La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

As of 22 hours local time of Sunday 4th of November, Guatemala’s Electoral Supreme Tribunal or Tribunal Supremo Electoral (TSE) in Spanish has declared the Socal-Democrat Alvaro Colom as the new elected president of Guatemala. You can see the live results at the Tribunal Supremo Electoral web site. The result were 52.76% (1,409, 990) for Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza (UNE) the Social Democrat party; Alvaro Colom’s party and 47.24% (1,262,680) for Partido Patriota (PP) which postulated Ex-General Otto Pérez Molina; this results as of 23 hours.

The second round of the 2007 elections (first round was on September 9th) had a low participation, but were swift and without any violence. In La Antigua Guatemala you could into one of the voting centers and cast your ballot under three minutes.

This is the sixth time since 1985 that Guatemalans elect a president by popular vote. And this is the first time Guatemala left the conservative right wing. Beginning January 14th, Guatemala will be considered a Social-Democrat country and it will be inline with most of the countries of the American Continent. Guatemala will be turning green with hope of a better future; green because is the color of the party of Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza and hope because that is what Esperanza means. Let’s hope this new turn and focus will be more inclusive and responsive to the needs of the masses. Let’s hope too that this time around the empire and its intelligence means will let us be what we have decided with our democratic elections. Let’s not have another 1954 ever again.

It is official: The California avocado if from La Antigua Guatemala. I had mentioned a couple of times the antigüeños are known as Panzas Verdes (green bellies) because of all the avocados they eat (see trivia 2) and that one Wilson Popenoe took the antigüeño avocado to California (see trivia 3). Thanks to an email from Guy from Inner Diablog, a Guatemalan blog published from the U.K., who alerted me about an avocado monument around El Calvario Church on the Walter Williams road to San Juan del Obispo. Well, I drove several times around the area and I did not find such monument, but I did find the Walter William Road monument just outside El Calvario Church. So back to hunting for the avocado monument I asked my good friend and ever-flowing source of antigüeño trivia, JM Magaña, about the location of the avocado monument and he told me it was right there in Central Park, right across the La Antigua Guatemala Cathedral. Boy oh boy, Parque Central is full plain-view secrets. Okay, so this is the short version of how I found out that the California Avocado is really from La Antigua Guatemala. Below you can see the plaque planted right in Central Park and its location relative the Antigua Guatemala Cathedral.

I guess not all the gossip around Antigua is untrue. Another piece of hearsay is that the novel El Papa Verde (The Green Pope) by Miguel Ángel Asturias, 1967 Nobel Prize in Literature, based its main character in Frederick Wilson Popenoe, who worked for the United Fruit Company and lived at Casa Popenoe. The Green Pope is part of Miguel Ángel Asturias The Banana Trilogy, three books (novels) about what the horrible things the United Fruit Company did in Central America. From avocados to bananas, history repeats itself. Read on Citizens for Boycotting Chiquita at Immigration Orange to learn what the UFCO, now known as Chiquita Brands International, Inc. is doing at present in Colombia. Please, don’t eat Chiquita Bananas!