La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo

Through our mothers’ safety zone we learn to crawl, walk, run, swim and fly! It is only fair that we assign one day out of the year to celebrate their unconditional support and the safety zone they provide for us.

In Guatemala, it is on May 10th that Mother’s Day is celebrated as “Día de la Madre.”

I wish a very happy Mother’s Day to all the mommies out there and a very special Gracias to my own mother for teaching me how to be a fairly decent human being (I think! ) most of the time.

Wow, that’s what I call a ‘reading area’.

“… Nothing became Something. For many in the community this Something is the realization that their kids, who barely had touched a book, can read something because they like it. The biggest change we see it in the problematic children, those who can hardly stay put. We let them read laying down on a carpet, aloud or in silence, right-reading or backwards, or we give them audio books, and little by little they end up reading all of them…” —Kyle Passarelli (fragment freely translated from the article Biblioteca Caldo de Piedra as it appeared in Spanish in the latest issue of Revista Recrearte)

Whatever Kyle and Cassandra are doing, it is working and working just fine. I leave you with other shots taken at the Caldo de Piedra Library Project. I hope that you guys find a way to support this commendable initiative; even some kinds word will do.

Kids reading to kids; now we are onto something!

While reviewing the wishlist for the Caldo de Piedra Library Project, I occurred to me who little things can make a difference. Some items in the list include wooden signs, cd player, dvds, pigeon hole cupboard… an so on. Check it for yourself. I know I will be donating a set children’s books in Spanish and others little things in the list.

I am a firm believer of library projects and non-institutionalized education since I, myself, was one of those kids. Like the motto for the Probigua’s bibliobús reads, “if you read, you succed“. With the quote below, I finished last year’s overview of the Mobile Library Project of Probigua.

…I am living proof that education, reading and libraries are a solid ladder through which one can climb to success, whatever one decides that is. If I was not an Art Director/Graphic Designer, I would be a librarian.

Boy, do I have a soft spot for libraries! Often I highlight library projects like the Bibliobús of Probigua, which I nicknamed the Mobile Library Chicken Bus. Back in the first week of December 2007, we did a little tour through Compañía de Jesús Library as well. I am sure it does not come as a surprise that we cover yet another library around La Antigua Guatemala.

The Caldo de Piedra Library Project in San Antonio Aguas Calientes is the work of Kyle and Cassandra Passarelli who moved just 10 months to San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a must-visit little town just outside La Antigua Guatemala. As explained by Kyle and Cassandra, they were inspired to open a library for children because they were used to a mobile library bus (chicken library bus, pues) which came their way on the Isle of Arran often and provided books, movies and newspapers on loan. After they moved back to Guatemala they realized that some services they were accustomed to or that were taken for granted, were not available anymore; like the library. After moving to San Antonio Aguas Calientes, they asked themselves if they could open a children’s library since there were none in the village. Inspired, again, by the reading of the Caldo de Piedra book, they approach a group in the community to see there were interest in having a children’s library and sure enough the community responded and a very short time they had a small room half a block away from the parque central of San Antonio and books donated by the community and their friends.

The Caldo de Piedra Library Project has a web site where you can learn all about the project, read their recent accomplishments and to send your book donations. For those who can read Spanish, there is a great little article about the Biblioteca Caldo de Piedra in the most recent issue of Recrearte Magazine.

I caught a shot of marching students and the municipal band in a campaign of awareness and against tuberculosis. I even got a flyer describing the 4 steps to prevent the propagation of tuberculosis in Guatemala.

If you click in the thumbnail below you will be able to see the flyer.

Grandma and granddaughter caught while doing mandados (errands). Above we can see the close relationship between the grandparents and their grandchildren which in Guatemala is one of the strongest links between humans.

Unfortunately, I lost my last grandparent alive last year. I will miss my abuelita (grandma) very much. I am reminded of her often when I see vistas like the one above.

Bookstores and stationary stores are jam-packed this time of the year in La Antigua Guatemala and throughout the country since the new school year is about to start. Yes, that is right, you read correctly, the Guatemalan school years begins sometime in January and ends sometime in October.

Boys and girls have been given their school supplies lists already and they need to purchase them before the first day of classes.

Public schools are free in Guatemala, minus some administrative fees. But, everything you need for school is not free; you need to buy a every single pencil and sheet of paper as well as any book or notebook, cuaderno in Spanish.

In the picture above, we can see parents with their children making the queues to purchase all the necessary school supplies at Librería Castillo in La Antigua Guatemala; librería is the Spanish term for bookstore or stationary store.

In La Antigua Guatemala, religious celebrations draw together all kinds of heterogeneous people and the feast day of Virgin of Guadalupe is no exception. In the day of La Virgen de Guadalupe, Our Lady of Guadalupe, you can find gringa mamas, indigenous mamas, ladino mamas and white mamas all taking their children dressed with indigenous clothes to visit the altar of La Virgen Morena. In many cases you have grandmas and the whole family taking part of the visit to Virgin of Guadalupe inside Iglesia de la Merced.

Carmen and Monolo must’ve been thinking of the incredible power of the sense of smell to detonate nostalgic memories, quite possibly inspired or influenced by Patrick Süskind masterpiece Das Parfum (Perfume). I lived such an experience today while taking the shots that you can see below in the slide show, as I was bombarded with the scents of pine needles, firecracker’s polvora (poweder), fruits, traditional Guatemalan Christmas foods (do you see a new series coming up?), incense, candles, on and on. My sense of smell was in shock and my memories were flowing incessantly. But before I bore you with such descriptions, I leave you with a slide show and a video clip of the Virgin of Guadalupe celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala so you can get an idea. You will be missing the smells though.

Please, let me know your impressions of the photos and video clip as well as how is The Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe celebrated in your neck of the woods?

Slide show of the Virgin of Guadalupe celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala

Video clip of the Virgin of Guadalupe celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala

This picture is like a summary of the Guatemalan Idiosyncrasy. First we have the giant kite with all the Mayan motifs, which for a long time represented the pagan rituals as the dominant catholic church used to call them. Anything that represented non-christian religious rituals was denigrated and prosecuted under the pagan label; infidels other religion would say. So, there you see the Mayan motifs and Mayan religious connotations behind the meaning of the giant kite and its flying with evangelical message “Joeva es mi pastor” (Jehova is my pastor) encircling a Guatemalan volcano and its sun setting vista. Then you have as toppings the clothes of the father and sun, probably acquired from a paca store. Paca means second or third hand clothes from the U.S. sold to Latin America in big pallets (there was recently in GuateCiy an artistic performance under the name of Guatepaca). The Señor Frogs and Sideout t-shirts, baseball caps, jeans and tennis shoes are very representative of how a large number of Guatemalan dress.

With November come the strong winds (Vientos fuertes would say Miguel Ángel Asturias). With the strong winds come the kites. With the kites come the celebrations of the day of the dead and all saints day. With the day of the dead celebrations comes the fiambre, the food to share with our dead. Stay tune for background information on the kite flying rituals and its meaning.

Also with November comes my first collective photographic exposition. That is right, yours truly will be participating with other Guatemalan photographers in a photo exhibit on November 8 at Rocío Quiroa Gallery in Guatemala City. If you happen to be in Guatemala next week, we will be delighted if you can join us to see all the different visions of this tiny banana republic. Below you can see the official invitation created by Iván Castro with a photograph by Javier Uclés.

Post cards request update: Cathy from Saint Louis sent her post card on the 22nd of October and today was already in the post office box. It arrived in Guatemala City on October 26. This is one of the fastest deliveries just yet. Thanks Cathy for you post card and your description of St. Louis Missouri. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please do read the entry Postscript.

Okay with this last photo of people carrying umbrellas we can now declare the rainy season of 2007 officially over. Okay everyone, you are welcome to the most beautiful weather in La Antigua Guatemala; come on over now!

Last year I posted the Requiem for the Rain on October 30. This year the requiem was on Wednesday 24th of October.

Helados Sarita, on 5a calle poniente, is the meeting place for these three kids and their joyful smiles. Sometimes life can be beautifully simple and full of joy (even for adults).

As explained by Sompopo, the Spanish term nicho (niche) translates into English as above ground crypts. Criptas (crypts) are reserved in Spanish for underground burial places or vaults. Above ground vaults are nichos (I think, don’t trust me on this one since I am no expert). Nichos are normally bought by people who can afford them, but are not wealthy or belong to a wealthy family otherwise they would have a mausoleum. The people who can not afford a nicho bury their dead in a normal crypt (underground).

Sompopo and Ale pointed out a couple things about the recent photos: (1) Are all the crypts above ground and (2) why are all the mausoleums white wash? Without any research just yet, I began thinking about the reasons while taking into accounts what Sompopo said about New Orleans cemetery and the water table. I reasoned that since the San Lázaro cemetery is the west end part of La Antigua Guatemala and since the city has a slight inclination that goes from east to west and the river and rainfall flows west, just maybe, the cemetery became inundated; thus most of the burial chambers are above ground, including the nichos. The white color of all the above ground crypts and mausoleums, I don’t know yet, but it may be related. I promise I will have an answer for you before the cemetery series is over.

Guatemala’s real culture is syncretism and thus death plays an important role in traditions and culture. Guatemala is the real ‘melting pot’ and the final product is called mestizo. A mestizo is an individual that comes in many shades of brown and she is made up from a combination of AmerIndian, European, African, Asian and Arab. Syncretism and mestizism go together well and that is why there is no conflict with including some or many Mayan rituals, including death rituals, in a everyday Catholic or Christian service. Obviously, a single entry is not enough to describe such a complex human being, but we have to start somewhere and since Patsy Poor mentioned that recent studies showed that the U.S. will be brown (mestizo) in 50 years.

The mausoleums shown thus far, which to me seem very stately and for the wealthy, are not by any means the biggest of more opulent mausoleums. Actually, Guatemala has the largest mausoleum known to humankind; it is called El Mirador. Around El Petén, where the pyramids of El Mirador are located, there are over dozen Mayan cities with huge mausoleums known as Mayan pyramids or ruins nowadays; Tikal being the most widely known of the bunch. A real wonder of the world!

There are three cell phone companies in Guatemala (4 according to Wikipedia). Tigo is the mobile phone brand of Millicom International Cellular. Claro mobile telephone operator is owned by the Mexican group América Móvil, which in turn is the umbrella name for the mobile telephone division of Telmex, owned by Carlos Slim (estimated fortune of US$67.8 billion). Carlos Slim’s empire also owns the Guatemalan National Telephone Company, Telgua, and Telgua’s division of cellphone Claro brand. Movistar is the mobile division of the Spanish transnational Telefónica telephone company. Believe it or not the Telmex/América Móvil and Movistar/Telefónica are probably bigger than AT&T.

Among the three major mobile telephone brands in Guatemala, they have over 6.8 million subscribers (December 2006). There are 1.3 million land lines, most of them, belong to Telgua. If you consider that the total population of Guatemala to be close 12 million, you could say that one in two Guatemalans owns a mobile phone. It is an incredible figure if you also consider that about 70% of the population is poor.

One more interesting aspect of the mobile telephone companies is their illogical rate structure. Let me explain, it is cheaper for me to call Manolo who lives in Toronto than to call his brother Mauricio who lives in Guatemala City. Yes, calls to the U.S.A. and Canada cost about Q0.80 (80 centavos of Quetzal or about US$0.10) while calls within Guatemala cost around Q1.35 (1 Quetzal and 35 centavos or about US$0.17). Mobile telephone rates vary very little between the three mobile telephone companies.

Even the alleys get dressed up with pine-needle and flower carpets for the town’s fair processions. Pine-needle element adds the value of pine scent to the whole festive occasion. Pine-needle carpets are also used for parties and special celebrations.

I could go as far as saying that the scent of pine-needle, along with the scents of tamales, ponche (fresh fruit punch), hot chocolate (not cocoa), firecrackers, new clothes and shoes (estrenos), are what makes the scent-memory of the Navidad season (Christmas). These scents, colors and its flavors are what pain Guatemalans abroad in their nostalgic moments (otherwise known as every day!).

The making of these processional carpets is such a community-forming and bonding activity since in the process participate many, if not all, of the neighbors and family members. These traditions, festive calendar dates and special celebrations mark very strongly what makes a normal human being into a hard-core Guatemalan. You break the link or access to these experiences and you only have a person that was born in Guatemala; a fact as worthless as the fact of having had a pair of boots once.

Well, with this image we wave farewell to the Guatemalan Fair series. It’s been the longest running series I have done about Guatemala yet; with sixteen photographs, descriptive captions and video clips, and I feel I barely touched the surface of the Guatemalan town fair.

Could you guys tell me if you enjoyed the series and point out where the coverage was weak or non-existent (special call to Guatemalans and long-time residents).

Update: La Antigua Guatemala is not the only place where these carpets are made. Check out Tenerife Daily Photo for a sample of their carpet-making abilities.