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Holy Week Processional Carpets

Some people have traveled the world over just to be present for the world-famous Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala. Some people …

Cathedral’s New Look

Well, it looks like 2009 will be the year of the new paint jobs on all the major churches around Antigua Guatemala …

Jacarandas at Central Park

I don’t know how it happened, but I had lost this vista of the Jacaranda trees in bloom at La Antigua Guatemala’s …

Guateflora: Jacarandas

Interesting enough, last year when I published the Guateflora series, I overlooked the jacaranda trees, which are omnipresent in and around Antigua …

On the Way to the Maize Mill

The Guatemalan way of life is rapidly disappearing right in front of our eyes. Today’s entry is such a case, as the …

Did Anybody Say Jocotes?

There are some Guatemalan fruits that are impossible to translate into English; jocotes is one of them. Jocotes is the little round …

The Old Man and the Band

This old man and the band are the tail of the procession. There goes Semana Santa 2008… we are at end of the Holy Week in La Antigua Guatemala. Just one more day!

Cucurucho Paying for His Turns at the Float

Each turn of the Holy Week Float costs around Q60 (around US$8), there are around 60 turns and each float has somewhere between 80 and 100 spaces for the Cucuruchos. That’s close to Q290,000 (US$38,000) per procession.

Guatemalan Carnival Cascarones for 25 Centavos

Cascarones are empty eggshells that are filled with pica-pica paper confetti and then covered up with another piece of papel china (tissue paper) and finally painted in colorful ways; like everything else in Guatemala. The final painted eggshells are reserved for the Carnaval as it is known carnival in Spanish which is the ‘Sad Tuesday’ before Ash Wednesday; why ‘Sad Tuesday’?, well carnival means “farewell to meat”, you can only be sad if you are going to keep a vegetarian lent. 😉

YO-YO: The Inauguration

This is what the inauguration of the YO-YO: retratos y autoretratos the photo exhibit looked like inside the Sala Marco Augusto Quiroa …

YO-YO: The Sign

This is the welcoming display sign that you can find in the hallway that connects the underground parking lot and the Hotel-Museo Casa Santo Domingo in La Antigua Guatemala. Although, there is no reference element in the picture to give you an idea of the size of the sign, I can tell you is very big; the red background of the display must be about 3 meters by 2 meters (9 feet by 6 feet).

YO-YO: The Catalog

YO-YO: retratos y autoretratos exhibit received so many accolades and magnificent reviews by the critics that it prompted Carlos Woods, owner of the gallery, and his curatorial team to pump even more oxygen by bringing the photo exhibition to one of the most important venues in La Antigua Guatemala and to create a catalog to record the fist YO-YO. This impressively beautiful catalog is printed on an European paper size (24 cm. x 36.5 cm or 9.5 in. x 14.5 in) and was designed by Paola Beverini. This is the second catalog that is put out by the Carlos Woods Gallery, but the first that will be on sale. I recommend its purchase as soon as it hits the shelves.

YO-YO: The yo-yos

Under the name of YO-YO: retratos y autoretratos (portraits and self-portraits) the Carlos Woods Gallery is presenting its very successful photography exhibit in the Sala Marco Augusto Quiroa of Paseo de los Museos in the Hotel-Museo Casa Santo Domingo in La Antigua Guatemala.

The photo of the hanging yo-yos above is part of one of the teaser window displays to make you go visit the exhibit inside the Marco Augusto Quiroa gallery in Hotel-Museo Casa Santo Domingo. You can find this yo-yos window display in the hallway that connects the underground parking lot and the hotel.

Cell Phone Pics: The couple

The cellular telephone industry is one of the fastest growing industries and they just broke a new record for Latin America: 10 million 150 thousand users or the equivalent of 75% of the population has now an “active cellphone”. The key word here is: Active. This makes Guatemala one of the most connected countries in Latin America. (Source: Guatemala bate récord de usuarios de telefoní­a móvil at elPeriódico {ES}).

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.

Buñuelos Are Another Traditional Guatemalan Christmas Food

By the way, although I have not mentioned it yet, every night as I write the daily entry I can hear the bombas (bombs) firecracker, the cohetes (firecrackers) being burnt, the church bells tolling, the canchinflines (whistle) firecracker and all kinds of unknown (to me) firecracker being burnt and creating a loud bang which I can hear as echoes through the far away streets. In additions to the smells and scents, the Christmas season in Guatemala has a soundtrack of its own.

Torrejas, Torrejas, Anyone?

Guatemalan torrejas is what happens when you mix a good sampling of Guatemalan sweet bread known as molletes; stuff it with manjar …

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.

You’re Not Dead Until You’re Forgotten

Guatemala’s real culture is syncretism and thus death plays an important role in traditions and culture. Guatemala is the real ‘melting pot’ and the final product is called mestizo. A mestizo is an individual that comes in many shades of brown and she is made up from a combination of AmerIndian, European, African, Asian and Arab. Syncretism and mestizism go together well and that is why there is no conflict with including some or many Mayan rituals, including death rituals, in a everyday Catholic or Christian service. Obviously, a single entry is not enough to describe such a complex human being, but we have to start somewhere and since Patsy Poor mentioned that recent studies showed that the U.S. will be brown (mestizo) in 50 years. 😉

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.

VII Summit of First Ladies of Central America, Panama and Dominican Republic

Basically, the first ladies want to promote strategies in favor of the women of the region. If you ask me, this sounds to generic and broad to be taken seriously as a plan to better the situation of women in Central America. They could’ve taken a look at my entry of Guatemalan Women & Killer’s Paradise for two concrete campaigns for their agenda: The elimination of violence against women and solid plans to end the femicides and to bring the killers to justice. But then again, this would not be a suitable agenda to discuss for some fine first ladies while drinking the best coffee of world while staying at the only five stars hotel in La Antigua Guatemala, right?

Guatemalan Sweet Bread Sampler – One Year Anniversary

What about the Guatemalan Sweet Bread?
Oh yeah, I am rambling again. In the photo above you see one of things Guatemalans abroad miss the most: Sweet Guatemalan Bread. I have talked about cutting a cake for this anniversary, but then I decided to shared the poor Guatemalans alternative: La Torta, this huge sweet bread, takes the place of the cake for many Guatemalan families. Also, as suggested by some friends, I decided to include other pieces of the Guatemalan sweet bread repertoire for all those chapines abroad. In Guatemala, we dip the bread in the coffee, as described by Manolo in LD’s entry about Miss Manners International. Since Manolo can not find champurradas (the flat tortilla-like bread in the picture) in Toronto, he dips his cookies in the coffee. I hope you don’t get grossed out by my dipping the bread in the coffee; I am doing it for the full impact on those Guatemalans who live abroad and visit this site infrequently.

The sweet Guatemalan bread in this picture comes from a very popular bakery in La Antigua Guatemala by the name of San Antonio, which stills uses brick ovens and wooden logs. The bread is baked freshly twice a day and with the best recipes from La Antigua Guatemala, the culinary capital of Guatemala. Sweet bread dipped in a cup of the best coffee in the world (from Antigua, of course), what else can you ask from life?

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.

Holy Week Elements: The Cross

Nevertheless, Good Friday is the culmination of the Holy Week Celebrations and the processions end at the Calvario Church (Calvario is the Spanish word for Calvary or Golgotha). The entrance of the Calvario Church in La Antigua Guatemala is a yellow façade with three arches, topped by three bells and three crosses —one larger than the other two— with a very large concrete cross in front. Can you see the obvious architectonic reference to Jesus’ crucifixion?

Theme Day: Men at Work

Architecture arose from man’s necessity to shelter from the environment. First, he used the caves where he left registered scenes from his daily life, to then build, with the materials found in nature, his home. As humankind organized socially and the jobs became specialties, the first masons appeared and transformed the natural materials such stone and wood, and invented others like adobes and bricks from clay. (fragment from La mano de obra en la arquitectura from JM Magaña in Recrearte Magazine, page 8, available in Spanish as a PDF download)

Selling Tortillas on the Streets

The informal economy is the basis for making a living for most Guatemalans. That is why you have shoe-shining boys, orchids sellers, …

Making Tortillas in Guatemala

Yesterday I mentioned that the traditional baked-clay comales are disappearing in Guatemala in favor of the metal comal; heated through gas. All …

Bell ringer

It just does not seem fair that Nuno gets all the attention with his church photos; sure he captures great images, sure …

Who waters all those plants?

It is very common to see plants above the walls and doors in Antigua. The Land of the Eternal Spring is Guatemala’s …

Entrance to the Popenoe House

Entrance to the Popenoe House, originally uploaded by rudygiron. This is the entrance to the Popenoe House, a colonial mansion restored by …

Colibri Sign

There are several architectonic elements that make Antigua such a photographic place. These are windows, doors, walls, signs, churches, arches, patios, fountains, …