Yes Manolo, the weather gods are on LAG side. Above you see a group of tourists having the Sun for lunch and enjoying it too. Yes the temperate weather gods have been given La Antigua Guatemala temperatures between 68 and 74 degrees Fahrenheit in the harshest Winter month. Oh boy, life is wonderful in La Antigua Guatemala…
Don’t you wish you could be in La Antigua Guatemala having a bath of this wonderful sunshine?
Street photography is my thing because I like to capture people, their interactions, their clashes, their feelings, their thoughts (yeah right!), et-cetera. I also like to capture color and texture. If I am lucky I can get all of that in one photograph. —rg
I guess that many tourists like the opportunity to eat rich ice cream in the winter season in the open in La Antigua Guatemala’s streets. Last year I showed you two tourists taking a break in the late afternoon to eat ice cream in Enjoy it while it lasts!
Would you like to go out for ice cream just about now? I wish I could take my little sister Jamie for some ice cream because she turned 21 today.
The photographer was capturing fleeting emotions, split-second gestures, temporary smiles or pensive introspections, passing pedestrians, et-cetera. Stealing souls, pues! 
Watching the Watchers Watch is what we call in Spanish a trabalenguas or tongue twister.
What kind of stories do you see in this picture?
Okay, here we go again. We are going to discuss a sensitive issue again.
Yes, Spanish Classes in La Antigua Guatemala is a very touchy subject, you know. The next post will definitely raise a few voices and hurt some feelings. I just hope to come out slightly bruised from this affair. But before we open the book on this unpredictable topic, we should take a coffee break.
Come back tomorrow to learn about the zillion Spanish schools available in La Antigua Guatemala.
The tree of knowledge was an apple tree and Newton took a bite from a fallen apple. The rest is history they say, but history is being rewritten as we speak.
Adam and Eve also had a bite or two with the apple in their so call paradise; probably somewhere in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet Republic in Central Asia, bordering China. Kazakhstan is also the home country of Borat, who has had many apples for sure.
Paris also had some trouble because of the apple he gave to Aphrodite, offending Hera and Athene; thus the Apple of Discord (c 1400).
No other fruit, well maybe except for chile and maize, has changed history in so many ways.
We could go on and on about apples throughout history, but since this is not history site, we move forward to the future, all the way to 1984, not George Orwell’s novel, which he wrote in 1948 (I believe he was dyslexic at the moment he typed the title of his novel). Anyhow, we are talking about the 1984 television commercial launched by Apple Inc. in 1984, to promote a tiny computer under the name of Macintosh, another kind of apple. This is what Wikipedia has on the now world famous advertisement:
The ad showed an unnamed heroine (played by Anya Major) wearing red shorts, red running shoes, and a white tank top with a Picasso-style picture of Apple’s Macintosh computer, running through an Orwellian world to throw a sledgehammer at a TV image of Big Brother — an implied representation of IBM — played by David Graham[1]. This was followed by an on-screen message and accompanying voice over by actor Edward Grover: “On January 24th, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you’ll see why 1984 won’t be like 1984.” At the end, the Apple “rainbow bitten apple” logo is shown on a black background.
Okay Rudy, where the heck are you going with this entry, you ask just about now?
Oh nowhere really, just a little explanation for the plausible origins of the little white apple with a bite taken out of it.
Postdata. There are many Apple computers in La Antigua Guatemala and the apple orchard just keeps on expanding with new iPods, iPhones, and iPod Touch fruits. Soon Guatemala will go from the derogatory alias of “Banana Republic” to an Apple Republic. Maybe not. I often forget this is a third-world country. I must’ve had one too many apples today!
This is what happens when you watch three of Darren Aronofsky films in a row: Pi, Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain. The last one with so many references to Guatemala, that is not even funny. You should see it.
From the tables of Cafe Micho’s, right across yesterday’s fountain, in the corridor facing south of the Jaulón building, you can meet with friends and family for coffee or beers, or simply enjoy a sandwich from one the best bistros/pubs in town. The tables all face to the central patio, with the fountain slightly off-center. You can enter this beautifully restored building from the east and south entrances; from the south entrance you enter the Jaulón building through and arched doorway.
Cafe Micho’s is a great place to have a dark Moza beer (a bock type brew and my favorite beer from Guatemala), while taking a breaking from all this walking around town.
Touring around Guatemala can be tough during the rainy season, but it can be done… nothing a good raincoat and an umbrella can not solve. But, if you absolutely want the best weather, the best photographic light, the best Volcán de Fuego show, then you have to come in the November through February months.
Even backpackers have to add an umbrella to their arsenal while traveling in Guatemala during the rainy season.
People are strange when you’re a stranger,
Faces look ugly when you’re alone.
There are many complications when you take an adopted child from Guatemala to a foreign land and to a foreign culture. One complication could be that he or she will be marked as strange because of her Mayan traits and the dark color of the skin.
Streets are uneven when you’re down.
When you’re strange
Hispanic and Indigenous children might be walking on uneven streets if they are taken to mostly white neighborhoods where racism and discrimination could part of their daily bread.
When you’re strange
No one remembers your name
How much can the love of the adopting parents shelter the adopted Guatemalan child from discrimination, racism, abusive comments and evil teasing from other children and adults in the community. Racial catcalling, sneers, violence and exclusion could be part of the daily encounters. It is not ease to live under such circumstances.
Faces come out of the rain
When you’re strange.
(lyrics from the song People are Strange from The Doors.
It was not even easy for the King Kong fictional character to adapt to a foreign land, away from his natural surroundings and peers. So it does come as a surprise to learn about Rosie who lives as a stranger in England (Huntingdon in Cambridgeshire). Rosie has managed to cope with, so her mother says, her daily encounters with racism, discrimination, physical violence, racial catcalling, sneers, abusive comments, evil teasing and a King Kong chant.
There could be complications and contradictions when you take an adopted child away from his birth country, culture and society. Guatemalan adoptions are not as easy as you might have been inclined to believe.
Mayan children could suffer all of the above even here in Guatemala, but they are protected and sheltered, in part, by their parents, community and friends which are not strange to them. Guatemalan children do not look strange in Guatemala; at least I hope not.
I want to thank Kyle from Immigration Orange for bringing Rosie’s case to light in his entry The Contradictions of a Parent Who Adopted a Guatemalan based on the Guardian news article Mixed blessings. Like Kyle, I want to extend the invitation to Rosa where she can have a place to stay in La Antigua Guatemala.
Other entries related to Guatemalan Adoptions:
The opposite corner of the Cookies is the Joyería del Ángel, which by the way is the twin business for Posada del Ángel. Both businesses are run to the highest standards and thus you can find just of about any high-end and exquisite jewelry produced any where in the world right here at Joyería del Ángel, in La Antigua Guatemala.
Obviously what they sell there has not influenced my appreciation for this wonderful light-blue, celeste in Guatemalan Spanish, corner. I simply liked the light hitting the building and the tourists walking by that afternoon. Also, I like the geometry of the white stripes, the Joyería del Ángel sign and the lamp. You will have to excuse the white sky in many of the photos taken during the rainy season; not much I can do.
Disclosure side note: I am not being paid anything for saying nice things about the Posada or Joyería del Ángel. Even though I know the general manager, these things I say them because I know the businesses and have been give unrestricted access to photograph them. That is all. If I ever I am being paid for promoting or saying nice things about a particular business, I will let you know with a disclosure. That is the deal.
Not everything is rotten in the paradisiac lands of Guatemala. Sometimes you can take a pause from your hectic life or trip to enjoy the afternoon sunshine while having some of the best “home-made” cookies and coffee in Guatemala as you read a book or the Revue Magazine in our little green corner; our tiny and cozy corner of the world.
If you want to see what this corner looks like from outside, check the entry Antigua’s Color Palette: Green, published in June 22nd, 2006.
I am sucker for shots with contrast. I like to show all the different contrasting vistas that come into my viewfinder in La Antigua Guatemala. Contrast can come in different shapes like size, culture, age, etc. Tourist and indigenous women often come into the viewfinder and I like to show that contrast. Sometimes the meeting takes place at a doorway like the one above; some going in others going out. Although some visitors find my photos of Doors and Windows in La Antigua Guatemala not as challenging, I find in doors and windows amazing opportunities for documenting contrast. Besides doors and windows work really well as frames for the everyday-life incidents; I just have to be ready to catch the decisive moment.
What do you think about the Doors and Windows photos shown here? Should I continue with this kind of photographs?
The original post Opposite Ends of Life, in La Antigua Guatemala DP, was published on May 23rd, 2006 and it was about a little girl and an old lady helping each other cross the street. It is an interesting shot, if I may say so, you should see if you haven’t done so already.
Today’s entry is about different women and their opposite position in the spectrum of life.
On the left, we have a young woman, tourist, disinhibited, sunbathing in a bench at Central Park. As Ian McEwan says, the pickiness of pure chance and physical laws created a better future for this young woman by locating her birth place somewhere in Europe or North America, with access to better education and the possibility of middle or upper-middle class family with enough buying power to pay for trips abroad. I believe the reading of the picture can give us an even deeper hindsight into her background.
On the right, three young indigenous women stroll with their very conservative hand-woven dresses, probably looking for customers to whom they could sell their handicrafts. The same randomness and chaos in the universe set these young Guatemalan women in the cradle of a poor family in a poor country with almost no access to education, certainly with no access to travels abroad.
The French have a saying for this: C’est la vie!, that is life or like the Spanish song goes Así es la vida de caprichosa…
What is your reading of the photograph above? What sort of story can you invent for the scene above?
Almost everyone who visits La Antigua Guatemala is taken by its laid-back atmosphere. It is almost like when you first approach La Antigua Guatemala’s main entrance you are given a chill pill. As the paved road that comes from Guatemala City turns into cobble-stone streets, you enter a sort relax-twilight zone and you immediately switch gears and begin to enjoy the mellow mood of this Spanish-style colonial town embedded between coffee plantations, flower farms and volcanoes, with red-tile rooftops, forged metal grills, intensely bright color palette and its laid-back parks with fountains.
So, what are you waiting for? Come to La Antigua Guatemala this weekend.
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