Search Results for “pedro” – Page 3

Guatemalan Fair: The Ferris Wheel

Ferris wheels are another element of the Guatemalan fair. There is at least one Ferris wheel, but more often two or three of different sizes. The Ferris wheel is known here by these names rueda de Chicago(Chicago Wheel), rueda de la fortuna (wheel of fortune) and vuelta al mundo (around the world). Fairs are made up by all kinds of ambulant stands. Fairs are like accordions, they grow or shrink depending of the size of the community or town. All these photos belong to the San Pedro Las Huertas, a small village just outside and belonging to La Antigua Guatemala. At the end of July, La Antigua Guatemala will have its massive fair in honor of Saint James or Santiago.

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.

Theme Day: The Color Red

Once again, La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo is participating in the theme day of the Daily Photo community. This time the theme is about the color red. Here you can see the Compañía de Jusús building under care of the Cooperación Española which is huge red building; one full block to be specific. This building has had many uses through history, like the home of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, home to the Jesuits of Central America in colonial times, thus its name, and more recently it houses a public library, culture center under the administration of Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional. You can see the big entrance of the building, the interior gardens and arches and one the side wall of the ruins. I decided to photograph this building because it’s the biggest red thing in La Antigua Guatemala, but I was lucky to have a red motorcycle and a red jeep enter the viewfinder at the moment I snapped the shot; how lucky, indeed.

Is it fair? Really it’s a fair

For those who like to imagine what ruins were like and what people did around them I have todays photo of San Pedro Las Huertas Town fair with the church (not a ruin) in the background and all kind of food vendors around the town’s plaza. So this is what the ruins looked like when they were in used by the people of the past. If you would like to browse for other photos from San Pedro Las Huertas, just follow the white rabbit or if you only want to see a better shot of the church in the background just say we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The Guatemalan Chevere Hot Dog Cart

“Chevere” is a Venezuelan Spanish word which means cool, fine, excelent, okay, just to mention a few of its meaning. Well, about the origin of the chevere word, I don’t know; perhaps it is not even Venezuelan. Nonetheless, the word is understood and used in Central America.

In Guatemala, a company of hot dogs decided to use as its name in the late seventies or early eighties. The company did things right and it was a total hit and the Chevere brand became almost as omnipresent as Coca Cola, Pepsi and the Gallo Beer. It was everywhere.

Coffee and Gravileas Trees Along with Bougainvillea Bushes

This photo is needed to clarify a confusion about the coffee trees and their height. Nathalie from Sydney DP asked if coffee trees grow very tall in La Antigua Guatemala, while referring to this photograph which showed coffee trees and their shadow makers the gravilea trees around Antigua, San Pedro Las Huertas to be precise. I posted a Close-up photo of coffee plantation before to show the coffee bushes (tree could be considered an exaggeration) and the shadow trees known here a gravileas. So, to answer Nathalie’s questions, coffee trees (ed. bushes) do not grow very high; they can be harvest by Guatemalan farm workers on foot.

If you read, you succeed

The bibliobuses’ route takes them around Sacatepequez, that is the name of the State where La Antigua Guatemala is located—called Departamentos in Guatemala, visiting the villages around La Antigua for two hour per stop and returning every week. So kids with no access to public libraries, get the chance to read and check out the material in the mobile library chicken buses once a week. Here is the side view with the contact information of Probigua and their motto: Please Help Us to Help!

We Move Books!

The back of the mobile library chicken bus has even the same typography and three-step color gradient as the public transportation buses. …

Inside the Mobile Library Chicken Bus

Some of you have asked to update yesterday’s entry about the Mobile Library Chicken Bus with information on how to help and how to send donations. Come on people, you did not think I was going to left the entry about bibliobuses there, right? I have three more photos to go, one per day, as that is our agreement. I will be posting all this information for you to help and donate to such worthy project.

Mobile Library Chicken Bus

Here is an interesting twist for the infamous chicken bus. Turn it into a bibliobús or mobile library bus so you can take the books to the communities that lack a library. For now, they have two bibliobuses, but I believe they will need a whole fleet to cover all the communities that do not have a library in Guatemala.

Now I know where I will be donating my next batch of books. The two mobile library buses belong to the Non-Government Organization (NGO) Probigua, which stands for Proyecto Bibliotecas Guatemala (Libraries Project of Guatemala). Come back in the next few days to learn more about the project and to see the inside of a “chicken bus”.