Blogs from Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 104

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I finished my last article a little puzzled about the attitude of many a traveller with some more thought, and help from a book, I have come up with a way to shed a bit of light of this. A few defintions and terms are necessary first. I´m going to borrow the terms from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance. A simplistic breaking down of human understanding gives two types: Classical and Romantic. Classical being ´primarily one of underlying form´, this basically means seeing things as part of structure where logic rules and things are restricted. And with Romantic being ´primarily in terms of apperance´ which is a little more self-explanatory. Both schools of thought suffer from similar problems and this can be seen when pretentiousness is considered. Classical Pretentiousness to the other school: Here ... read more


....I mentioned to her my idea of volunteering, she dismissively responded saying she saw much volunteering and much charity given but little changing. I explained that it´s small potatoes for what is given with one hand and grab back twice over through the near-hidden means of business and economics. This isn´t to say that it isn´t worth doing the forementioned, and the very fact many people think like this is part of the problem. For example it´s lots of singular votes which makes up an election. But this is little different. The whole development issue isn´t simply a matter of money, it´s much more complex than that. Furthermore few things in this world are completely independent of one another. An example of such a link is increased tourism. Increase tourism doesn´t just bring in money ... read more


Guatemalan history and the recent, lengthy, civil war is in large a story of perscution, racism, injustice and war. Many of it´s fellow Central American countries have suffered from the same fate. Following on from a previous point, this this is the reason why some indigenous people (mostly men) don´t wear the traditional dress, to avoid persecution. It´s typical in Guatemalan society for the men to do the work outside of the home environment and ,as a result, they put themselves in the front line, identifying themselves as supporters of the rebels forces from the civil war (mostly indigenous people though this was a frequent misidentification). My language school owner was one, he sees himself as weak for conforming, compromising with this. Using the same counter argument as used in the Zapatistas stuff, Do you stand ... read more


... overshadowing the flaws in his thinking and his lack of actual achievements. A man to be liked more than admired, he fought with passion and was honest towards his own short-comings but has more fame than his 'achievements' deserve. A theme consistent in Latin American where the people are fond of lifting people to God like status, untouchable by criticism. In many ways they become a symbol for a idea, a movement. Maintaining the myth of perfection is useful in bringing a face or a name to cause or an idea, almost marketing it. Hence Zapata, a man who deserves more recognition, was only to found in the history books until the Zapatistas reminded us of him. There's a book, harshly titled 'Latin American Idiots' (didn't sell well in LAm), written by Latin Americans ... read more


Admittably I've plopped this in my current location bit although much of this relates to Chiapas, Mexico. A book I'm reading at the moment has captured my political, philosphical and moral imagination and I feel I need to write about it here. The Zaptistatas are named after Emiliana Zapata, a prominient figure in the 1910 revolution in bringing rights to indigenous people after hundreds of years of abuse. This period was many a subject of a Diego Riviera Mural (see Mexico City bit). He suceeded in creating some land reforms, which have since been recinded in order to allow NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) to take place and basically allow rich companies to kick indigenous people off their land (again) and force them in to confirming with the Capatilist system (basically to live in poverty ... read more


After a day and a half of frustrating travel, due to many reasons, I arrived in San Pedro La Laguna via a overnight stop in Guatemala City. Within about ten minutes of arrival a guy had lead me to a hotel and language school and I had parted with money to both. Language schools are amazingly cheap here, with 20hrs lessons 1-1, accomodation and food setting you back only about US$90. The general consesus among travellers is that the standard of teaching is not hot, but for what I wanted (a lot of conservational practice) this is not too important and still provides excellent value for money. Of course the flip side of the coin tells you that by the time the language school has pocketed it's bit the teacher is unlikely to earning much over ... read more


Errr, October 13th? So first its two weeks, then four and now, well who would ever have predicted this, eh? Perhaps its time to start thinking about making lots of New Year’s resolutions I’ve no intention of ever keeping. I managed to leave my diary somewhere in Antigua so I've given up on that one. Means I can hardly remember what I've been up to though so I'd best start making things up.... NOW! So after all of Mexico - or at least the 3% or so that I must have seen - I had to take a boat and a couple of buses to make my way into Guatemala. Here's a beautiful but poor country with an unimaginably turbulent past, culminating in some 36 years of civil war (which only ended with 1996’s peace accords) ... read more
San Maricos, Lago de Atitlán after Stan.
The first family I stayed with in Xela.
Luis, my teacher.


James´s camera is lost, perdido, for now. We´ve finaly figured out how to use Diego´s camera for the blog. To answer a whole bunch of emails at once....YES Carolyn Myss does have issues...don´t we all,,,no, ¨James¨¨shall we say, was not team teaching with her...he was team boxing with her?...or more like, she with hiim..it´s difficult for Dr Myss to take a compliment...James tried several times...finally, at an airport in middle of india, he complimented her on the color purple she was wearing =one of Jame´s favorities, and she called him a goofball and yes he is a clown.James and Diego two of the biggest clowns, PAYASOS, in Guatamala...then he tried again, and said to her, JUST SAY THANK YOU...she said THANK YOU. End of conversation...with authorities, etc with dr upledger they seem to like to take ... read more
lake attitlan
on the boat


Before I go on about Chichicastenango, I realized I forgot to explain why the local buses are called Chicken Buses. Basically anyone is allowed to bring aboard pretty much any kind of cargo which sometimes includes live chickens. You pretty much never know what to expect when you get on. I also forgot to show you a picture, this one isn´t that great, I have to take a better one, but you get the idea... Most of them are more colorful and have a woman´s name painted across the side, usually a daughter´s or wife´s. The same is for most of the comedors, restaurantes, cantinas, etc. Anyways, So yesterday I visited the town of Chichi to walk amongst their weekly Sunday market which covers about 10 to 15 street blocks, it is so big! I thought ... read more
Chichi market...
Chichi market...
oranges anyone?


So Thursday morning I changed my mind about going to Chichicastenango for the market and decided to take the bus to Quetzaltenango to do some exploring. It is the biggest city in the western part of Guatemala, very close to the Mexico border. It is also referred to as Xela, that is what the indigenious people call it. I was quite unsure of my decision to go here cause I really had no idea what I was going to do there, but as usual I ended up having a great time. The city centre is absolutely amazing, all of the buildings are very old and the architecture is amazing. I think my favorite place was the theatre. I have never seen such an amazing place! I got to see the inside too, and it made me ... read more
the garden at one of the parliament buildings
in Almalonga
Zunil




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