Sometimes the ride from Guate city (la capital) to LAG takes a bit longer than expected and then there is not enough time to visit some of the interesting places. Or at least you end up finishing your pie de ayote or pie de higo by closing time, and then between getting some clay lantern and marimba CDs and paying for the plants you are taking back to la capital you end up having to ask the gatekeeper to let you out.

We can imagine names such as don neto or don chepe, always diminutives, showing a familiarity that may or may not be there, and at the same time a respect towards someone at our service. In Guatemala (and LAG is Guatemala) there is a marked difference, if not in ethnic group, at least in social class, between “us” and gatekeepers. Maybe it is the same worldwide, maybe it only exists inside my head.

Gatekeepers exert their power, limited as it might be, by being there to help us. Catholics might have something right by portraying one of their founding fathers, St. Peter, as the gatekeeper of the heavens. More earthly gatekeepers usually are there to open the door so we can continue our journey and leave the dreamland we are visiting. Gatekeepers have the keys to the outside world and the keys to inner worlds beyond our right to roam free. They let us in, they let us out.

I’ve been reading an online novel by Ronald Flores called Una cabaña en Atitlán (in Spanish) and it reminded me of this picture and this post I’ve been wanting to write. The central character in the novel (a middle-class ladino from la capital) has a couple of encounters with Mayan people, one of them that opens and closes a door for him. A door to another life, to the possibility of escape, to the possibility of change. Beautiful doors (and windows) are abundant in LAG and probably represent more than architectural elements…

Can you guess where was this picture taken?

How are usually the gatekeepers where you live or where you come from?

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As I have shared with you, last Saturday I went to listen to the Guatemalan writers of the post-war in a dialogue they held about Contemporary Central American Literature. Those of us who attended were lucky enough to listen to the opinions and positions of Francisco Alejandro Méndez, Julio Serrano, Javier Payeras, Ana Marí­a Rodas, Ronald Flores, Allan Mills and Juan Pablo Dardón. Except for Ana Marí­a Rodas (the lady in the picture above) who belong to writers’ generation of 1960-1970, all the other Guatemalan writers and poets belong to the post-war period.

The Guatemalan civil war began after a successful overthrow of the freely-elected Guatemalan government by the CIA coup “Operantion PBSUCCESS” in 1954. The Peace Accords were signed by the end of December 1996, after the death and disappearance of more 200,000 people.

So, in the forum on Saturday there were two generations of Guatemalan writers, each with its own style and specific issues to write about. Ana Marí­a Rodas and Mario Roberto Morales belong to the war years and thus they find it very difficult to understand the very prolific post-war generation and the subject-matter they choose to write about.

I like reading both generations of writers, but I most definitely identify with the post-war writers and their disenchantment with the right and left wings and the war and its aftermath as a whole. Anyway, I do not want to bore you with all the details of the dialogue between the writers. Suffice it to say, it was a great evening and the dialogue continue afterwards in a local restaurant in Central Park. As to not bore you with all this dry writing, I prepared a mini photographic chronicle. If you click at the photos below, you can get more details and background information from the titles of the photos.

If you guys want me to write a little review about some of the Guatemalan writers of the post-war period and all their incredible novels and poetry, please, let me know. I will be more than happy to comply. In the mean time, if you can read Spanish, please visit the blog of Allan Mills to get an literary overview of the night.

Photographic Chronicle of the Diálogo sobre Literatura Centroamericana Contemporánea

The Burning of the Devil celebrations in La Antigua Guatemala are done differently than in the rest of Guatemala. (See, one more truth for the upcoming debate about how La Antigua Guatemala is not Guatemala.) If you follow the links above to the entry for December 7th, 2006, you will see that in La Antigua Guatemala, there is a single devil which is placed on podium between two antique, but working gas stations in the barrio of La Virgen de la Inmaculada Concepción (Virgin of the Immaculate Conception neighborhood) where a will or testament is read for the devil, which usually means all kinds of gossip about politicians, prominent and ordinary people alike. If you can read Spanish, you can visit my entry of Quema del diablo en La Antigua for December 7th, 2005 which shows the devil’s inferno before the burning.

On the other hand, or rather in the rest of the country, Guatemalans take out all their trash, or even go around the neighborhood collecting inflammable materials like tires, plastics and whatever can create the biggest bonfire. They also buy as much powder in the form of firecrackers to add the soundtrack to the burning of devil celebrations around 18 hours on December 7. Needless to say many people who have awaken to the realization of the damage this burning causes to the environment locally and globally have raised their voice and opinion against such celebrations, specifically the burning of all the toxic stuff.

So with this new epiphany came new ideas for celebrating the Burning of the Devil without actually burning anything. One such idea is to hold a piñata-breaking party with the family and friends. One more ecological approach was taken by Manolo on his Toronteco blog by translating an article by Ronald Flores entitled Al diablo con eso which deals with the symbolic burning all the negative stuff we carry around. Below you can read the first two teaser paragraph and if you like continue reading the rest of in English or Spanish with the links at the end of the quoted text.

I don’t know who came up with the parochial idea of taking the old mattresses out to the street, the piles of papers that were gathering dust and mold, and burn them as night falls. I’ve been told that it has been said that the devil hides in the corners of the houses, among old things, within the garbage that we accumulate throughout the year without knowing why we do.

I’ve been told that burning that pile of trinkets and useless printed material made the devil burn on his very own inferno, and that this custom was necessary to begin the Christmas season with a clean home. Within that context, I confess that I have practiced more than once this interesting purification ritual. I have thrown to the flames notebooks from subjects I detested during the year, letters from unsuccessful loves and reproaches that I have received or that I have written without sending, pictures where I didn’t come up as I wanted, manuscripts of novels that I will never touch again… (Continue reading in English at El Torenteco blog or in Spanish at the Ronald Flores web site.)

For those of you who are not pyromaniacs, but like reading and since we broke short the library tour, I recommend reading Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. The number “451″ refers to the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which a book or paper spontaneously combusts.

For those who would rather break a piñata than playing around with fire, I present to you the Lucky 7 Burning of the Devil Piñata for you to fill it with all your frustration and negative vibes and virtually burn it or break it with your mouse, trackball or tablet until your let it all out. Happy Burning of the Devil everyone!

Even fast-food restaurant have exquisite architectonic details to make them be in harmony with the colonial architecture of La Antigua Guatemala. Maybe you remember the fountain inside the Burger King’s restaurant shown here back in April 10th.

Don’t let anybody, including me, take away the pleasure of visiting this fast-food restaurants, if your conscience/soul/principles/memories/nostalgia/health allows for it. I promise you I am NOT, by any means, the exorcist! I AM, however, the native informant.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the private Spanish teachers yesterday in the cornucopia of options available for taking Spanish classes in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Spanish Schools entry. Once again, take all these options with a grain of salt since many of the flyers put more emphasis in the private part of the sale of the service.

Certainly, textbooks could be written about the world of Spanish classes in La Antigua Guatemala. Heck, even novels could be written about it; wait a minute, Ronald Flores already wrote a novel about the plausible ramifications of this exchange under the title of Un paseo en primavera (A Walk in the Spring).

If I was a writer I would write about the all the underground relationships and gossip that goes on underneath the façades of this Potemkin Village we call La Antigua Guatemala. This book would read like The Rum Diary of Hunter Thompson, but set in a town like the Savannah of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil of Clint Eastwood. Oh boy, how I wish I could write it! Maybe I could convince Guy to write. In the mean time, you could read Guy’s numerous entries about life in La Antigua Guatemala.

Sometimes, you just feel like abandoning all reason and common sense in order to have bacon for breakfast. Sure, fresh fruits with honey are tasty and colorful, but it doesn’t compare with a ‘real’ antigüeño breakfast with refried black beans, eggs, charcoal-broiled tomatoes, bacon and a strong cup of the best coffee in the world.

See, even a fancy-looking Guatemalan breakfast includes the black beans and eggs. With today’s photo you have seen three different versions of the Guatemalan breakfast. For sure, you remember the Typical Guatemalan Breakfast at Fernando’s Kaffee and the fast-food version of the Typical Breakfast served at Pollo Campero. Would you have a Guatemalan breakfast tomorrow morning if you were given the opportunity?

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.

I have said that I really enjoy being in this building so many times that you might actually believe that I work for the PR department of Agencia Española de Cooperación International in La Antigua Guatemala. I do not, just to get it right out in the open. However, I do check out books sometimes and read magazines from Spain from the Biblioteca (library) from time to time.

Honestly, I just cherish the atmosphere of the building. On the other hand, one thing I really want to do is sit on the bench in the corner, in the other side of the fountain, for lunch and read Un paseo en primavera (ES) by Ronald Flores. I could really get on the shoes of the protagonist, a tourist guide, since I’ve been told by Maggied that I am her personal tour guide. Just wait Maggied, I am preparing your invoice. Interestingly enough, the one thing I did not want to be was a tourist guide, nor I wanted for this site to become a touristic guide; it seems I have failed at both.

For now that is not possible because of the rainfall in the afternoons. I just have to wait until I can sing Requiem for the rain again. Also, I need to get an autographed copy of Un paseo en primavera from Ronald, like my friend Juan Carlos Escobedo.