Posts Tagged ‘Antigua Guatemala’
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010
Antigua is a town filled with music. A few years back, I was lucky enough to be here during Christmas, and every night an orchestra of some kind performed classical selections in the Square. On Sunday, Olivia and I heard marimbas. An afternoon or two ago, a big band played.
Olivia and I stumbled upon the musicians warming up on the steps of the Municipalidad, one of the grand structures that edges the Square, then joined the crowd in the park to listen. The conductor gave the signal, and the band broke into “Begin the Beguine.” The tune was not what I’d expected, and it transported me to my childhood, when my parents listened to Big Band on the radio and my father warbled along. Olivia swayed to the music, creating her own memory of the melody. I’m happy hers is a memory is formed in Guatemala. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, Begin the Beguine, fostering in Antigua, international adoption, Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, San Pedro las Huertas, travel with children
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Monday, August 2nd, 2010
One of the first things I noticed when I came to Antigua in 2003 was the buses. They are rehabilitated Blue Birds, the school buses I rode when growing up in New Jersey. But here, each is individualized, painted by a specific artist. When Olivia and I lived in Antigua, we woke every morning to the sound of the conductor calling all commuters enroute from Antigua to the capital, “Guate, Guate! Guatemala!” We came to love the rhythm of those words. The buses seem so emblematic of Guatemala, that I chose a detail from a bus painting by Oscar Peren as the banner of my blogsite.
The photo above is of Olivia’s favorite store, Nimpot. It’s located on Fifth Avenida, right past the famous arch. This store has everything: masks, huipils (embroidered blouses worn by Guatemala’s indigenous people), weavings, jewelry, carved wooden santos, and even mini-Maximons, the patron saint of bad habits. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, fostering in Antigua, Guatemalan adoption, Guatemalan bus, Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, Maximon, Nimpot
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Friday, July 30th, 2010
When I visit Antigua with Olivia, the first place we go is the house where we lived in 2003, which we rented through Elizabeth Bell, whom I view as the unofficial “mayor” of the colonial town. In fact, I picked up a recent edition of the Revue, the monthly English-language magazine with articles on local people and events, and I see there’s a new column: “Ask Elizabeth.” Makes complete sense to me: in my experience, there is no question about Antigua or its history that cannot be answered by Elizabeth Bell. She’s even written a book about it, titled, appropriately enough, Antigua Guatemala: The City and Its Heritage. I referred to Elizabeth’s book often when writing my memoir, Mamalita.
The photo above is of our front door, which I love for its carved pattern and weathered wood. When we first moved in, the door featured a brass door-knocker shaped like a crouching lion. Unfortunately, the lion disappeared one day, never to be replaced. Oh well. Even without the extra decoration, the door is still beautiful. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, Antigua mercado, Antigua Tours by Elizabeth Bell, Elizabeth Bell, Guatemalan adoption
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Thursday, July 29th, 2010
Summer in the United States is rainy season in Guatemala, and as anyone familiar with the tropics knows, when it rains here, it really pours. We just got word that the road to Panajachel and Lake Atitlán—where we planned to go next week with Tim and Mateo—is closed due to a mudslide. Not only tourists use the road, of course; it’s the main thoroughfare through the central part of the country. With luck, the road will be cleared soon for car traffic. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, Antigua Guatemala tourism, fostering in Antigua, Lake Atitlan Guatemala, Las Sirenas Antigua, Panajachel Guatemala
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Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
To anyone who has been reading this blog, I apologize for the delay in posting. We’ve had more difficulty than I anticipated settling in. No one’s fault—just the way things turned out.
When we arrived in Antigua on Sunday night, we discovered that it happened to be the feast day of Antigua’s patron saint, St. Santiago. A happy coincidence as each town in Guatemala honors a patron saint one day a year. A platform was set up in front of the Cathedral–the main one, that everyone calls simply “the Cathedral”—and a phalanx of marimba players entertained the audience. A wonderful introduction. (more…)
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Tags: adoptive families, Antigua Guatemala, Conexion, internet cafe, travel with children
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Sunday, July 25th, 2010
Like many adoptive parents of children born in Guatemala, I have my own “hotel lobby story.” Why a hotel lobby story? Because a hotel lobby is where I held each of my babies in my arms for the very first time.
In 2006, deep in the struggle to write Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, I attended a writing workshop led by Joyce Maynard at her home in San Marcos, Guatemala. I knew the arc of my story. I had lived it. But what was my point of entry? Was it the moment my doctor informed me I’d never have children? Or did it happen during the five-day, 400-mile bicycle trip I took over Christmas 1998, when my now-husband Tim said he was open to the idea of parenthood through adoption? At Joyce’s workshop, another writer, Andi Sciacci, who also teaches writing, asked me a very simple question. She said, “Where does the story start for you?”
I had found my opening scene. (more…)
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Tags: adoption from Guatemala, adoption hotel, Andi Sciacca, Antigua Guatemala, Guatemala, Guatemala City, Joyce Maynard, Joyce Maynard's Guatemala workshop, Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir, memoir
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Thursday, July 8th, 2010
Recently, I was telling another mom at Mateo’s preschool about some of the valuable lessons we learned at Heritage Camp, especially about incorporating elements of our children’s Guatemalan culture into our daily lives. One of the most important ways my husband and I can do this is by helping our children to learn Spanish and to learn Spanish ourselves. When I fostered Olivia in Antigua in 2003, I studied Spanish. This fall I’ve enrolled in a class to refresh what I learned. Olivia herself will begin Spanish in the upcoming school year. We’re lucky because in our California district, children take Spanish from Grade 3.
The mom at Mateo’s preschool, “Ms. G,” agreed that speaking the language is an important way to stay connected to a culture, but, she quickly added, speaking the language doesn’t mean you necessarily “belong” to the culture. She used her own life story to illustrate. (more…)
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Tags: adoption from Guatemala, Antigua Guatemala, Colorado Heritage Camp, cross-cultural adoption, identity issues, studying Spanish, transracial adoption
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Wednesday, May 5th, 2010
I lived in Antigua, Guatemala, for almost six months while we were adopting Olivia, who was born there, and sometimes in the late afternoon she and I would sit on our living room sofa and watch Teletubbies. The show was perfect for us because although it was taped in English and dubbed in Spanish, it’s non-verbal, making it one of the few things we could understand together.
There’s a section in the show where the tummy of one of the Tubbies–I forget which one — turns into a rectangular TV set, and leads the viewer into a scene far away. One afternoon the distant action took place in a schoolroom in England, where cheerful children sat at small tables doing arts-and-crafts projects with an abundant assortment of supplies: scissors, construction paper, buttons, glue, and glitter. What I remember most is how much glitter was left to fall to the floor, small mountains almost, until the floor itself disappeared, and was turned into sparkles. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, expats in Guatemala, Guatemalan adoption, international adoption, Teletubbies
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Friday, April 30th, 2010
During my visit to Guatemala last February with Olivia, I bought five yards of white cotton fabric at a shop in Antigua. The fabric was hand-made in Cobán, a municipality located in the central part of the country that is best-known for the spectacular waterfalls at Semuc Champey. In addition to its natural beauty, Cobán is a center for weavers who make a certain, delicate cotton fabric unlike any other made in Guatemala. I learned this through my friend, Gretchen, another adoptive mom who was in Guatemala and who led me to the shop.
As I write this, the white cotton fabric is being made into a dress for Olivia to wear next weekend at her First Holy Communion. This afternoon, we’ll go to her final fitting. When Olivia was baptized, I wore a multi-colored, hand-woven shawl from the region where she was born. For her First Communion, Olivia also wanted to wear something to reflect her Guatemalan heritage. When my friend Gretchen mentioned the Cobán fabric, we knew it would be perfect. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, Coban Guatemala, First Holy Communion, Guatemalan adoption
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Monday, March 15th, 2010
On Sunday, we went to the birthday party of a good friend we met while fostering in Guatemala, the girl we all called “Baby Maya.” Except Baby Maya is now “Big Girl Maya”: seven years old. She and her mom live about 45 minutes north of us, and we do our best to get together a few times a year: birthdays for each child, definitely, and often around Thanksgiving and Fourth of July. I see time passing in Baby Maya, in a way I cannot in my own children. At each new visit, she is bigger, stronger, taller, with longer hair. I notice those things in my own children, of course, but not as dramatically. (more…)
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Tags: Antigua Guatemala, foster sisters, Guatemalan adoption, international adoption, Jessica O'Dwyer
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