Guatemala Legends – The Jaguar and the Deer
Stories written as myths and legends were often written as simple stories, aimed at children to teach them something, with the meaning hidden within them. The Jaguar and the Deer is a cautionary Mayan tale.
Natives when relating this story will tell how the deer went out looking for somewhere to build himself a house, and at the same time a jaguar also was out hunting for somewhere for the same reason. The jaguar found the same place as the deer and thought that he would build there too.
The next day the deer went to the site he had found and thoroughly cleared the ground with his antlers. Later the jaguar went. “It seems somebody is helping me,” said the jaguar who then stuck some big poles in the ground and set up the framework.
The next day the deer went back and when he saw the framework up he said, “It seems somebody is helping me.” Then he covered the house with branches and made two rooms, one for him, the other for whoever was helping.
The next day the jaguar saw the house finished and went into one of the rooms and fell asleep. The deer came later and went to sleep in the other room.
One day the jaguar and the deer went home at the same time. They decided to live together as they had both helped to build the house.
The next morning the jaguar said he was going hunting and went to the woods. Later he brought a large deer home and said to the deer, “Let’s eat what I have caught.”
But the deer did not want to eat, he was very afraid. As a result he could not sleep that night and early the next morning went to the woods, passing a very large jaguar and then later meeting a large bull.
“I met a jaguar who was bad mouthing you,” he said to the bull.
The bull went looking for the jaguar and found him resting. The bull went up to him slowly and then leaped on top of him and gored him. Then the deer went home dragging the dead jaguar.
“Let’s eat what I have caught,” he said to the jaguar when he got home.
The jaguar could not eat. He did not want to as he was very frightened. That night he could not sleep thinking how the deer killed jaguars, and the deer could not sleep thinking about how the jaguar killed deers. Both housemates were frightened.
At midnight as the deer moved his head his antlers struck the wooden wall of the house. The jaguar and the deer were both frightened by the noise, and both ran from the house without stopping. The jaguar and the deer each went their separate ways.
In this story the jaguar represents the Spanish colonists moving onto the deer’s land, or Mayan, that they had prepared. The Mayans soon find out how the Spanish live by killing and exploiting others, this story showing how the two cannot live peacefully together.
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How To Immerse Youself In Guatemalan Culture
Guatemala is bordered by Mexico, Belize, Honduras and El Salvador, as well as the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean sea. It has many things to offer a visitor, immersing them in its culture, from its biodiversity to its pre-Columbian historical sites. It is a small adventure waiting to happen That will immerse you in the culture of the people through the pleasure of experiencing its traditional and the modern together, giving you a fully rounded picture of the cultural diversity of this country.
1. To truly immerse yourself in the Guatemalan culture you need to experience some of its past. The best way to see and learn about Guatemala’s past is to visit historical locations that can be found. To begin with go visit the Peten Mayan archaeological site in the northern part of the country, and the Mayan ruins, also the Cathedral de Santiago, a beautiful building hit by numerous earthquakes. It is a good point to start in your immersion into Guatemalan culture.
2. A second way to continue with your Guatemalan cultural immersion is to experience the natural preserves that can be found around the country. Experience your natural surroundings as you tour the natural and ecological preserves that are around the country. Embrace the natural beauty of the nature preserve Biotopo de Chocon Machacas with its 60 species of tree and 180 migrating birds, its volcanic beaches and the tropical jungles. You can appreciate and get to know the environment better, finding out how the people interact with different parts of their environment.
3. Continuing your immersion into the culture of Guatemala it must be remembered that history and nature are only a start. Hungry by now? the next place on our agenda should be a stop for some authentic traditional food in one of the small restaurants to be found here near the town square, and run by locals. The best place to start is with some paches as well as tamales de frijol con chiltepe. This is an excellent way to taste the cuisine within Guatemala.
4. If you want to travel to Guatemala there is no best time to go though the rainy season makes unpaved roads difficult from mid May to mid December. The dry season is from about November to April and you will get sweltering heat along the coasts, yet cooler in the highlands. The height of the tourist season is Christmas to Easter when you would be able to see how Christmas, New Year and Easter are celebrated by the people of Guatemala. These holidays will show you how the Guatemalans celebrate and immerse you further into their culture.
5. Communities gather in Guatemala in the town squares as with the Antigua, Parque Central with its old colonial buildings is a popular gathering spot for locals and tourists. Town squares are always good places to people watch, many dressed in the traditional clothing of their beautiful country. Here you can immerse yourself in the culture with the traditional costumes, crafts and food of Guatemala. Walking through the streets, markets or just sitting you will see all walks of life in Guatemala. You can enjoy and take in the smells and taste of all on offer of the local culture, and with everything you taste or smell you will find yourself wanting more.
6. Another step to immersing yourself in the culture of Guatemala is to meet people, talk to them about their lives, making new friends in the process. The markets and the local shops are perfect for this. You can meet local artisans in their shops, learn about their family’s roots and their ancient traditions first hand. This is a good way to relax and unwind, a good time to mingle in an unstressed atmosphere.
7. A final way to immerse yourself in the culture of Guatemala is to volunteer in one of the programs from around the world involved in rural education, development projects, and other social projects most affected by war. You could get involved with volunteers and teach English to small groups of children, giving them an essential advantage if they are ever going to attain success in Guatemala. In Guatemala City for example volunteers are involved with caring for infants and children, teaching children, caring for the elderly, assisting local health professionals, caring for people with disabilities. This is a fantastic opportunity for you to experience Guatemala as tourists rarely get the opportunity to do so.
Any of these steps above is the perfect opportunity to truly immerse yourself in a foreign culture. To see the world through the eyes of the inhabitants of that country is often an eye opener, yet a great experience. However you choose to do it you will be forever changed by your experiences. So plan your trip carefully, making sure you make the most of the time there. Following these guidelines will help make your trip to Guatemala unforgettable.
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GUATEMALA: Conditions Not Ripe for Coup
The overthrow of the government of Manuel Zelaya in Honduras revived fears of something similar happening in neighbouring Guatemala, although analysts, political leaders and social activists do not see it as likely.
Since the Jun. 28 coup in which Zelaya was removed from his home at gunpoint by more than 100 troops and put on a plane to Costa Rica, the peace brokering efforts by Costa Rican President Óscar Arias have so far failed to find a compromise solution between the ousted leader and de facto President Roberto Micheletti, whose government faces total international isolation.
Zelaya immediately rejected a new compromise proposal set forth by Arias on Wednesday, and said he is planning to return to his country over the weekend, across one of the land borders.
The situation has led to warnings in other countries of Central America about the stability of democracy in this region, where democratic institutions are still weak after decades of dictatorship and civil war.
There have also been alarming statements by the left-wing presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela about supposed coup plots against the Guatemalan government of social democratic President Álvaro Colom.
During recent celebrations of the bicentennial of his country’s independence from Spain, Bolivian President Evo Morales accused the “Guatemalan oligarchy” of “inventing a death” – an allusion to the May 10 murder of lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg.
“They killed him to accuse and remove Colom,” Morales said in a speech.
In an 18-minute interview taped a few days before Rosenberg’s death, he told a journalist that “If at this moment you are hearing or watching this message, it is because Álvaro Colom had me killed.”
His subsequent murder and the broadcast of the video sparked demonstrations for and against Colom, triggering a serious political crisis for the government. The murder investigation, in which both the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are taking part, is still ongoing.
At the time, Organisation of American States (OAS) Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza said Rosenberg’s murder was “part of a chain of events over the last months” linked to organised crime. The OAS gave Colom its full support, passing a resolution backing the Guatemalan government “in its obligation to preserve the institutions of democracy and the rule of law.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, meanwhile, went even further than Morales, saying in a press conference that “I understand that a coup is being planned against the president of Guatemala. They are trying to get members of the military to follow in Honduras’ footsteps.”
In Guatemala, indigenous Nobel Peace Prize-winner Rigoberta Menchú warned that powerful economic interests could plot the overthrow of the centre-left Colom.
She said that became clear after Rosenberg was gunned down in the street and conservative sectors backed demonstrations, mainly by middle and upper-class Guatemalans, demanding that the president resign.
“Certain conditions in Honduras are also present in Guatemala, making such a thing possible,” Iduvina Hernández, the head of the non-governmental Association for the Study and Promotion of Security in Democracy (SEDEM), told IPS.
“There is an army trained according to the old national security doctrine used during the Cold War (throughout Latin America), and the resulting officialdom in practice contributes to the possibility of a coup,” she said.
Hernández also said the media in Guatemala are connected to conservative sectors and that the country’s democratic institutions are weak, both of which contribute to a negative image of democracy.
But unlike in Honduras, “the justice system and legislature in this country are not committed to a coup, which was the factor that gave the coup there a pseudo-legal façade,” she said.
Nevertheless, talk of the possibility of a coup in Guatemala is not completely outlandish. This violent, corrupt country was governed for decades by military dictatorships imposed by local economic power groups with U.S. backing.
Leftist guerrillas emerged in the 1960s, and it was not until 1996 that a peace accord put an end to a 36-year civil war that left 200,000 victims, mainly rural indigenous villagers, at least 90 percent of whom were killed by the army according to a U.N.-sponsored truth commission.
The country’s first civilian president, Christian Democrat Vinicio Cerezo, was elected in 1986.
Frequent threats against and murders of human rights defenders as well as judges, prosecutors, journalists, activists, trade unionists and political leaders have been linked to clandestine armed groups, most of which are a holdover from the armed conflict, according to Adriana Beltran of the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA).
“We believed that we had left behind coups d’etat, but today we realise that the armies are still quite capable of carrying out actions like these,” Renzo Rosal, assistant director of the Central American Institute of Political Studies (INCEP), told IPS.
The analyst did not completely rule out the possibility of a Honduras-like situation occurring in Guatemala.
But, he added, “the conditions are not in place for that right now.”
Among other reasons, Rosal pointed to the fact that Colom has not tried to reform the constitution, as Zelaya wanted to do.
The Honduran leader’s attempt to hold a non-binding referendum asking voters if they wanted to elect a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution precipitated a series of events that culminated in the Jun. 28 coup, justified by the claim that Zelaya was attempting to introduce the possibility of presidential reelection.
In Honduras, presidents cannot be elected to a second term, consecutive or otherwise. But Zelaya never stated that his intention was reelection, and his term was to end in January, too soon for any eventual reelection amendment to apply.
“Zelaya bought into Chávez’s agenda, while Colom is still wavering,” said Rosal.
He was referring to Honduras’ joining of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) bloc, led by Venezuela and also made up of Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
According to the analyst, the situation in Honduras “has shown that the spectre of a military coup looms nearer than we had thought, that our constitutions have few mechanisms to deal with illegal acts committed by the president, and that international bodies like the OAS fall short in their capacity to prevent and deal with conflicts.”
Marta Altolaguirre, a former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, said the situation in Guatemala is very different from the situation in Honduras. “I see neither the will nor the interest nor the popular support for a coup in Guatemala,” she said in an interview with IPS.
But she acknowledged that Guatemala’s justice system is absolutely ineffective, and that the rule of law is weak. “There is virtually no respect for the law, starting with the highest level authorities, but it makes no sense to try to rescue a failed state by means of a coup d’etat.
“The solution is not to change things by force; it’s steady but accelerated progress towards strengthening the rule of law,” she said.
Altolaguirre said the lesson that should be learned from the crisis in Honduras is that respect for the rule of law is indispensable for achieving a truly “civilised” society. “First, the president (Zelaya) tried to bypass the legal system (which declared the non-binding referendum illegal), and then came the monumental mistake of failing to take legal action against him – a possibility that the constitution does provide for,” she said.
Even left-wing political leaders, who are among those who have suffered most under past military governments, see a coup in Guatemala as a distant prospect.
Miguel Ángel Sandoval, former presidential candidate for the alliance formed by the guerrilla-turned political party Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) and the leftist MAÍZ movement, told IPS that the conditions for a coup do not currently exist in this country.
“All sectors of society condemn any attempt at destabilisation and are calling for the strengthening of democratic procedures; this indicates that people aren’t thinking about a coup, although there are always some who are nostalgic for the past and try to take advantage of any circumstances, knocking on doors in the barracks to see if they have any luck,” he said.
Sandoval said the Guatemalan army is now more focused on its “institutional role,” and coups are globally rejected today, as seen by the reactions of international bodies like the OAS and the United Nations.
“Moreover, the government’s popularity is on the rise, which dissuades any attempt at a coup,” he said. Colom’s approval ratings recently rose from 44.8 to 46.2 percent, according to a survey carried out Jul. 4-10 by Vox Latina for the Prensa Libre newspaper.
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Zelaya leaves Guatemala for Nicaragua
Ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya on Wednesday left Guatemala for Nicaragua to meet with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega.
During his stay in Guatemala, Zelaya urged the Honduran people to rebel against the Honduran interim government under post-coup leader Roberto Micheletti.
According to information reaching here from Guatemala City, during his stay in Guatemala, Zelaya also met with Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom, who offered his support to Zelaya’s reinstatement.
Zelaya said that the rebellion by the Honduran people is a Constitutional right, and it is not a crime for the people to stage peaceful protests against the interim government.
Zelaya was ousted on June 28 in a military coup and forced into exile in Costa Rica. He was immediately replaced by former president of the Honduran Congress Micheletti.
Over the past weeks, Zelaya has visited all Central American countries, whose presidents condemned the coup and expressed their support to him.
Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua have closed their borders for 48 hours to stop their trade with Honduras.
Meanwhile, Costa Rican President Oscar Arias, who was appointed the mediator of the conflict in Honduras, said that he is getting ready for the second meeting between Zelaya’s and Micheletti’s representatives scheduled for Saturday in San Jose, Costa Rica
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Guatemalan court rules in favor of tweet author
An appeals court found insufficient evidence to warrant the trial of a Guatemalan whose Twitter message led to his arrest on charges of inciting financial panic.
Jean Anleu was arrested and charged in May after sending a 96-character tweet that urged depositors to withdraw funds from a bank involved in a political-murder scandal. The message earned him the unfortunate distinction of becoming one of the first people in the world to be arrested for a tweet.
The new ruling means charges will be dropped Friday if prosecutors don’t appeal first. Prosecutor Genaro Pacheco told The Associated Press that he has not been officially informed of the appeals court’s decision and has not considered dropping the case.
Anleu found the court’s ruling to be “very Twitter-like.”
“It’s a long legal document but there is a very short sentence that sums it up, like a tweet: The appeals court orders the judge to rule the case lacks merit,” Anleu told the Associated press by instant message. “A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We still have to see what the prosecution does.”
Incensed by reports of a political scandal at Guatemala’s rural development bank, Anleu sent the offending tweet under the Internet alias “jeanfer,” urging depositors to pull their money from the bank. Written in Spanish, it said: “First concrete action should be take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt.”
Pacheco contends the tweet illegally undermined public trust in Guatemala’s banking system, and authorities proved Anleu sent the message by searching his Guatemala City home. He was jailed for a day and a half and released on bail.
Anleu now hopes to recover $6,200 in bail. He spent another $7,000 on legal fees. About half the bail money was donated by sympathetic twitterers sending money via PayPal.
Defense attorney Jose Toledo accuses the government of wanting to make an example out of Anleu in the wake of a frenzy of Internet activity by Guatemalans calling for rallies against the administration of President Alvaro Colom.
Colom has been accused of helping drug cartels launder money through Banrural in a posthumous video message by in lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, who accused Colom of ordering his death.
An appeals court found insufficient evidence to warrant the trial of a Guatemalan whose Twitter message led to his arrest on charges of inciting financial panic.
Jean Anleu was arrested and charged in May after sending a 96-character tweet that urged depositors to withdraw funds from a bank involved in a political-murder scandal. The message earned him the unfortunate distinction of becoming one of the first people in the world to be arrested for a tweet.
The new ruling means charges will be dropped Friday if prosecutors don’t appeal first. Prosecutor Genaro Pacheco told The Associated Press that he has not been officially informed of the appeals court’s decision and has not considered dropping the case.
Anleu found the court’s ruling to be “very Twitter-like.”
“It’s a long legal document but there is a very short sentence that sums it up, like a tweet: The appeals court orders the judge to rule the case lacks merit,” Anleu told the Associated press by instant message. “A huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. We still have to see what the prosecution does.”
Incensed by reports of a political scandal at Guatemala’s rural development bank, Anleu sent the offending tweet under the Internet alias “jeanfer,” urging depositors to pull their money from the bank. Written in Spanish, it said: “First concrete action should be take cash out of Banrural and bankrupt the bank of the corrupt.”
Pacheco contends the tweet illegally undermined public trust in Guatemala’s banking system, and authorities proved Anleu sent the message by searching his Guatemala City home. He was jailed for a day and a half and released on bail.
Anleu now hopes to recover $6,200 in bail. He spent another $7,000 on legal fees. About half the bail money was donated by sympathetic twitterers sending money via PayPal.
Defense attorney Jose Toledo accuses the government of wanting to make an example out of Anleu in the wake of a frenzy of Internet activity by Guatemalans calling for rallies against the administration of President Alvaro Colom.
Colom has been accused of helping drug cartels launder money through Banrural in a posthumous video message by in lawyer Rodrigo Rosenberg, who accused Colom of ordering his death.
Rosenberg was shot dead by unknown assailants days after making the video. DVDs of the tape were distributed at his funeral, and Colom opponents quickly put the video up on YouTube.
Colom says the accusations are part of an elaborate plot to destabilize the country. But many Guatemalans — including Anleu — responded to the scandal with outrage on social networks, encouraging huge protest marches.
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