Pre-Primary School Parade in La Antigua Guatemala
Guatemala’s public educational system is divided as follows: Pre-Primaria (Pre-primary also known as párvulos and kindergarten), Primaria (Primary school 1st to 6th …
The Firemen Are Always Ready!
Just two weeks ago I introduced you to my good friend Nelo, who in turn was introducing iPhone 3G in La Antigua …
The Ice Cream Men Are Always Ready!
It doesn’t matter what kind of meeting it is, the ice cream men and their carts are always ready to sell you …
Jumping Kids Show
What better way to promote physical activity than to put kids to jump to their hearts’ content.
Celebrating Physical Activity in La Antigua Guatemala
Once again, La Antigua Guatemala’s Parque Central and the streets around it served as scenario for a celebration. This time the Central …
Guatemalan Slang: Chamusca
Chamusca is the Guatemalan-Spanish word for an informal football match. All you need is a few friends, a dirt field and a …
Mother’s Safety Zone
Through our mothers’ safety zone we learn to crawl, walk, run, swim and fly! It is only fair that we assign one …
Don’t Laugh At Me!
“… 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)
I read to my little brother
Kids reading to kids; now we are onto something! While reviewing the wishlist for the Caldo de Piedra Library Project, I occurred …
Caldo de Piedra Library Project
Boy, do I have a soft spot for libraries! Often I highlight library projects like the Bibliobús of Probigua, which I nicknamed …
Campaign Against Tuberculosis in Guatemala
I caught a shot of marching students and the municipal band in a campaign of awareness and against tuberculosis. I even got …
Grandma and Granddaugther doing Mandados
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.
Back to the Guatemalan School Year 2008
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.
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.
Giant Kite and Guatemalan idiosyncrasy
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