Guatemala English language Magazine
This rich red color cries out for attention, from ALTO signs to garden blossoms to a flag announcing fresh meat at the village butcher. No wonder that cardinal signs are used by the big cola companies, a big phone service and most market chains. Your assignment this month, however, is to spot more subtle touches of cardinal-red among the bright […]
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From building houses out of cardboard boxes in his parents’ electrical store when he was a child, to designing candy stores at the university, Franklin Contreras was always destined to be an architect. The talented Guatemalan now owns his own firm, which employs over 200 people, and their designs stand out as pieces of art, especially along the streets of […]
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Calendars reflect how cultures and societies view the organization of time and space over the centuries. Many calendars have emerged and many have disappeared or been modified: the Julian calendar, the Republican calendar, the Gregorian calendar and the Mayan calendar to name a few. Each one involved astronomical calculations and incorporate harvests and religious or spiritual fiestas. I remember in […]
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After decades of hard work at deciphering Mayan hieroglyphs from c. 300-900 AD, we are left with thousands of texts written in Classic Mayan. How do we go about studying these sources as true texts? What were the different genres of writing, and how did they vary over time and space? How did scribes design their texts rhetorically and visually […]
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Christmas colors in Guatemala don’t stop with red and green, and dreams of a white Christmas must also include the entire rainbow. Yes, the brilliant red poinsettias and fragrant green pine needles, the ripe red berries and deep green leaves of the coffee trees, give all Central America the traditional Christmas colors of much of the world, but holidays in […]
Read moreby Linda Green I highly recommend that your dog sleep inside the house at night. No matter what your reasons for wanting your dog outside at night, I believe there are many more good reasons for keeping him inside with you. The usual logic cited for keeping a dog outside is security. Dogs are considered to be useful as an […]
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The Orden Diego de Porres – Gold Award – was awarded to Elizabeth Bell at Capuchinas by the Consejo Nacional Para la Proteccion de La Antigua Guatemala on December 1st. The following is the speech she gave following the presentation. Autoridades eclestiásticas y civiles, Miembros del Consejo Nacional para la Protección de la Antigua Guatemala, Conservador de La Ciudad, y […]
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Spices are important in Guatemalan cooking, especially in many sweets and drinks around the holidays. Spice colors are rich in the landscape this month also, which seems fitting as spices were what the Europeans sought when they first sailed west to bump into these shores. Guatemala produces some spices, but joins the rest of the world in adding clove, cinnamon, […]
Read moreby Jack and Joy Houston “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 […]
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Twas the night before Christmas and all through the casa, Not a creature was stirring ¡Caramba! ¿Qué pasa? Los niños were tucked away in their camas, Some in long underwear, some in pijamas, While hanging the stockings with mucho cuidado, In hopes that old Santa would feel obligado, To bring all children, both buenos and malos, A nice batch of […]
Read moreThe Mayan ruins of Quiriguá in Izabal and El Zotz in Petén, as well as the historic architecture of Belize City, have been included on the World Monuments Fund (WMF) 2012 Watch, a list of cultural heritage sites around the world at risk of damage or destruction from a variety of threats. With a mission of preserving the world’s architectural […]
Read moreIn Guatemala: People of Tradition, we see the depth of feeling, reverence and respect that has created the colorful outward pageantry that identifies Guatemala to the rest of the world.
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A rehearsal hall in Guatemala City has been filled with the sounds of Christmas since mid-September as the Guatemala Community Choir prepares for its annual performance of Handel’s Messiah. The production, now in its eighth year, will feature U.S. soloists J.J. Hobbs, Liz Cass, Sam Lowry and, making his Guatemala debut, baritone Phillip Hill from Austin, Texas. Trumpeter Randy Sonntag […]
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For most people, home is where the heart is, but for Gerri and George Chester, home is where Guatemala is—whether they’re in Florida or in La Antigua Guatemala. Tired of moving around every few years for work, the retired Foreign Service officers decided to set up house in Florida just over 10 years ago and build their dream home where […]
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There are two species of crocodiles and one species of alligator in the Mayan regions of Guatemala, Belize, Honduras and Mexico. Caiman crocodilus is a caiman, but considered an alligator (not a crocodile) despite its name “crocodilus.” The pattern of scales on this creature is very distinctive: no spikes or sharp spines but lots of raised bumps in a regular […]
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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 solo flight across the Atlantic […]
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Brown gets bad press. People feel bad and say they’re in a brown mood. When one U.S. president wore a brown suit, his staff knew they were in for a tough day. But watch some of the street artists under the golden-brown arch in La Antigua Guatemala as they mix their oils to make a brown: a squeeze each of […]
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Nesting season for sea turtles is in full swing along Guatemala’s Pacific beaches, where from July to December, the olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) comes ashore to lay eggs. To raise awareness of this endangered species, the third annual Sea Turtle Festival will take place the weekend of Nov. 18-20 in Monterrico and nearby Hawaii. Events include lectures, workshops and […]
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Guatemalan journalist Harris Whitbeck has been nominated for an International Emmy award for his production La Expedicion, Mas Alla de lo Imposible (The Expedition, Beyond the Impossible), which was broadcast last year on Televisa and produced for Fundacion Teleton. Competing in the field of reality programs, La Expedicion tells the story of 11 people with disabilities who undertake an […]
Read moreSplit-leaf philodendron is a common beauty in Guatemala Monstera deliciosa is a common houseplant and a common gar-den plant throughout Guatemala. Most of my articles in the REVUE magazine have been about sacred plants and flowers that appear in Mayan myths and in ancient art of Guatemala. But this month I am writing about a plant that is not pictured […]
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Loud, proud bass drumbeats in school parades; sad, slow beats of mourning in funeral processions; rapid, staccato snare drum ruffles accompanying glockenspiel chimes: Drums are part of human culture worldwide, but Guatemalan drumbeating is especially vigorous, more than ever in this month of patriotic celebrations. Archaeologists have uncovered many pieces of unadorned drums in digs into the oldest of Mayan […]
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“When I was 16 years old I entered my school choir as a piano accompanier and ended up singing,” says Guatemalan-born musician Flaminia. A few years later the talented artist, who wrote her first song when she was 5 years old, won an international singing competition in Mexico, which landed her a record deal in Miami. However, it appears that […]
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U.S. President Barack Obama has named Arnold A. Chacón, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, as ambassador to Guatemala, succeeding Stephen G. McFarland, who held the post since 2008. Officially he remains a U.S. designee until his credentials are accepted by the Guatemalan government. Chacón, whose nomination was confirmed last month by the U.S. Senate, had been deputy […]
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As if the ingress of bully bass to Lake Atitlán were not bad enough (see Revue August 2011, Lake Views, page 88), another alien may be even more harmful. At least since 2002, carp of the genus Cyprinus have been appearing in fishermen’s trawling nets. No one knows when they got there, nor what to do about them. “They have […]
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The tradition of slash-and-burn farming cannot continue text/photos by Thor Janson (www.bushmanollie.com) In Mesoamerica the end of the dry season—April and May—finds millions of campesino farmers busy practicing their age-old method of slash-and-burn agriculture. All the refuse on the fields is put to the torch, enriching the soil with mineral ash. This traditional method of farming is sustainable as long […]
Read moreA new FLAAR Report* now lists all of the animals that were sacred or otherwise considered as special by the Classic Maya. There are animals that are related to the sky (constellations, stars, planets), the forests and those that are associated with rivers, lakes, swamps and the oceans. These waters are conflated by the cosmology of the Preclassic and Classic […]
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INVIERNO, winter, is here. It’s the rainy season, and all our senses know it, even though most days still have lots of sunshine in the Guatemalan Highlands around La Antigua Guatemala, and temperatures continue to be mild. Drizzles, showers, deluges, each day’s touch of rain is different, something for all five senses. The colors of our rain shade from light […]
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53 years ago, an airplane wrought sudden, significant alterations in Lake Atitlán’s food chain Flying fish inhabit oceans, not lakes. Well, except for one sunny day in 1958. If you were looking at Lake Atitlán then, you would have seen big fish on the fly. They arrived in tubs welded into what was, judging from eyewitness accounts, a Sikorsky seaplane, […]
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Author/photographer: Thor Janson Published by Artemis Edinter Spanish/English 240 pages, color photography “Biologist, conservationist and photographer Thor Janson has worked in Central America for nearly thirty years. In this book he reveals his deep love and respect for the land and its inhabitants through 250 stunning color photographs accompanied by short descriptive text. An introduction by anthropologist Robert […]
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U.S. authorities recently arrested one of their most-wanted fugitives in California–an alleged mobster-murderer from Boston who had been in hiding or on the run for 16 years. For two businessmen in La Antigua Guatemala, the June 22 arrest of James “Whitey” Bulger, 81, dashed hopes of ever claiming a million-dollar reward (later upped to $2 million) to turn […]
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