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Guatemalan Independence Day 2007 Slideshow and Video

I haven’t seen the film yet, but the title alone is hauntingly enough, for me, to make me want to see it. Live and become could be the short answer for those searching how to make a Guatemalan from a newly adopted baby. With that in mind, I leave you a short slide show and a video clip of the activities around the Guatemalan Independence Day.

I dedicate these photos, video and sounds to all my Guatemalan readers living abroad; may these vistas bring you home for a little while.

Guatemalan Cuisine: Fiambre Slideshow

In November 1st and 2nd Guatemala, like many other catholic countries, celebrates the Day of the Dead (Dí­a de los Difuntos) and the All Saints Day (Dí­a de los Santos). The cemeteries, from the most exclusive to the most modest and humble, become overwhelmed with people bringing flowers, crosses, food and even music (sometimes Mariachi music) to their dead relatives.

Oktoberfest in Antigua Guatemala by Rudy Giron

Oktoberfest in Antigua Guatemala

Oktoberfest is celebrated in many venues in Antigua Guatemala. Here’s the 2nd Oktoberfest from Chermol, one of the restaurants betting the house …

Guatemalan Independence Celebrations

Have A Happy Independence Day everyone! Guatemala has one really strange celebration for the Independence Day festivities: Freedom Torches or Antorchas de …

Independencia de Guatemala 2011

Even Google celebrated Guatemala’s Independence 2011 with a Doodle. Also, President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent their congratulatory remarks …

Antorchas de Independencia

As every year, on September 14, people from all over the Guatemala begin marathons to go to another part of the country …

Restaurant & Food Overview

RWOrange put together a very comprehensive list of the restaurants and food I have covered in AntiguaDailyPhoto in Chowhound. Here’s the list …

Guatemala’s Fiambre

There’s no way to go by Día de Todos Los Santos (All Saints’ Day) and Día de los Fieles Difuntos (All Souls’ …

Guatemala’s Independence Student Parades

Most people in Guatemala often say that Guatemalans are not very “patriotic” and immediately mention how patriotic the Mexicans really are: “that’s really patriotism!” Heck I even heard an hour long radio show today discussing it.

Market Marchers Manifestation

La Antigua Guatemala sí es Guatemala after all. I hate to admit it, but Manolo was right! Just when I think Antigua …

Half Marathon Las Rosas 2010 Part 2

The Antigua Guatemala’s Half Marathon Las Rosas consists of a route of 21 kilometers through La Antigua Guatemala, Jocotenango, Ciudad Vieja and …

Agatha’s Aftermath

As the new figures and images keep pouring in it becomes obvious that the tropical storm Agatha has caused more damages in …

Lent’s First Sunday Procession

Sunday was such a great day in La Antigua Guatemala; nice weather conditions and a wonderful atmosphere all around town with people …

Colorful Fiambre Chapín

Guatemala is such a colorful country; everything from flora to textiles, from architecture to food is saturated with the richest rainbow. If …

Guatemala’s Independence Day Torch

Getting everything ready for Independence Day Celebrations. This torch will light the Independence fire torches from all over Guatemala. These Independence torches …

On the news

Below you can browse the portfolio of the photos or stories in other places beyond AntiguaDailyPhoto. AntiguaDailyPhoto referenced or talked about elsewhere …

Guatemalan Cuisine: Fiambre

How can we go by Dí­a de todos los santos (All Saints’ Day) and Dí­a de los fieles difuntos (All Souls’ Day) …

Preparing the Flowers for the Dead

By moving from one section of the mercado to another, we find that las floristerí­as (flower shops) are preparing the flower arrangements …

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 French are Coming!

Did I miss a fútbol (Soccer) game today, or what? I know Bistrot Cinq is a French bistro on 4a calle oriente …

GET PRINTS!

Support My Efforts, Use Art Photos For Your Wall Decor! You can now purchase high-quality prints (digitally signed) of any photo available …

Corozo Palms and its Smell are a Staple of the Holy Week

Just like the Christmas Season comes with its own set of smells, flavors and color palette, so does the Holy Week celebrations. I can bring to you still photos, slide shows, video clips and sounds. But I can not bring you the smells. Like I said back in the Virgin of Guadalupe Day, … the incredible power of the sense of smell can detonate nostalgic memories… if only the smells could be seized like Patrick Süskind suggested in his masterpiece Das Parfum (Perfume). How could one go about imprisoning the mixture of the smells of copal incense, corozo palms, fireworks, pine needles, moisten saw dust, fresh tropical fruits, palm flower arrangements and sweat into a digital format readily available to download onto your own computer?

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.

The Best Fiambre in the World

I don’t know why the word salad brings all kinds of vegetables to mind. Fiambre is a salad, but it mostly has meats, all kinds: sausages, hams, chicken, sea food, meats pork and beef. It is Domino’s or Pizza Hut that has a meat lover’s pizza with a mere 5 meat. Move over meat lover’s pizza; fiambre has over 25 meats.

I’m Ready to Fly!

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 me

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.”

Antigüeño Breakfast at Rainbow Cafe

The Guatemalan Writers Side Note:
For being such a tiny banana/coffee writers republic, Guatemala does produce and export quite a few good writers. I have mentioned some of them in this site like Luis Cardoza y Aragón, Miguel Ángel Asturias, Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Pepe Milla, Ronald Flores. But, I have not done enough to talk about the great Guatemalan Literature written by its many excellent writers. Thanks to a comment by Coltrane_Lives about the possibility of his adopted Guatemalan daughter becoming a writer, I can point out a great Guatemalan novel written in English by Francisco Goldman, a respected journalist whose work appears often in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books and Harper’s (source: literaturaguatemalteca.org [ES]). “Francisco Goldman won accolades and international recognition with his extraordinary first novel, The Long Night of White Chickens, the winner of the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts… ” (source: amazon.com). Another great contemporary novel is Ruido de fondo (background noise) by my dear friend Javier Payeras. Javier Payeras is one of the clearest and loudest voices of this generation and his poetry and prose has won the recognition in and outside Guatemala. Ruido de fondo has been reissued by the Guatemala’s Government Editorial Cultura to be required reading for High School students in Guatemala. For those who are fluent in Spanish, I leave the link to one of my favorites poems by Payeras: Soledadbrother.

The Spanish-style roof tiles in Compañí­a de Jesús

Elsewhere in La Antigua Guatemala, there is all kinds of Independence activities, similar to what I showed you last year. Today and tomorrow will be filled with patriotic sounds coming from the many students school bands and their parades, as well as the many Independence marathons which carry the patriotic fire in their torches back to their communities and villages. I will try to get at least some different shots of the activities, if work allows it. In the meantime, you can get a feel for the festive and noisy atmosphere we live now in La Antigua Guatemala by checking the entries below.

Guatemalans Voted in National Elections on September 9th

People were pointed to their voting centers by a mailed slip with the information or by visiting one of citizens’ registration booths made available by the Tribunal Supremo Electoral (Electoral Supreme Tribunal). At the voting centers, people were oriented by the posters with table numbers and voting registration number (número de empadronamiento in Spanish). Once the voters had the right table, they walked to the queue and waiting their voting turn. At their turn, they approached the table where they had to show their cédulas (Identification card) and they were asked to repeat some of the information in their cédulas. Their voting registration number was checked against the logbooks provided by Tribunal Supremo Electoral. If all checked correctly, voters were given four ballots: One for city mayor, another for regional congress seats, another national congress seats and the last one for president and vice-president. With the four ballots and a crayon, voters walked to the voting booth and marked their election and walked back to the voting table to deposit their ballots in the urnas (ballot transparent bags). After that, voters had to sign the voting registration logbooks and their cédula was given back and their pointing finger marked with indelible ink. Basically, this is the voting process in Guatemala.

Guatemalan Flags in Banco Industrial

The photo above was taken on August 31st, which was a payday and that is why you see all those people were queuing to get their salary from the banks. Tomorrow, Guatemalans will be queuing again to cast their vote. Also, this was the first time (this year) I noticed the Guatemalan flags that will adorn the buildings through September, which is the independence month. Guatemala’s so called independence from Spain is celebrated on September 15th. Check out the Independence Day Slideshow from last year.

I read recently (I don’t recall where at the moment) that to be truly independent a country must have sufficient wealth as to not have to depend on an outsider (duh!); well, let me break it to you guys, Guatemala has not been an independent country for the last 500 years or so. When I was teenager, I remember reading a Mafalda anthology where Mafalda was reading a history book and all of sudden she screams: You mean we were part of Spain, who the hell had the bright idea of independizarnos (freed us from Spain)! Back then, I laughed so hard at the comic strip, but just now I get the joke. Thanks Quino. 🙁

Guatemalan Cuisine: Revolcado de Panza

Traditional Guatemalan cuisine refuses to be phased out in favor of international fast food like hamburgers, pizza, hot dogs and chinese food. Even though foreign fast food is convenient, it lacks the complexity in flavors that Guatemalan dishes have. Even a simple dish like Revolcado de Panza, a sort of tomato-based curry with spices and cow’s underbelly brings forth an avalanche of flavors, textures and feelings to the taste buds.

Traditional Guatemalan dishes take a long time to be prepared, sometimes even weeks like the Fiambre (a cold-cuts salad), so they can not compete with fast food junk food in the time of preparation. But who says they have to be prepared the moment you show up to order it? That is fine for sandwiches, but Guatemalan traditional meals are sold by having a ready-made buffet where one can go and just order portions.

Guatemalan Adoptions

I was lucky to capture this couple and their new baby just taking a rest and enjoying the beautiful light and atmosphere …

Antigua’s colors, post #100

Antigua’s colors, originally uploaded by rudygiron. Nuno suggested that we should always look up, beauty is on every direction. That is exactly …

Shrimp Ceviche in Antigua

Ceviche is very popular food in America. There are many ways to prepare it and there are many recipes per countries. The …