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Guatemalan Alienation

This year FOTO»30, Guatemala’s Photo September, a month full of photographic exhibits has as the encompassing theme the concept Nation. I remember …

Guatemalan Indigenous Women

Here’s the follow-up photo to yesterday’s rear view mirror vista. In this picture, you can appreciate the different cortes worn by the …

The Guatemalan Flag Should Be This Blue…

Thanks to our resourceful readers now we know exactly what shade of blue should the Guatemalan Flag should be. Manolo provided us with the exact Guatemalan Congress Act 104-97, available as a PDF download, which determines the color blue as ISCC-NBS 177. Then, Manolo, who felt like procrastinating, decided that ISCC-NBS 177 was not something most people could understand as Celestial Blue, so he gave us a web site address where we could look at the specific shade of blue. He went even futher, and submitted the HTML codes #4285B4 and #4997D0 for the Guatemalan flag blue. Xensen, took this information and came back with Pantone Matching System 297 and 298 and a link to get an idea of the color. So with all this information at our disposal, we now know what the official blue should be used in the Guatemalan Flag (like the photo below). But, like I said yesterday, “… Reality dictates that the Guatemalan flag can be blue, any blue really, with or without the emblem or coat of arms.”

Guatemalan Fair: The Church and its Saint

Almost all town fairs and festivities are around the town’s patron, in this case is San Pedro Las Huertas, which by the way, means Saint Peter of the vegetable gardens. Since Guatemala was a catholic country for the last 500 years or so and the Mesoamerican indigenous people absorbed and mixed the catholic rituals and traditions with their own religious beliefs and traditions, most Guatemalan towns have a Spanish catholic first name and often an indigenous last name (otherwise known as the original name). For example, Santo Domingo Xenacoj, which means the original name of the town was Xenacoj, and the town was re-christen with Santo Domingo. Now with the above information, we now know that a town’s fair happens once-a-year on the town’s catholic patron. For San Pedro Las Huertas the date is June 29th and for La Antigua Guatemala is July 25th because the city used to be called The Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Saint James of the Lords of Guatemala, as mentioned by Manolo a few days ago. And some of you thought La Antigua Guatemala was already a very long name; try explaining to your friends and relatives that you are planning a vacation to The Very Noble and Very Loyal City of Saint James of the Lords of Guatemala.

The indigenous women’s dress

The indigenous women’s dress is known as corte (the bottom part or skirt that is). The corte translates roughly as cut or …

Wear It With Pride (Part 1)

Last week, as we watch the delegations parade at the Beijing 2008 Olympics Inauguration, I was thinking how wonderful it was to …

The long wait for…

… Equal opportunity. Related entries: Selling folk-art on the park Where are the Maya women going to? Let’s go mija, we’re are …

Talking About the Future Under the New Social Democratic Government

Like these two ladies, many wonder if the new Social Democratic cabinet will be more inclusive and responsive to the needs of the masses and hope that just having one woman Ministra and one indigenous Ministro (Secretary of an executive department) in a country where 60% of the population are indigenous and at least, if not more, 50% of the population are women, will not be a handicap when the times comes to address the needs of the aforementioned people, which in turn represent the majority of the population.

Virgin of Guadalupe Celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala

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.

Opposite ends of life #2

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.