Guatemala: Caffe Opera (video clip)

Link to video (Quicktime or Flash).

A peek inside my favorite cafe in Antigua, Guatemala. Old opera memorabilia lines the walls, and Maria Callas blares from the boombox. I covet this one amazing black and white photo-poster there of the great and beautiful Anna Magnani circa 1953: Photo link. (Tech notes: shot on ultracompact Canon SD630 Elph, edited in Apple iMovie).

Infrastructure tech for Guatemala's rural poor

Alex Lee of Cambridge, MA writes:

I noticed on your blog that you’re currently in Guatemala researching some stories. I’m a long time boingboing reader, and thought to pass along some information that you may find useful and interesting while you’re there.

My brother and a good friend started a non-profit organization focused on providing the rural poor with appropriate infrastructure technology – things like bio-digesters, solar hot water heaters, wind-turbines, and micro-hydro derived energy. All the technologies are open source, all their systems (project mgt, accounting, web) are done in open source, and the organization is self-sustaining. That is, each workshop (the first is in Quetzaltenango, aka Xela, the second will be in the Dominican Republic) hires local engineers, and each project is created and serviced locally – so each shop is a small, self-sustaining business, providing jobs and opportunity for local workers.

PS: Xela, Xeni... it’s almost too perfect.

Link to The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group

Guatemala: Aquí no hay RIAA

In a popular internet café in Antigua, Guatemala, a loyal perrito waits while his owner downloads some Daddy Yankee MP3s from illicit filesharing networks. You can sip delicious café cortaditos and lattes here, and there's a big "BURN CDS!" sign on the wall next to the international VOIP calling rates. I peeked over this man's shoulder to see what app he was using. It seems that he either works at the cafe, or he's a local resident. He searched for different recording artists on Google, and then, if I'm not mistaken, he switched to some Windows-based file indexing app. Like iTunes but not iTunes. I'm not entirely sure what was going on, but I think there's some kind of motherlode of shared songs at this café that can be burned to CDs for tune-sick travelers to enjoy on the road.

Link to photo.

Photos: Antigua, Guatemala

Here's a set of a few days' worth of snapshots in Antigua, Guatemala. This colonial town dates back to the 1500s, and is now frequented by American and European tourists.

Included in this set are photos from in and around the Hotel Casa Santo Domingo, an ultra-high-end resort built on the remains of a monastery that was constructed in 1547. It's the gothiest hotel in the world, for sure -- there are many crypts on the premises, full of the remains of nuns and monks.

The concierge desk is a big altar. Downstairs, mannequins are dressed up like nuns, self-torturing with ancient devices to pay pentitencia for their sins. Piped-in Gregorian Chant muzak wafts through the halls. Red macaws screech in Spanglish at guests. Impromptu Catholic masses with loud, off-key hymns en Español form every now and then in the courtyard, while bikini-clad tourists sun themselves at the pool nearby.

It's a popular corporate retreat site, too. I saw signs on conference rooms for "Save the Children," Purina, Cargill, and several big agribusiness conglomerates.

You might think the idea of a resort on an ancient holy site would upset devout Catholics here (of which there are many). And the hotel does upset some portion of the local population, but not necessarily because it's seen as a sacrilege. One local family I spoke with said that some portion of Antigua's longtime residents object to the fact that this historic site was converted into a commercial profit-making venture. "It's part of our national heritage," said the mom who shall remain nameless, "it belongs to all Guatemalans." One could also argue that businesses like this provide employment and income for residents.

Like other higher-end hotels in Antigua, Casa Santo Domingo is frequented by norteamericanos who come here to adopt children.

I spoke with several women in Antigua this week who identified themselves as US residents here to adopt through "independent" means. One woman said she was adopting her second Mayan baby, and paid her broker in American dollars for the transaction. It would appear that indigenous children born to poor women have become one of Guatemala's biggest cash crops.

The scene at Casa Santo Domingo -- impeccably manicured gardens, brightly colored birds, ancient colonial ruins, white people with Mayan babies on their backs -- is made all the more surreal by the fact that this walled compound is an oasis of opulence surrounded by poverty. Rooms for the living at this luxurious crypt-hotel range from about US$200-360 per night. That's more than some indigenous Guatemalans earn in an entire year. About 75% of the country lives beneath the poverty line, a little over half the country is literate by some estimates, and many indigenous people survive on less than $2 a day.

But disparity and proximity between rich and poor shouldn't feel alien to American visitors here. After all, back in the town where I live, it's only a 15 minute drive from Beverly Hills to LA's Skid Row.

(Tech notes: shot with ultra compact Canon SD630, organized in Apple's Aperture.)

Guatemala

I'm in Guatemala for a while, researching some stories here. I'll be posting photos, video, and other notes from the road here on xeni.net/trek. Hello to you from Antigua, Guatemala -- where I can hear 400-year-old church bells ringing right now in the dark, along with night birds. The air smells like cooking fire smoke. Twin volcanoes of ash and water are sleeping soundly tonight (this is a good thing), and I will be in a few moments, too.

Image: The weeping virgin, at a 400+ year old church here in Antigua (2004, Xeni Jardin, under this CC license)

Dalai Lama speaks on Saddam Hussein death sentence

Snip from Lobsang Wangyal's blog:

The Dalai Lama, opposing capital punishment and reiterating his appeal for its abolition, called for amnesty for the deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for the death sentence against him. "The death penalty seems to fulfill a preventive function, yet it is clearly a form of revenge," he said in his hotel in Tokyo, winding his two-week visit to the country.

Link

Miss Tibet crowned, headed for Miss Earth pageant

Lobsang Wangyal, founder of the Miss Tibet pageant (for Tibetan beauty queens who live in exile communities outside of Tibet) sends word that Ms. Tsering Chungtak is Miss Tibet 2006, and she is presently in Manila to participate in the Miss Earth pageant. In previous years, Miss Tibet's participation has been halted when Chinese pageant authorities threatened to withdraw support if her title was not changed to "Miss Tibet China." Tibet was taken over by the PRC in the late 1950s. More about the Miss Tibet pageant in these previous posts: (1) (2), and on misstibet.com.