Kara, Miguel, Marixa and I drove 12 hours to Zona Reyna this weekend to help our friend Emma teach a class about telling stories with multimedia slideshows to a group of Mayan teens who live in Zona Reyna. Zona Reyna is a poor, rural and isolated area located in the mountains of Quiché. Our class was part of Project Einstein Guatemala, which you can read more about here.
After Miguel gave a presentation on the principles of composition and other photographic fundamentals, we split up into four teams and went out to shoot. My team, made up of Mario, Edger, Rosalia, Fulvia, Thomas and Rolando took me out to a part of the Rio Cuatro Chorros called Las Tortugas. I taught them simple stuff like how to handle shadows made by intense sunlight, how to get up in people’s faces to take portraits, and also my best secret photo technique: always take a humongous ton of pics.
After the shoots I gave a presentation on retouching, specifically how we dramatically alter images in the advertising industry. This may have wrankled some of the journalist feathers in the room but hey that’s how I roll. The teams then made their selects, performed simple image manipulation, choose audio and created their slideshows using Soundslides – a popular tool in modern newsrooms.
Our training was a real success. The kids were super-enthusiastic and fast, intuitive learners. They’re so drawn to technology you wish they all had their own computers, digital cameras and USB modems. Above is the story my guys produced, entitled, El Rio.
For those of you not retired or enjoying a mom & dad funded vacation, I present to you my list of internet cafes that you can work from:
El Portal
The cafe across from the park that never used to have internet. Well, they’ve finally finished remodeling the back and it’s quite cozy – there’s only one plug but you can sit right next to the router. Hell, you could probably plug-in an ethernet cable into the back if you wanted. Here’s a speedtest.net diagnostic on El Portal:
Café Barista
Barista is my default location. Which is funny, because the bandwidth sucks. The router is located underneath the cash register which isn’t really ideal placement because everyone sits on the other side of the cafe, behind a thick block construction wall. Anyway, I like Barista because it feels like an airport: shiny, clean and bright. There’s also a guard who watches me write HTML over my shoulder and I swear he must be able to go home and bang out markup by now.
Bagel Barn
Bagel Barn has two wireless routers which is such a good idea you’d think other places would do it. The vibe here is dirty backpacker, which I can do every now and then. What I can’t do is hot- and the barn heats up like a mini-Petén. Beware of skype’ing gringos siphoning off the bandwidth to a measly dribble!
Café Bourbon
Newly introduced to me by Don Rudy, I’ve worked from here a few times as the vibe is super chill and totally desolate during the day, just the way I like it. The bandwidth is good, however, they told me once that you can only be there an hour. Your mileage may vary.
Rainbow Café
I’ve only included Rainbow Café in order to warn you how bad the wifi is. It’s drop-dead terrible, pun intended. And there are no electrical outlets. The food is awesome and there are usually hot hippy chicks in yoga pants cavorting all about, but this ain’t the place to get online.
Did I miss any? Please share your knowledge in the comments below.
As the sky cries an endless river of rain during a gray Monday that began with thick clouds, I take shelter in a library – the Spanish Cooperative library in La Antigua. I run across the courtyard surrounded by ruins, past everyone huddling at the doors like birds waiting for the rain to stop (why Guatemalans never have umbrellas with them during rainy season I still don’t understand), close my umbrella dripping over my clothes and with a light footstep make my way to the back of the building. It’s only 5 PM and I have one hour, I say to myself, but nothing can encapsulate the relief I feel when I see the wooden doors flung wide open from the wide Spanish columns that open up to the cobblestone courtyard lined with park benches under manicured trees. I enter the quiet warm embrace of books, carefully placed lights, necks bent over newspapers as in prayer, hear the soft clicking of people on computers and the languid footstep of someone scanning the stacks. The librarian lets me pass, no one says a thing and it’s our conspiracy. This is where I grew up, among libraries, all over the United States in more than 20 cities and states, just peeking out from the library way back in the corner like those hiding places between the clothes we’d all find, cozy, quiet and ripe with unspoken possibility. The fact that I am in a library in Guatemala is like being the smallest wooden Russian doll, right there in the very center, held by some invisible force of belonging and being left to one’s own recourses.
There aren’t enough of these libraries in Guateamala, much less for children, which is why I value the work that the Riecken Foundation is doing with setting using the simple building block – a community library with free Internet – to build a human being and, ultimately, as a springboard for a community.
Check out some of the libraries they’ve already set up in Guatemala and Honduras:
One perk of staying up until 3 AM each night is that I get these bursts of creativity and then I drag my husband and my friends with me on bizarre ideas like thisSXSW proposal that ended up with us recording a cover of a famous Buggles tune. We called it “Cellular Saved the Radio Star” and I think you might recognize it:
“Cellular Saved The Radio Star”
Original by: The Buggles
(Verse 1)
I heard you on your phone in the Honduras coup
Lying awake intent on tuning in to you
Me in the States did not stop you from comin’ through
Oh-a oh
You took the credit for your cellphone reporting
Broadcasting stories with the new technology
and now I understand issues you’re texting in
(Bridge)
Oh-a oh
I met the people
Oh-a oh
What did they tell me?
(Chorus)
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
(Verse 2)
Radio came into your phone
Oh-a-a a oh
And now we listen about the state of things
Broadcasting from our hands like awesome techno kings
And you remember how the landline used to ring
(Bridge)
Oh-a-oh
You were the first one
Oh-a-oh
You aren’t the last one
(Chorus)
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
(Bridge)
In my ear and on my screen
We can’t rewind/it’s all been seen
Oh-a-a-a oh
Oh-a-a-a oh
(Keyboard solo)
(Chorus)
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
(Verse 3)
In my ear and on my screen
We can’t rewind it’s all been seen
Radio came into your phone
Put the blame on our cellphones
(Vocal break)
(chorus outro)
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Cellular saved the radio star
Mobile technology leapfrogs in countries with a poor to non-existing ground-based communication infrastructure. The reality for Latin America’s Telecom advantage is starting to influence the way information is received, created or shared. As an example, news organizations and others heard through people’s cellphones provide text or breaking news SMS alerts free of charge, and ask listeners to contribute news, comments traffic reports, often read out on-air. As an example, during a major electrical blackout affecting almost all departments in Guatemala in Oct 2009, people messaged radio stations that were reading SMSs out loud while listeners tuned in via their $10 cellphones bought at the local market.
Cellphones are vital for airing local broadcasts in their own indigenous languages. Daily about community radio volunteers broadcast live from cellphones to their communities – translating to their indigenous language. On the other end station volunteers transmit and broadcast the message live via the cellphone to the radio transmitter. The cellphone becomes a microphone, radio station, audience and distribution.
Some local studies in Latin America have reported above 60% illiteracy rates, why cellphones enabling local and national information to be shared in a cheap way – voice-based and ubiquitous. This broadcast radio revolution Americans long ago left behind with the birth of the podcast is underway in the forgotten backyards of the United States.
Sorry guys- I don’t know her name or the channel as my wife took these screenshots- but yeah, this is what we wake up to every morning on the Guatemalan boob tube, har har.
The bureaucracy in Guatemala is mind-numbing, dumbfounding and soul-killing. Your average SAT or RENAP office makes the Oakland DMV appear as efficient as a German train station, in Switzerland.
Anyway, despite the many inconveniences of Guatemala, there may actually come a time when you’d like to extend your stay here without having to do the whole border-hop dance every three months. Well, I’m happy to report that getting my US passport extended at the Guatemalan migracion office was a snap! Mira pues:
1. Go to: Direccion General De Migracion, 6a. Av. 3-11 Zona 4. Pay for parking at Hotel Conquistador, one block up the street from the migracion office as parking in front of the office is scarce and the hood is questionable.
2. Go to the photocopy shop two tiendas down from the migracion office and make two copies of the passport page that contains your photo, and two copies of the page that contains your last immigration stamp. You will also need a photocopy of your credit card and have your photo taken. Don’t worry, the photocopy dude knows this process well and will hook it all up within 10 minutes. Total cost: Q45. FYI unlike most of you broke-ass gringos, I’m debt-free and don’t carry plastic. My VISA branded ATM card worked just fine though.
3. Go into the office and immediately turn left after you go through the metal detector. No need to talk to security or check-in weapons (they wouldn’t take mine) just sit down. On the Monday afternoon I went, the lobby was empty and my wait was only five minutes.
4. Tell the lady at the window that you want to extend your passport. It’s not an unusual request and she will ask you to fill out a short form. Be prepared for the usual Guatemalan 3rd degree regarding all your photocopies, photos and other aforementioned required documents. It’s standard here for the window people to try to make you feel retarded and question the validity of your documents. Don’t feed their immature power trip- just calmly give them all their little papers with a smile.
5. The lady will give you a receipt. Take it to the bank- the next window over. Pay Q120. Cash, duh.
6. Go back to the lady and give her your stamped receipt. Remember nothing here is official unless it’s got that magical stamp! She’ll take your passport and explain that you need to come back tomorrow to pick up your newly extended passport.
7. Say “gracias” and “feliz tarde” and come back the next day. That’s it- easy peasy japaneezy.
Note: I wrote this whole post while waiting for my passport. Apparently my window lady forgot to start the process on my passport after I left. Honest mistake I guess, but a subtle reminder of how things work around here.
A lot of people down here work in the “informal economy.” In the States we call that having a hustle. My man definitely knows how to hustle– moonwalking in the middle of a Zone 1 intersection!
Mi tío is schizophrenic, that much I know. I find myself staring at him as he maneuvers his space on the street in La Antigua or tries to find a narrative to all the stimulus that is rushing past him, a stream that flows through the gray matter of his brain and the neuropathways that are so different from my brain. I think, somewhere inside me are his genes and that possibility. I watch him and he knows I’m watching him, so he plays, changes from one side of the street to the next and waves back at me while the cars pass between us. Like the petulant and bossy niece I have always been with him, I tell him to be serious because he could get hurt crossing the street that way. He covers his cigarette with most of the thin, stretched skin of his hand. “Don’t worry so much, you’ll see how the electromagnetic energy flows through your eyes and into your liver where you can breathe better. ” I tell him to stay put while I go to the bank and “¡Tío, deje de molestar!” He laughs. I smile as I half turn my back on him, he waves back again knowing I’m watching.
Since December a plot has been brewing in my head to get him on medication and then build him a home in Media Luna with a bike on his own small plot of land where he can plant his own coffee and bananas and roam the fincas in peace. Here’s what we found:
And here’s him riding his new bike on the fincas:
He’d have a small bed, a table to read his newspapers, a small tv, and his new glasses. I can then come and visit him, sleep on the hammock and drink coffee on the porch overlooking the endless rows of banana and palm trees while he sits on the stairs and sings old boleros with his cracking, croaking voice – the same voice and song his father would sing before he disappeared into the fincas and was never heard from again. Here’s one of those songs by Antonio Aguilar–Hace un año that the entire family convinced him to sing in Brad’s studio:
This is what I tell myself over and over, to mentally cope with the craptastic reality of Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. You can google that yourself, as the white hot sun and nuclear grade heat have completely sapped any motivation I had today.
Anyway like I said: I’m enjoying an exotic tropical vacation- just look at all the palm trees and black folks on scooters- seriously I’m pretending I’m in Jamaica. And everyone around me is definitely stoned out of their minds- the absence of logic, rational behavior or sense of time is like Northern California without the expensive education and homeopathy.
I’ve been meaning to write a super rah-rah post on the top 10 things I love about Guatemala (seriously, no sarcasm). But dude, two days in this microwave has made me a hater. I can see why Kara’s family got the hell out when they could.
I now leave you will this giant blown-up photo of a young man grabbing his nuts, which is hanging directly above my table in this shitty Pollo Compero (KFC) I’ve taken refuge in. I’m getting the munchies just looking at it…
We picked them up in Zone 1, on the corner of third avenue this past Sunday afternoon – our friend Addison a tall, white, wirey, canchecolocho, and the lean, well-postured and muscular figure of Cebero, the Austrian Guatemalan wrestler, strapped with his own 9 mm Spanish-made gun and dressed all in black – at one with the heavy metal persona he embodies. Cebero, not to be confused with his Wolfgang day-time persona, always carried his gun because “in Guatemala, everywhere you go, there are thugs that get mad at you for anything, a bad stare, walking on the wrong side of the street.” It was hard to miss them. Cebero smiled the biggest, most humble smile I’d seen on anyone in a while, thanked us as we got in the car and headed out.
We had to move quickly because we had to get Cebero to Zone 12 by 5 PM and negotiate how I was going to take videos at La Arena (where I learned upon arriving that they charged Q2,500 for any kind of professional filming). I was pushing my luck and I knew it, but I had to take that chance. Who would have guessed that LuchaLibre was still alive, but certainly not well, in Guatemala? This was no NachoLibre orphanage in the fields we were going to, it was one of the poorest, slummiest and unsafest parts of Guatemala City where there are no private parking lots for cars, the streets have that abandoned openness that makes for shooting ranges, hungry dogs, broken down cars and couples creeping quickly on the thin broken sidewalks. But no matter, today was “Ladies Get in Free Night” and we were rolling with one of the main wrestlers committed to his art form, regardless of the measley few quetzales paid per match. As we approached La Arena, Cebero throws on his mask and tries to find us a parking lot, to no avail, so he negotiates with the storeowner next door to watch our car. We sent him off and parked the car, threw our cameras backpacks on and looked back (we hoped, not for the last time) at our car. Every half hour I would come out shoot different light or record different sounds as an excuse to see if the car was where we left it.
Inside, the arena was empty, cool, dark and quiet and the smell of butter on microwaved popcorn swarmed around the doorway. I was hungry, but I had to set up my tripod and hope the owner of the ring, who was also a wrestler, would be understanding enough to let me shoot. I sent the message back with a young boy that “I am an independent periodista who just wants to tell the story of a wrestler and the wrestling scene blah blah…” Five minutes later, the boy pulls my arm and says, “The owner says it will cost you.” Right, I say, shoo the boy away and keep shooting.
When the first match is about to start, I get the official public shaming. “Could the woman with her video camera please stop filming so that we can get on with the match?” Sigh, I shut off the camera and close the screen. “Could she please put the camera away?” I take the camera off the tripod. At this point there are about a hundred people in the ring watching me. I yell across the bleachers: “The camera is off!” The crowd repeats it. “Please put the camera and everything away,” the announcer politely says again over the intercom. Everyone watches me pack all my gear away again, except for my microphone and Zoom recorder. Then I’ll make it a radio story ’cause you can’t keep a journalist from her story! I grumble to myself.
The fight begins with nothing really out of the ordinary, except each subsequent fight is starting to fall into one of two camps: All Spectacle or This Is For Real. When two or three guy team up on one wrestler, things start getting fiesty and the 80-year-old woman behind me screamed: “Tear his f**king balls off!” I turned around and she smiled really sweetly. “I really like that wrestler,”she said. Later that evening the wrestlers took the fight to her:
The rest of the matches did not disappoint and by the end of the evening I was off those bleachers and following the wrestlers around with my microphones as they pummeled one another. They made each other beg as I held my microphone near. My favorite moments include the fancy footwork fight:
The pummeling:
And at the end of the night, the ring belonged to the kids:
The town of Todos Santos floats above the clouds, positioned safely beyond that world of concrete, black bus smoke, and the bustling human activity back on earth in that almost border town we call Huehuetenango. And so we climb. As the sun surfaces and kisses the terracería red, we’ve gone off road and all we can see amid the dust clouds are human shadows elongated along the side.
This is what trucks are made for, not a four cylinder wannabe SUV like ours, but six or eight cylinder growling beasts that eat the road beneath wide rubber treads and merciless traction. We keep moving upward, past a low-rider with scorpion decals stuck on the side doors like temporary tattoos. The plants know something we don’t know: somehow they grow out of hard rocks without any space of green wasted while the cactus defiantly sticks out its thorns against this moon-like surface. Small childrens’ faces peek out from the farm houses dotted along the barren, flat expanse at the top of this highland. Men wear traditional red and white-striped pants and there is a swagger of comfort and fullness in their every move as they haul pounds of wood, dirt, tools and water to their homes. They’ve been here a long time and we’re just visiting- that’s obvious.
We’ve come to train some young radio journalists and have grand ideas about staying overnight and living a little rustic for the night. After an unsuccessful to attempt to scale an unbelievably steep hill that supposedly leads to a hotel, we shamefully return to the stern grimaces of the towns folk staring at us as we reverse our way down. We drive about three miles on another steep grade, lured by colorfully painted houses. Alas, our vehicle surrenders to the sheer physics of the situation, and Brad is forced to make a 10 or 12-point turn to get us back down the hill. It’s painfully obvious at this point that “rustic” has just kicked our ass.
15 minutes later a large oil rig gets stuck in a ditch in front of us, and not a single car can go up or down the mountain for miles. But the men of Todos Santos are a hearty lot, and their solution was to remove the guard rail and create a new lane! Hey, who really needs guard rails on a 8000 ft. elevation mountain road anyway?
The real test was when we crossed with a little help from our friends:
Check out my awesome parking job. No, it’s not an optical illusion- I actually did wedge the car under that corregated tin roof. I guess it’s true when Kara says gringos take up a lot of room.
Maestra Osbilda shows you old school Guatemalan tortilla rolling and slapping techniques- this is the real deal! Shot entirely on location in San Antonio, Guatemala.
Out of the thick cloud of incense, dark night and rain the procession of Señor Sepultado de San Felipe floated out of the ether of La Antigua’s narrow streets, on the shoulders of a hundred black-hooded men and cutting the river of the throngs gathered along the embankment. Warmed by the heat of dozens of small candles lit up behind me and cradled in people’s hands to keep the wind away, the mothership slowly made its way towards the illuminated cathedral like a dock where everything had suddenly become slow motion with the faith worn on people’s faces like a morning waking.
Christ had died that day, been sepulchured and his figure was taken out of the escuela de Cristo and Aldea del Apóstol San Felipe accompanied by funeral marches, the holy Mary (the Maria Santísima de Soledad de la Parroquia de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios Templo de la Escuela de Cristo) and a parade of angels. It was a prelude to Easter or Sunday of Resurrection and one of the few opportunities to see the intricate carvings of the the Christ that the Facebook Fans are still raving about. The two processions looked like entire cities that lasted well into 3 in the morning on Saturday, April 3:
Big shout-out to Brad for getting himself on the cover of Urbnet Magazine. Here’s little snippet:
“While he never stole his older sister’s records, young BradElectro did sneak into her room to find out what the big kid’s Top 40 radio station was. This was a difficult task— what with all the yelling, kicking and punching. Undeterred, Brad limped back to his own room and accidentally tuned in Magic 108 FM— the legendary Black frequency of St. Louis. Playing perfectly on cue, Kool and the Gang’s new hit record, “Get Down On It” bumped out of the box and time stood still. The mothership had landed and a young hyperactive boy was forever funkified for life.
Years later, fresh out of art school and living in Chicago, Brad eventually grew tired of the insular gallery scene, and wondered if he might be able to reach a wider audience through music. “If you show someone your new sculpture, half the time they don’t even know what to say,” Brad explains. “But play them a piece of music and they’ll either love it or hate it- at least they’ll be able to express an opinion.” Brad never received any sort of formal musical training but he had an extensive record collection, a souped-up PC and a brand new copy of the music sequencing software ReBirth. It was time to get down on it indeed.
BradElectro has been performing live electronic music in clubs, undergrounds, renegades and churches for more than 7 years. His current residencies include Los Deepness at the Oasis in Oakland, and Sync at Temple Nightclub in San Francisco. Originally beginning with the classic MMT-8 hardware sequencer, Brad switched to the Roland MC-909 and now currently rocks Abelton Live alongside an arsenal of outboard effects and trusty Mackie mixer. Gear doesn’t make the groove but it helps, and BradElectro is definitely not just a laptop jockey. Musically, his love for vocals and melody is obvious in his songs, but like many of his Chicago heroes, the man can get tracky as well.”
