Building Hope in a new future | CiviBlog.org | 11.23.06 | Blog
During November and December 2006, Guillermo Chen Morales, Director General of the New Hope Foundation (Fundación Nueva Esperanza), will be touring the UK and other European countries to share his experiences of developing and making education a reality for many young people in Rabinal, Guatemala. Much of the New Hope Foundation’s work is about promoting a more just society where indigenous Mayans in Guatemala (Maya Achi in Rabinal) have an equal stake in the Guatemala of tomorrow.... Read Full Story | gsn.civiblog.org/blog/
Guatemala Adoptions :: A Thought Experiment with Silence | FamiLee Life | 11.23.06 | Blog
The Sunday edition of the New York Times has a fascinating, investigative report on the current adoption process in Guatemala. Some notable quotes and issues from the article...
In other countries, adoptive parents are sought out for abandoned children. In Guatemala, children are frequently sought out for foreign parents seeking to adopt and given up by their birth mothers to baby brokers who may pay from a few hundred dollars to $2,000 for a baby, according to interviews with mothers and experts... Read Full Story | blog.lib.umn.edu/richlee/Thoughts/
Guatemala nuns in Del. to share success story | Delaware Online | 11.23.06 | News
he tiny 12-year old girl -- she couldn't have weighed more than 50 pounds -- trekked three hours from a coffee plantation to Sister Mary Lou Daoust's free health clinic in rural Guatemala.
The girl, an orphan whose mother had died of tuberculosis, wanted medicine for a persistent cough.
Sister Daoust, a Detroit native who has spent the past 25 years working as a doctor in Guatemala, diagnosed the girl with the same disease.... Read Full Story | delawareonline.com
Semester in Guatemala | LiveJournal | 11.23.06 | Article
The halfway point of the semester and my birthday fell on the same weekend. Colleen came to visit for a few short days, and her flight arrived Friday night. To pick her up I took a chicken bus from Antigua after dark to get to Guatemala City, where I would get off the bus and hail a cab to the airport. And the assumption was made that it would be easy to recognize where I was and therefore that it would be easy to decide where to get off the bus.... Read Full Story | mattcagle.livejournal.com/
Excitement on the River -- Belize's 2007 La Ruta Maya River Challenge | Yahoo | 11.16.06 | News
Belize's Largest Sporting Event Attracts Competitors from Around the World. BELIZE CITY, Belize, Nov. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The tenth annual La Ruta Maya River Challenge -- the longest canoe race in Central America -- will take to the river from March 8th -- 11th, 2007. Hundreds of paddlers and avid canoe enthusiasts come from all over the world to take part in Belize's most recognized sports event, an energy-packed four day race that covers 180 miles of the country's most scenic waterways... Read Full Story | biz.yahoo.com
Modern Pentathlon: Guatemala City comes with a global warning | Times Online | 11.16.06 | News
Of all the sports venues, in all the towns, in all the world, they chose Guatemala City. Even without the Foreign Office warning tourists to guard against violent crime, the capital of Guatemala seems an inappropriate venue for the modern pentathlon World Championships this week.
Jan Bartu, the Great Britain performance director, tried it once and didn’t like it. As national coach to the Mexico team, at the Pan American Championships in 1993, Bartu was present on the previous time that Guatemala hosted a significant international modern pentathlon event. ... Read Full Story | timesonline.co.uk
La Ruta Maya Canoe Race in Belize | Belize Vacations | 11.16.06 | Blog
The tenth annual La Ruta Maya River Challenge -- the longest canoe race in Central America - will take to the river from March 8th - 11th, 2007. Beginning in the scenic foothills of the Maya Mountains and finishing in the bustling port city of Belize City, the race will travel from West to East along the historic river trail of the Macal and Belize Rivers. Once the only link between the two coasts, these tributaries served as a major trading route for Belize's once powerful Mayan civilization. Today, the La Ruta Maya River trail still follows in the footsteps of its legendary past with a route of lush, unspoiled landscapes lined with exotic flora and fauna.... Read Full Story | belizevacation.blogspot.com
The rules of international adoption are about to undergo significant changes that could affect everything from the countries where Americans can adopt to the fees they'll have to pay.
More than a decade after signing it, the U.S. is close to implementing a global treaty known as the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, designed to curb abuses such as child trafficking that long have marred international adoptions.
The State Department issued most of the final regulations earlier this year, and last month it opened the application process for U.S. adoption providers to become accredited to work on adoptions of children from 69 countries.... Read Full Story | indystar.com
THE CRICKET'S SONG (a folktale from Guatemala) | The Sun Herald | 11.16.06 | Article
Once upon a time, a little yellow cricket lived beneath a tree in a tiny village. Every day, just as the sun began to set, the cricket bounded to the wheat fields at the edge of the village, alighted on a stalk and rubbed his forelegs together, producing what sounded like a song. The cricket sang different songs on different days. When a storm was brewing, the cricket chirped of the coming storm so that the women knew they ought to bring in their laundry and the children knew to hurry home. In the autumn, when the weather was changing, the cricket chirped of the cold on its way so that the farmers knew they must harvest their wheat. And the people always knew that soon the day would end because the cricket's song began at sunset..... Read Full Story | sunherald.com
Texas-based group fires up a revolution in Guatemala | Chron | 11.11.06 | Article
SAN JORGE LA LAGUNA, GUATEMALA — The firewood is piled high, nearly touching the tin roof of the one-room home Anacleta Ramos built using discarded wood planks, branches, cinder blocks and tin. Spatulas, spoons and other cooking utensils dangle from hooks on the wall of the kitchen area.
It is a tidy home but for the ceiling, which is permanently tarnished by 20 years of smoke from the open pit where she cooks. Some escapes through cracks in the walls, but most remains trapped inside the home.. Read Full Story | www.chron.com
Exhibit offers a look at pre-Columbian culture, how it plays today | Miami Herald | 11.11.06 | News
Once upon a time, it was acceptable to dismiss so-called ''primitive art'' from Africa as static, as art that didn't change much from decade to decade. Such thinking reflected a European and North American arrogance, which kept so many fascinating parts of the world closed off to Westerners.
That kind of Eurocentric thinking has for the most part fallen by the wayside, and we can look at diverse art objects from African Asian, and pre-Columbian cultures with a fresh sensitivity for what makes them distinctive. Read Full Story | www.miamiherald.com
Another day, another port, another Mayan ruin | Nola | 11.11.06 | Blog
ABOARD THE NORWEGIAN SUN – I don’t mean to sound flip here. I could have swum under a waterfall or kayaked today in Guatemala, just like I could have gone to a “beach party” Tuesday in Mexico. But for the second day in a row I chose to visit ruins uncovered from the Mayan civilization.
These at Quirigua were an hour-and-a-half bus ride south of Santo Tomas, where Norwegian Cruise Line’s Norwegian Sun docked. A sometimes scary ride, as truck drivers repeatedly passed our bus on the two-lane road, barely missing cars and trucks coming smack at them. Gasp inducing. Read Full Story | www.nola.com
'Apocalypto' now for Mel, Maya and historians | USA Today | 11.11.06 | News
Call it The Passion of the Maya: Mel Gibson is quietly filming a movie in a Mexican jungle about the collapsed civilization.
Given Gibson's cinematic history, experts on the ancient Maya are looking forward to his upcoming epic, Apocalypto, with a mixture of curiosity and dread. They're pleased that Hollywood will feature a period of world history still little understood but worry that once again a movie may sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of a good story.
"A lot depends on how well they depict the Maya.. Read Full Story | www.usatoday.com
Baby Hotel: The Gateway to Guatemalan Adoption | World Press | 11.11.06 | Article
Call it The Passion of the Maya: Mel Gibson is quietly filming a movie in a Mexican jungle about the collapsed civilization.
Given Gibson's cinematic history, experts on the ancient Maya are looking forward to his upcoming epic, Apocalypto, with a mixture of curiosity and dread. They're pleased that Hollywood will feature a period of world history still little understood but worry that once again a movie may sacrifice historical accuracy for the sake of a good story.
"A lot depends on how well they depict the Maya.. Read Full Story | www.worldpress.org
Painful legacy of Guatemala storm | BBC | 11.09.06 | News
A year ago to the day, heavy rains caused by Tropical Storm Stan brought mudslides crashing down on dozens of Guatemalan villages.
Rescuers search for people caught in mudslides in Guatemala, October 2005.
Some 670 people died and hundreds more remain unaccounted for, believed buried under the torrents of mud that engulfed homes, roads and bridges.
Nor has life for survivors in the worst-affected highland areas - mostly home to the indigenous Mayan Tzujuhil people - been easy. Read Full Story | www.bbc.co.uk
