AntiguaDailyPhoto.Com

Sometimes you live so fast that before you know it, life is over. Life is not a race that you want to win. Life is rather marathon where you want to finish last, just like Tono Ballena and his last position in the yearly Medio Maraton de las Rosas. But if you’re tricked into running the rat race, you have to find ways to slow you down, to pause to smell the coffee, to stop long enough to realized life is more than money.

Tending a garden is one sure way to pause and enjoy the ephemeral moments that make up life. When I live in the U.S. I never care for gardens; I could not name any flowers except for roses or carnations; I didn’t know the names of plants, except for the most obvious.

Life in La Antigua Guatemala is so much different, full a little pauses, with gardens everywhere you go. Now, I am learning the names of many flowers and plants. Heck, I now tend for a garden and have long talks with our gardener. I even found the courage to share with you many of the plants found in and around Antigua Guatemala in series entitled Guateflora. I still make mistakes; just the other day that I called birds of paradise some exotic flowers which in realty were heliconias. I am glad to know that if I make a mistake, you guys come forth to correct me.

A little over-sharing every once in a while doesn’t hurt, right? All the flowers in the Jardín Antigüeño series come from our garden. As you can see if you browse the Jardín Antigüeño series, I have now plenty of reasons to pause and enjoy the beauty that Nature offers. I am far from being The Constant Gardener, like Jenn Klee, but I am slowly learning.

How are you living your life? Do you have enough pauses to slow you down?

In La Antigua Guatemala we are so lucky to have plenty of free culture. The Festival Internacional de Jazz en Antigua and the Festival Internacional de Cultura Paiz come to mind right away, but almost every week or even every day there’s a free event happening in Antigua Guatemala. For those of us who love cultural events regardless of whether they are free or not, La Antigua Guatemala provides an unparalleled stage with the most enchanting venues in Guatemala or even Central America. Last Thursday, for instance, we had the opportunity to attend a free violoncello concert sponsored by the Alianza Francesa (French Alliance) in the San José El Viejo ruins. The violoncello player was very young and very talented; certainly the entire audience was moved by his virtuoso performance. Yo me estremecí.

I don’t think this is the meaning of Free Culture that Lawrence Lessig was thinking about when he set out to write his book. If you haven’t read yet “Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity“, I recommend you do since it’s a free book full of interesting facts and thought-provoking arguments. Below a quote from the Free Culture:

There has never been a time in history when more of our ‘culture’ was as ‘owned’ as it is now. And yet there has never been a time when the concentration of power to control the uses of culture has been as unquestioningly accepted as it is now. (Free Culture pg. 28)

After reading Free Culture, one comes to REALLY appreciate the free culture offers available in Antigua Guatemala. What kind of free cultural events would you like to attend next time you visit La Antigua Guatemala?

Portfolio bragging sharing
I forgot to share with you that many of the photos of AntiguaDailyPhoto found their way onto the pages of SilverKris, the travel magazine of Singapore Airlines. Click on the center of the thumbnail below to see all the pages of the story. Also, I created a Portfolio page where I will be sharing with you all the different places where the photographs appear. Check it out, there is another surprise cover in there!

I pass by Tanque de la Unión at least twice a day. Lucky me. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve fallen in love with this utilitarian water tank and public washbasins. If you don’t believe me, follow the links to see some of the previous pictures of Tanque de la Unión.

Anyhow, today’s catch I took it while making a left turn as I was driving, barely slowing a bit so I could click the shutter. If I may say so myself, it is not too bad. What prompted me to take the photograph was the stare of the little girl. I believe she’s going to grow up to be a people-watcher herself, like many of us.

What kind of treasures would you keep in a antique chest like the above? I would keep my treasured memories.

It seems like this corner is good for the sale of exotic flowers, like aves del paraíso, birds of paradise Heliconias. Last time I reported on the sale of orchids at this very corner, however I have seen all kinds of exotic tropical flowers and plants being offered the the passing vehicles.

I am still amazed on the fact that is relatively simple to have an exuberant, colorful, eye-catching garden in La Antigua Guatemala. You can browse the Guateflora category for small sampling of the many options available in jardín antigüeño. Enjoy!

It doesn’t matter how many times I see Volcán de Fuego erupting, I can never get tired of it or get accustomed. Often, I just stop and enjoy its pyromaniac display.

Such was the case last Friday as I am entering La Antigua Guatemala and Volcán de Fuego was putting such a show and the sky was fluffy and full of cotton clouds. Immediately I was bewitched, stopped the car, pulled the camera and took one single shot that I share with you today.

For more reasons than one, I really like this image. What do you think?

Radio Qman Txun Documentary
We have this documentary at home in DVD format so I was excited to learn from Max López, co-director of Radio Qman Txun along with Miguel A. Arnaiz, for sending the link where one can watch this documentary in its entirety. Radio Qman Txun is a chronicle about the world-renown Mayan town of Todos Santos Chuchumatán in Guatemala. Radio Qman Txun is in Spanish and Mam with English subtitles.

I really like these words by Fortunato: “un pluebo sin cultura es un pueblo vacio” which I roughly translate as “a town (or people) without culture is a hollow town (people)”

The world-famous Guatemalan apron is going places, you know. Just like you can find mothers and daughters selling gabachas, aprons, on any given street corner, you can also find a zillion online stores selling Guatemalan aprons; some of them claiming to pay “fair” prices or wages to the artisans.

I often wonder what is “fair” trade? What does that really mean? What are fair wages? Is it “fair” fair?

How does one decide what are “fair” wages to pay to the artisans for their handicrafts? Does one pay the “average”, the minimum legally possible or a fair share of the final price? Is it “fair” to keep artisans communities impoverished so long their “basic” needs are covered?

I often wonder how many of the so-called “fair trade” NGOs pay fairly? I wonder if the artisans that sell their wares to these “fair trade” live any better than their neighbors that sell their wares on the open market? Do “fair trade” artisans have access to better education, better food, better lifestyles?

Boy, I have many questions. Me urgen respuestas.

By the way, the aprons above sell for Q35/$4.23 directly from the seamstress and her daughter; online, the Guatemalan aprons sell on average for $35 (Q289). Go figures…

Market day in La Antigua Guatemala is much more than just getting your weekly produce or enjoying a photo moment of local Guatemalan life. To me it’s a sneak peak into the hard lives of the market workers and their families. The markets of Guatemala are full of little kids that have to spend their whole days sitting amongst fruits, vegetables, flowers and anything else that is for sale. Without beds, mothers have to get creative as to where to lay their children down.

I actually always wonder, where do they go after the market, what do they do?

This child is still to young to walk or talk, however, I’ve seen little kids as young as three years old selling stuff while walking through the market. They might not know how to say complete sentences but they can certainly say ‘eight quetzal or one dollar’. The biggest heartbreak is that you become immune to it. Even if you try not to!

Whenever we see these kids anywhere around Guatemala and on some of our travels through Nicaragua my husband constantly brings up that they have absolutely no childhood. They go from sleeping in their mother’s cloths to selling on the streets or cleaning in the house or caring after their siblings without a moment of happiness or childhood.

When we lived in Costa Rica, the landlord of a property I lived on hired a young Nicaraguan boy. He couldn’t have been older than 20. On the same property lived other families with kids. We always left the toys, tricycles and scooters outside. Every free moment he had he used to take these for rides, or you could find him playing with the toys that a five year old would play with and he was having the time of his life! Sheer happiness exuded from him. My husband’s observation was, this is him making up for his lost childhood. I’m sure his life wasn’t much different than the boy in the picture. So maybe these kids can grow up and still make up for their lost youth.

An interesting article describes how these children let out their energy as they get older, even when they are working the streets or at the market. Culture Unshocked: Toys and Play. It gives another point of view into the same culture, but with a different approach from mine.

However, one thing I do agree is, they certainly don’t take anything for granted and even the smallest things that people of different classes overlook, could bring a wonderful experience to them.

text and photo by Marina K. Villatoro

About Guest Contributor: Marina K. Villatoro has been living in Central America for over 7 years and her site Travel Experta is all about traveling in Central America. Marina loves to help people plan the perfect vacation to this amazing part of the world! At her website, you can sign up for her RSS feed and join the fun on her Facebook fan page and follow her on Twitter at @MarinaVillatoro.

When we talk about antique items to be used as decoration for Spanish colonial architecture we don’t necessarily mean mint contidion things. They just have to look old, rustic, worn out, like the angel in the niche of the Casa Antigüeña series; remember that? or the colonial pila found at McCafe as part of the water series.

The antique violoncello above can be found at the entrance of El Curandero Gallery; I recommend that you visit their web site to see their inventory since they’re a long-time sponsor of AntiguaDailyPhoto.

Once again, we continue showing the trailer of Guatemalan films and short films by Rodolfo Espinosa. Below is the trailer for Aquí me quedo, a new film by Mellega Films, written and directed by Rodolfo “Chofo” Espinosa and produced by Andrés Rodríguez of Cinespacio and filmed in the sister Republic of Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela.

Rust is yet another desirable aspect of antique decoration elements for colonial houses. Sometimes the artisans and blacksmith artists speed up the rust process in new pieces by painting the pieces with muriatic acid. Of course, nothing beats the original rust of antique decoration pieces. The rusted metal sun above was found hanging on one of the walls of ElCurandero.Com offices in La Antigua Guatemala.

El Curandero Gallery is an excellent source for antiques masks, Maximones, slingshots and all-things Guatemala; I recommend that you visit their web site to see their inventory since they’re a long-time sponsor of AntiguaDailyPhoto.

Also, we continue displaying the trailer of Guatemalan films and short films by Rodolfo Espinosa. Below is the trailer for Jardín del Eden, a short film directed by Rodolfo “Chofo” Espinosa.

In the next three days, I will show you some antique decoration elements that I found at ElCurandero.Com offices. Also, I will share with you some trailers for films being produced in Guatemala right now.

How do you decorate your colonial home? Simple with antique decoration elements, many of them rustic and hand-made items like the rusted forged-metal cross made from nails above.

El Curandero Gallery is an excellent source for antiques masks, Maximones, slingshots and all-things Guatemala; I recommend that you visit their web site to see their inventory since they’re a long-time sponsor of AntiguaDailyPhoto.

Below is the trailer for Prohibido robar rosas, a short film produced by Mellegafilms and Cienpies producciones and directed by Rodolfo “Chofo” Espinosa.

Back in January Rudy marked his 1000th post with a pic of pacaya cooked in egg batter and duly polled readers for their interest in a series on comidas envueltas en huevo. There did seem to be some enthusiasm for this at the time, so I thought I’d relate here how my wife and I cooked up some ejotes envueltos for lunch recently.

This light vegetarian treat is very easy to prepare, especially if you possess an electric whisk. (Unfortunately ours appears to have gone AWOL.)

It’s also a very typical local dish. We were inspired to make ours after being served it up by some Guatemalan friends just a few days earlier — though our version has one or two Mediterranean touches.

French beans (ejotes) have been a common sight on Guatemalan tables for generations, but production in the highlands was increased dramatically during the 80s along with that of other so-called non-traditional export crops (NTXs) such as sugar snap and snow peas, radicchio and baby carrots — thanks largely to the ministrations of external development agencies.

Preparation:

Start by boiling or steaming some thin French beans; just enough to soften them up. Then whisk up the whites of several eggs — we used three for our pound of ejotes.

After about ten minutes your arm will be sore and your egg whites will have have fluffed up such that you can hold the bowl upside down over your head with some confidence.

Now add the yolks and stir very gently with a fork until the colour and texture of the mixture are consistent. Add some salt and pepper according to taste.

At this stage you need to decide how messy you want your hands to get. The authentic Guatemalan chef will have pinched the ends off the beans and organised them into little piles, consisting of approximately ten of roughly equal length. These will be picked up individually and manually dunked into the egg mix and thereafter deposited immediately into a lightly-oiled frying pan.

Alternatively, you can place your bean maletitas on a separate plate and use a spoon to cover them. This is how we did it. We also used olive oil and as some of the egg mixture was left over, we dipped a sliced salad tomato into it and slipped that into the pan as well. (Onions and cauliflower can be treated similarly.)

Our egg-wrapped beans were flipped over once and removed from the heat as soon as they had begun to brown. Meanwhile, we had put a pound of plain white rice in a bowl with water and heated it in the microwave for ten minutes. After that we took it out, stirred it, added olive oil and some of the water left over from warming the beans, and then returned it to the microondas for another six minutes.

We then made a sauce by lightly frying some finely-chopped plum tomatoes, red peppers and white onions, before liquidising them with the rest of the ejote-infused water. We also tossed in some torn basil leaves. (Most of the basil — albahaca — I’ve found here ‘in the field’ tends to be the pungent purple-stemmed variety. I haven’t found many Guatemalans who like cooking with it.)

The ejotes envueltos, the rice and the sauce were then united on the plate, as pictured. The final touch was a sprinkling of an admittedly rather Old World condiment, Pimentón de La Vera (Spanish smoky paprika) — it’s a spice that goes down a real treat with many traditional Guatemalan snacks, most notably fried plantains. I even sneak a little into in my frijoles.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

Certainly some of you can help us determine the differences between chuchos and chuchitos, which were both mentioned yesterday in Guy Howard’s ‘first‘ guest contribution. Perhaps then, someone brave enough can tackle the differences between tamalitos and tamales. Finally, once both answers have been already explained, pues, might as well elaborate on the differences between chuchitos and tamalitos.

Anyone, anyone?

Not a farol left over from last year’s posadas. Nor indeed a house of ill repute, except perhaps with regards to the quality of Guatemalan grub to be purchased there.

For whatever a doorway in a narrow, dark alley illuminated by little red lantern might mean back where you come from, here it means ‘come buy our tamales‘. Or as the locals might say: un lugar de chuchos… no para chuchos. It’s a sight you are most likely to see on a Saturday evening; a traditional time for tamal consumption.

Similarly, whenever you see a house in La Antigua with a red flag flying above the doorway, think not that its occupants are bravely holding out for an increasingly unlikely sort of radical social shake-up, for this is in fact the kind of place where carnivores will encounter choice cuts of red meat (carne de res). So, not particularly right on! at all.

text and photo by Guy Howard.

About Guest Contributor: Guy Howard is a writer/blogger, digital media consultant, native Londoner, media analyst and private investor who this month celebrates the twentieth anniversary of his first visit to La Antigua Guatemala. Married to the local girl he met back then, he and his wife have maintained a house in the city since the end of the last millennium.

I can remember everything about this Antigua moment except exactly where it is. All the recent discussion about water reminded me of this place.

We had been following Holy Week Processions, walking for hours or pressed into dense crowds standing under the mid-day sun inhaling dust from parched roads and the time worn pavements. Our heads were throbbing from the heady mixture of heat, sound and an intense alchemy of perfumes rising from the street—pine needles, flowery corozo palms, fruit, sawdust, and of course incense—now forever linked in my mind, with the colour purple. Tired and our senses over-stimulated by the days intensity we stepped through a doorway and into this —an Oasis of coolness and calm. It was like plunging into a deep pool of liquid shadow, and we immediately inhaled its green watery atmosphere with a deep intake of breath. A little bird had also found its way here, drinking and splashing in the fountain with evident delight, creating a perfect image of that moment.

text and photo by Michele Woodey.