Archive for March 1st, 2010
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 [...]
The Birth of a Camioneta
From school bus, to auction house, to workshop, to workhorse text & photos by Gwyn Lawrence For most people, the birthing process starts in the quiet, sterile, environment of a delivery room. For a camioneta, it starts in the noisy chaos of an auction room deep in the United States. U.S. school buses are typically [...]
The Care and Feeding of Tax Collectors
Lawyers may not be the most hated profession, even though entire books of lawyer jokes exist. Every non-lawyer has a war story about a run-in with a lawyer, whether here or in the old country. But if non-lawyers disdain lawyers, whom do lawyers pick on? Tax collectors, perhaps. Maybe I will write a book of [...]
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, [...]
The First Wave
In 1928, Mildred Covill Palmer took a little trip—that spanned a lifetime! written by William C. Paddock The first North American to restore and live in an Antigua home was one of the most remarkable people this town has ever known. Mildred Covill, born in Iowa in 1898 had, by the time she was 16, [...]
Retrograde
We position our thoughts around three points—the past, the future and the present, which is tightly squeezed in between. A quirk of ours is to orbit around the past. Living in the past, we rehash, recreate and regret. Although the past makes us sad or even mad, it’s often preferable to the future, which usually [...]
International Women’s Day
Thirteen Threads (www.thirteenthreads.org), a Maya women’s educational program based in Panajachel, is putting on its first International Women’s Day event. Representatives from each of its 22 participating Maya women’s groups will display their weavings and natural products. There will be live music, talks by indigenous women leaders, a mini-workshop on natural dyeing of fibers, free [...]
March 2010 in Revue Magazine
Though this is a Revue anniversary issue, to keep things in perspective, the cover Cucurucho by Iván Castro symbolizes the incredible grandeur of Holy Week in Guatemala. But even before there were religious processions and celebrations, Joy Houston takes us back in time to Turning Points. The year was 1541 and “thatched-roof shelters went up [...]
