funds for his first full-feature film, forty plastic artists donated their work in order to raise funds. Then came the awards for Gasolina. First it was an award by Cinergia, a Central American film festival. “Finally, in 2007, Gasolina was awarded three prizes in the San Sebastian Film Festival which made postproduction possible. Gasolina is a film from a country with neither a cinema law nor a film institute.” as stated in the dossier. If you want to learn more about the film Gasolina, please download the About Gasolina Film bilingual PDF file (300 kb).

Below you can read the synopsis taken from the Dossier of Gasolina:

Three teenagers: Gerardo, Nano and Raymundo, spend their spare time stealing gasoline to go joyriding. So, we face a story whose characters travel in one of their mother’s car without a fixed destination, just to entertain themselves. Each stop is a crash with reality that puts their friendship to the test, showing that teenage friendships have a thin line that separate betrayal, deception and a kamikaze-like solidarity. Gasolina is an intimate story that shows that youth, country and future are defined by extremes.

It is my pleasure to recommend that if you are in Guatemala on the 31st of October 2008 or afterwards, to go see Gasolina, which will be showing in the following movie theaters: Cinepolis, Próceres, Magic Place, Capitol, Tikal Futura and Santa Clara in Guatemala City and Villa Nueva. In the mean time, I leave you with the trailer of Gasolina.

Perhaps, Julio and his friends will stop stealing gasoline to go filming “Polvo” (his next film) around Guatemala if they can make enough money from Gasolina. Best of luck to Julio, Pamela and the filming crew.

I figure that when one decides to name something is the set it apart from the rest, right? So, why would name a school Escuela Oficial Rural Mixta (Mixed Co-ed Rural Oficial School)? Come on, it is like naming your kid ‘John Doe’ (no offense to John Does of the world). Those four words are so generic that it could literally be the name of any and all the schools outside Guatemala City. By the way, this photo was taken at the main plaza of San Pedro Las Huertas, a small village that belongs to La Antigua Guatemala.

On the other hand, Fire Volcano is very punctual. Fire Volcano began releasing gases and lava onto the sky, which to me, this activity means no other thing but the commencement of the dry season. The dry season is the best weather, in my opinion, and the best time to visit Guatemala. The light is just magical and enchanting; if you are a photographer you better start preparing your luggage and camera bags.

Some businesses just feel the need to have a sign hanging for every one of their services.

As you can see in the picture above, most flower shops are working really hard to have a large inventory of flower arrangements for the Day of Dead celebrations around Antigua Guatemala.

This picture was take at Floristerí­a Perpetuas Rosas (Perpetual Roses flower shop) inside the Antigua Guatemala’s market. Some of you may already know why the name perpetuas rosas is such fitting name for a flower shop in La Antigua Guatemala, right?

By moving from one section of the mercado to another, we find that las floristerí­as (flower shops) are preparing the flower arrangements of the Dí­a de los muertos or Dí­a de los difuntos (Day of the Dead) celebrations. Above you see the round arrangements called coronas (crowns).

Dí­a de los muertos is celebrated in Guatemala on November 1st and 2nd. In previous years, I focused on the once-a-year delicacy called fiambre. I even set up a fiembre slide show, so you can see how it is prepared.

This year, I am planning to take you to see the giant kites of Santiago Sacatepéquez. This is one of the most colorful and rich celebrations in Guatemala. We will have leave the valley of Panchoy and drive up to the high lands of Santiago Sacatepéquez, about 30 minutes from La Antigua Guatemala. Are you up for the trip?

There’s no coming back. I was surprise to see a computer being used among all the fresh produce in the mercado (market) of La Antigua Guatemala. Sure, Lucky, my favorite vendor, supplies fresh fruits and vegetable to many restaurants around Antigua, but I was startled to see the computer in there.

I think for now they are using the computer for inventory and accounting. But I am sure, soon they will discover that if they attach a little nebulous thing called The Internet to it, they will be able to receive orders from all those restaurant via email. Afterwards, they might even call me to set up a semantically-structured, web-standards complaint, search-engine-optimized web site to fulfill their online orders. What if Lucky decides finally to tie the databased-backend inventory with the incoming online orders to create a just-in-time supply of the freshest vegetables and fruits. Wow, I am telling you, there’s no coming back.

You can go every day to el mercado (market) of La Antigua Guatemala, but if you go Monday, Thursday or Saturday, you can find a larger market (about twice as big) and the best selection and quality are available in dí­as de mercado (market days). You also find a crowded market on those days.

In the picture above was taken at the fresh produce area (well, one of the areas). I really enjoy the sights of such an abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables, some just harvested the day before.

Here’s yet another gift for those Guatemalans living abroad, the jocotes de corona wallpaper that you can download from here at 1200×900 pixels. Several of you wrote to me to let me know that you haven’t had jocotes in a long while and since I’ve been given the gift to think ahead about your suffering, I took some close-up shots of jocotes de corona (crown red mombin), so you can torture yourself in the intimacy of your computer desktop. Go for it! The other day I was brave enough to enter the mercado of Antigua Guatemala, camera in hand.

For those who have no jocotes idea what this Guatemalan fruit is, this is what Cindee share with us last time we talk about jocotes (can somebody help with the pronunciation?).

Jocote or Ciruela Roja

Known in English as Red Mombin and Hog Plum, jocotes are tree fruits, produced by Spondias purpurea of the Cashew Family, which is native to tropical America. Often jocotes are eaten raw but Mexicans also like to mash them in water, add sugar, and drink the water like Kool-Aid. They are 1-2 inches (2.5-5 cm) long. Jocotes are usually reddish, but can come close to being yellow.

Ciruela, or Spanish Plum

Ciruela or Yellow Mombin, Spondias mombin. Sometimes known in English as Yellow Mombin, the Spanish name ciruela means “plum,” and these tree fruits look and taste a lot like northern plums. They are very closely related to the above jocotes, being in the same plant family and genus. They are Spondias mombin. Note the large, white, very hard, boxy seed. After growing on leafless tree limbs for months, the fruits ripen at the end of the dry season, in June or so. They are good raw and also make tasty preserves.

About the pronunciation, this is what Carmen had to say about it:

“hawkottes” That reminds me of “free – hall – eat- us.” Actually, Manolo, hehehe, based on my research, which could be wrong… but I doubt it. Haha. Jocotes can be pronounced /hoe-ko-tes/ That middle o has the long sound. I suppose /haw/ and /hoe/ could be similar, but I fear we can get into a whole phonetic discussion/debate, which will include (undoubtedly) perspectives on region, accent, and so on… and so I’ll just point you in this direction. See, you used the Hawk card (/aw/ sound), I used the Long O card (/o/), I can’t put that line on top of the o to denote the long sound.

WANTED: Blenders are needed to process all the tropical fruits in the market stand above into licuados, smoothies and milkshakes. Experience is not required, but you should be able to name as many fruits as possible. As bonus you are encourage to eat all the fresh fruit you can handle. All interested, please call our hot line 555-1944.

Are you up for a healthier lifestyle?

Holiday/Political Aside: On Monday, October 20, Guatemala celebrates its Dí­a de la Revolución (Revolution’s Day) and everybody gets the day off. Well, almost everybody, I am going to be working.

… On October 20, 1944 by a coup d’état led by Major Francisco Javier Arana and Captain Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán, the country was led by a military junta made up of Arana, Arbenz, and Jorge Toriello Garrido. The Junta called Guatemala’s first free election, which was won with a majority of 85 percent by the prominent writer and teacher Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, who had lived in exile in Argentina for 14 years. Arévalo was the first democratically elected president of Guatemala to fully complete the term for which he was elected. His “Christian Socialist” policies, inspired by the U.S. New Deal, were criticized by landowners and the upper class as “communist.”

In 1954, Arévalo’s freely elected Guatemalan successor, Jacobo Arbenz, was overthrown in a coup orchestrated by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état. Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas was installed as president in 1954 and ruled until he was assassinated by a member of his personal guard in 1957.

The operation was preceded by a plan, never fully implemented, as early as 1951, to supply anti-Arbenz forces with weapons, supplies, and funding, Operation PBFORTUNE. Afterwards there was an operation, Operation PBHISTORY, whose objective was to gather and analyze documents from the Arbenz government that would incriminate Arbenz as a Communist puppet.[3]…

Source: Wikipedia

With this little summary as backdrop, it is very difficult for me to comply to some requests for me to NEVER voice my opinion in regards to the political campaign going on in the U.S. right now as a courtesy to the people living there since I am quite possibly rude, presumptuous, uneducated and uninformed.

Platillo tí­pico (typical dish) is the name given to any meal that normally has at least two of the following: chirmol (Guatemalan tomato-based sauce), platanos fritos (fried plantains), frijoles negros (black beans blob), queso o crema (Guatemalan fresh cheese or cream) and guacamol (avocado sauce). With the elements you can turn a regular breakfast into a “typical” breakfast. The same goes for lunch and dinner.

The platillo tí­pico you see above sells por Q30 at La Casa de las Mixtas. Bon appetite!

I really like the naí¯f aspects of this sign. I like how the composition is trying very hard to include all the antigüeño elements into one sign. I like the Gato (cat), the sign maker, left his paw print marks/signature on the upper right corner.

Okay, let translate the the above sign: La Casa de las Mixtas Café (The House of Mixtas Cafe). Mixtas, if you recall, are the Guatemalan twist on the hot dog. Mixtas use a tortilla instead of a bun for the hot dog. Tradición familiar desde 1901 (Family tradition since 1901).

Come back tomorrow if you want to see one more sample of the Guatemalan Cuisine series: Platillo tí­pico.