Guatemala News and Articles
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Guatemala News | January 2007
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Antigua, Guatemala - Una Gran Aventura
The plane is flying to Guatemala, takes a twist before landing and then you’re on the ground at the small airport La Aurora. Use the ATM machine to request some money. The quetzal is the national currency. You should avoid as all the guides say, the capital, Guatemala City, because they say there’s nothing to see and there is a chance to get robbed.
The best destination in Guatemala should be Antigua, about 100km away from the riotously capital....
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Life in Antigua
¡hola, amigos! Life in Antigua is great! I´m picking up more and more spanish. Mostly, I´m able to understand a lot, but speak very, very little. School has been really good. But, it is very hard. You just literally sit across the table from your teacher for 4 hours with a 1/2 hour break. I´m learning a lot and my teacher is extremely patient...I know I must be a frustrating student! It´s amazing that we are able to talk for 4 hours! But it´s not all fun, I´m learning muchos, muchos gramaticos which is very difficult...
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Christmas in Guatemala
Christmas is a truly special time in Guatemala marked by rich traditions and foods and of course, an exceptional number of fireworks. It all begins early in the month on December 7th with “La Quema del Diablo,” or the burning of the devil. This custom is 500 years old and comes from the Virgin Mary’s victory over the devil. ...
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New Job? New Baby? No Problem
When Pamela Rothenberg traveled to Guatemala to adopt her baby girl last year, almost no one at Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice had any idea that she was adding an infant to her family."I went to Guatemala on a Friday, came back and took the baby to the pediatrician on a Tuesday, and was back in the office -- with the baby -- on a Wednesday," says the managing partner of Womble's Washington, D.C., office."I'm standing there, talking to people with a baby on my hip," she recalls, smiling. "No one knows what's going on." When they finally asked Rothenberg whose baby was sleeping peacefully in her office, she said, "It's mine!" ..
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Hero catches tot as she falls from high window
It took a second or two for Jaimen Ortiz to fully comprehend what he was seeing: two toddlers playing in an open second-floor window, and one of them hanging from the window sill.
So Ortiz hopped a fence and ran to the apartment building. Just as he got there, the 2-year-old girl fell, screaming..
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Guatemala System is Scrutinized as Americans Rush to Adopt, by Marc Lacey was my last interview
Marc Lacey, who works for the New York Times, called me a couple of weeks ago, to talk about adoptions in Guatemala. He said that "everybody told him that he must talk to Susana Luarca". I have a soft spot for the New York Times, from the year that I lived in the Big Apple and read it every day, so - against my better judgment - I agreed and talked to him. While talking to Marc, I could feel that something did not sound right about him, so I asked him if he was one of those journalists that come with an already written article, just looking for names to fill in the blanks. He assured me that he was "a serious journalist, of a serious newspaper". I almost believed him. It helped that he told me that he and his wife adopted their son in Kenya. From one adoptive parent to another, we talked over the phone for a long time..
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Guatemala: Mayans angry about Mel Gibson film
Mel Gibson’s film about the Mayan civilisation has come under fire from indigenous members of the culture.
Activists in Guatemala - once home to a large part of the central American Mayan empire - said Apocalypto was unrealistic.“The director is saying the Mayans are savages,” said Lucio Yaxon, a human rights activist.
But consultant archaeologist for the film, Richard Hansen, said Gibson was “trying to make a social statement”...
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Tuesday Forgotten American Blogging: Sam Zemurray
Zemurray believed that nothing mattered except making money. As Paul Dosal writes in his excellent book, Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944, Zemurray "sponsored rebellions, hired mercenaries, bribed politicians, defied Guatemalan, Honduran, and American laws, and almost single-handedly provoked a war between Honduras and Guatemala." That's a hell of a resume right there! In 1911, not pleased with a new US-sponsored Nicaraguan government, Zemurray went to New Orleans where deposed Nicaraguan dictator Manuel Bonilla was living...
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Nine local artists visit Guatemala, bring back memories in the form of art
In January of 2006, artists from Savannah got together and went to Guatemala to explore the land, paint, sketch, and photograph while getting ideas to bring back home.
It was the second such trip for local artists. A group went in 2004.
Guatemala has active and inactive volcanoes, coupled with lush vegetation, interesting people and a colorful culture
The nine artists, who work in a variety of mediums, came back to Savannah and worked their memories into art. The group displayed their impressions in the Lobby Gallery at City Market during October and part of November.
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A Celebration of Faithfulness
Several years ago, Fran sent me her manuscript and asked if I knew how she could get it published. From the minute I glanced at the book, I knew it would be a challenge in today's marketplace. For over 50 years, Fran has worked among one of the largest groups of Mayan Indians in Guatemala, Central America—the K'ekchi'. Yes, the name of the language includes apostrophes which are glottalized stops (the official linguistic term) and distinguish the language from Spanish. It sounds nothing like Spanish...
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Robert Gates and CIA history in Guatemala
In the memo, Gates, who was deputy director of the CIA, argued that the Soviet Union was turning Nicaragua into an armed camp and that the country could become a second Cuba. The rise of the communist-leaning Sandinista government threatened the stability of Central America, Gates asserted.
Gates' memo echoed the view of many foreign policy hard-liners at the time; however, the feared communist takeover of the region never materialized.
Link to Nov. 25 LA Times article by Julian E. Barnes.
Snip from "CIA and Assassinations: The Guatemala 1954 Documents," by Kate Doyle and Peter Kornbluh, from the GWU National Security Archives, printed on 14 August 1997....
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Guatemala is my Happy Place
The day after paradise on Bannister Cay, Belize we docked in Santo Thomas de Castilla, Guatemala which is really the town of Puerto Barrios but that doesn't sound nearly as exotic.
Instead of beaches, the jungle poured right down to the waterline and the air was thick with smoke from the fires burning all around, we could see six or seven smoke plumes rising up through the trees continually...
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The Guatemala Group
Each year, a select group of Bellarmine students are chosen to participate in a spring break trip to Guatemala. This is not a typical spring break trip; it is not about having fun, relaxing, or partying. This trip is about service, it is a chance for students to broaden their world view, to see first hand what the term “third world country” means and what life there is like. It is a chance to try and effect change, even if only within yourself.
This year thirty-five students, led by Bob and Dotti Lockhart, will travel to Guatemala where they will work in a community by building, repairing, painting, distributing food and clothing, and getting to know the people of the community...
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