Traditions: Posadas and Nacimientos
The nacimiento is still the star of the show in Guatemala. What is now the most important celebration of the year came to the Americas with the Spanish Christian evangelists. The Guatemalans, already an innately spiritual people closely in tune with nature and in whom creativity thrives, had no trouble adapting to the new religious [...]
What Will I Do with the Gold?
“My name is Thompson because da Vinci was already taken,” Al quips in his typical, quick humor. In fact, there are similarities between the 15th century artist and Al Thompson, born in 1928. Both justly claim a diversity of talents: painting, sculpting, inventing, writing, to name a few. An exhibition of Al’s most recent creations [...]
Lured to La Antigua
Mystery tantalizes the memory of Amelia Earhart, who disappeared somewhere over the Pacific during her attempted flight around the globe in 1937, piloting her twin-engine plane with only a navigator aboard. The world watched and waited as communication broke, came again, broke again and eventually fell silent. In the early days of aviation, Earhart’s gutsy [...]
Weaving a History
At the beginning of time, according to ancient Mayan legend, the gods from their center spun out the cosmos, setting in place the universe. The corn god laid out the four corners and erected the World Tree in the center, from whose branches grew one of everything to come. When they became too full, the [...]
Dr. Johnny Long
To those who knew and loved him in La Antigua Guatemala, he was Johnny. It was the name coined by colleagues at Duke University School of Medicine when the name given him in 1920, Ernest Croft Long, did not easily roll off the tongue. He joined the Duke faculty in 1956, having graduated from the [...]
Saintly Beginnings
Where did Hermano Pedro come from? Young Pedro de Betancur, age 22, left his home on the Canary Island of Tenerife in 1649 and sailed to the New World. Many ships were crossing the Atlantic at that time, with Tenerife a geographically necessary port of call between Europe and America. They were filled with adventurers [...]
In Search of Almolonga
Exactly where was the center of old Santiago? Traditionally the honor has been assumed to belong to the urban center of Ciudad Vieja, the Old City. But was it? Tropical storm Agatha raged throughout Guatemala in May, déjà vu of 9/11/1541 for the hard-hit area east of Ciudad Vieja. Weeks later, the church of San [...]
How ‘bout a Coffee?
Schumann, Wagner and Goethe met frequently to chat at Coffé Baum in Leipzig, Germany. Established in 1694 and Germany’s oldest coffee house, Coffé Baum still serves satisfied customers and includes a popular coffee museum on the third floor. In his spare time from his duties as choirmaster at Thomas Church in Leipzig, J.S. Bach composed [...]
Echoes of Fine Colonial Homes
More than beautiful stone mansions, these were homes of real people with real lives, joys, and sorrows. In Michener’s Poland (1983), a professor who clung to life in a concentration camp pleaded, “Rebuild! Rebuild!” as “the most important thing to do when this nightmare ends…an act of faith, an act of commitment to the future…a [...]
Protecting the Past for the Future
Threatened by years of abuse and neglect, the Mirador Basin needs help and it needs it now. The 400-year sliver of history between the biblical Old and New Testaments, sometimes erroneously called the ‘silent years’, packed Planet Earth with progress. Alexander the Great studied at the feet of Aristotle and, zealous to unite the world [...]
Guatemala in 90 Hours
Turning a short visit into a long-lasting memory Volcanoes. Lakes. Archeology and architecture. History and culture. Ziplines. Coffee plantations. UNESCO World Heritage sites. Plus, of course, shopping. Guatemala has all these attractions for tourism. But what about the tourist who has only a few days and less than $300? Yes, with planning and time management, [...]
You Can Get There From Here
Guatemala to Machu Picchu “Surprise followed surprise in bewildering succession… Suddenly we found ourselves standing in front of the ruins of two of the finest and most interesting structures in ancient America. Made of beautiful white granite, the walls contained blocks of Cyclopean size higher than a man. The sight held me spellbound…The building did [...]
Faithful Treasures
Treasures of the La Merced Church formed the largest collection of those brought from the churches of Santiago. Some were lost with the passing of time, starting with the move in 1778 and including political changes during which artworks were destroyed or distributed, even to individuals.
Turning Points
Many factors influenced Guatemala’s first building boom Poet Robert Burns was voted Greatest Scot of All Time in 2009. Burns was born in 1759 in a thatch-roof cottage built by his father and lived there for seven years, a hard life of farming and poverty. He went on to live a fast life of carousing [...]
Coyol Bouquets
Coconut palm…royal palm… date palm…coyol palm…uh, coyol palm? WordWeb Online calls it a tropical American palm with edible nuts and yielding useful fiber. In some countries of Central America, especially Costa Rica and Honduras, it is known for the sweet liquid that flows inside its trunk and is extracted to drink as a 100 per [...]
Rosamaría Pascual de Gámez
Artist Rosamaría Pascual de Gámez stands with her latest mural, “…so you can compare the size with an average person.” The painting now hangs in the baptistery of the Cathedral of Santa Cruz del Quiché, the second of her works there and the 18th mural she has donated to Guatemala churches. At five square meters, [...]
Touring the Nacimientos
For centuries, all over the world artistic expressions of the birth of Jesus have touched people of all ages and stages, the right and the poor, the merry and the melancholy, the proud and the profane.
Health Care in Colonial Guatemala
Part III: University of San Carlos Medical School By the end of the 17th century, six hospitals had been founded in Guatemala. But, lacking scientific information and methods, hospitals provided little more than refuge or asylum. Sickness and cultural attitudes toward it were a social problem. In addition, the times were characterized by conflict between [...]
Healthcare in Colonial Guatemala
The latest medical advances in Spain were slow to reach Guatemala which saw its first autopsy in 1622. Hospitals were simple asylums for the sick, consoled by religion.
Healthcare in Colonial Guatemala
written by Joy Houston photos: Jack Houston Part I: 16th Century What medical options were available centuries ago in Guatemala for wounds from enemy arrows, burns, natural disasters or epidemics? Mixing medicine with magic was routine in colonial days. “Medical science was slave to theory and superstition,” writes Carlos Martínez Durán in Las Ciencias Médicas [...]
Holy Week Handbook
The third edition of Elizabeth Bell’s Lent and Holy Week in La Antigua hits the shops just in time for the crowds that hit the town for this year’s celebrations. When first approached in the early 1990s with, “You should do a book on Holy Week,” her response was, “What? We go into hiding during [...]
Bette van Lunteren
Ballerina Bette van Lunteren danced her way from her home in Holland to the heart of La Antigua Guatemala. She graduated from the Theater Dance Department of the School of Arts in Amsterdam and taught Dutch school children for six years. Her program was one of interactive expression on a one-day theme, group by group, [...]
The Saga Continues
While preparing the Convent La Concepción for its reopening as the Museo de Semana Santa (Holy Week Museum) they have uncovered new colors, secrets and surprises. In June 1737 the nuns of Convent La Concepción invited the town of Santiago de los Caballeros, now La Antigua Guatemala, to a celebration. Sound strange? Yes, but the [...]
Party with a Purpose
by Jack and Joy Houston Panchoy 50 celebrated the conclusion of its first phase in September with a glitz-and-glitter gala at Hotel Casa Santo Domingo. The project, launched in February, completed formation and analyses of 10 volunteer committees working toward an integral, 50-year development plan for the Panchoy Valley. In the next phase the committees [...]
Humble Beginnings
The Story of the Ruins of San Jerónimo The spacious, bright and well-kept flowered lawn of the San Jerónimo ruins at the north end of Alameda Santa Lucía welcomes visitors to the site of a school that functioned barely four years and closed with five students. In Colonial Architecture of Antigua, Sidney Markman wrote, “Very [...]
Last But Not Least
La Recolección is off the beaten track but worth the extra, dusty walk, being among the most impressive ruins in town. Religious reformers punctuate history as far back as anyone wants to go. Constantine, Luther, even Henry VIII, the Wesley brothers. The past century knew Billy Sunday and Billy Graham. Antonio Margil de Jesús is [...]
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