Categoría: Inglés

Translated  by Katrina Hassan It has been appearing on my TV now for a few weeks, but I have been avoiding it. I look for movies somewhere else but it is a documentary about the violence that affected the indigenous communities in Guatemala at the time of the dictatorship. It is easy to change the channel or pretend it is only an image on the TV screen.  More than 200,000 people disappeared, it reads in large type. I don’t want to look at it. Not now, I am watching something else, relaxing, with documentaries about culture, food, anything except the one that…

Continuar leyendo…

Translated  by Katrina Hassan They always come to my mind when the De Diez flowers start blooming in the warm summer days. The soft breeze, the sun and the dog days of summer bring with them the watering of a dusty yard with a random container. That house and that yard sheltered the innocence of my childhood. The smell of wet earth comes to me through my window here in this faraway land, where I now sow garlic, tomato seeds and mint. I fix the mint that expands elegantly between the vines and the Lantana flowers and the plant pots, in…

Continuar leyendo…

Translated  by Katrina Hassan Did you know that the Guatemalan poet Isabel de los Ángeles Ruano lives in poverty and needs help? Ha! This has been known for decades! Guatemalans love to add fuel to the fire. We love to appear like we are well off. We live off of that and the “what will people say.’’  Our lives are ruled by “what will people say.” This is why we go with the flow. This is why revolutions form on social media. These are only small bites. Today, Guatemala’s greatest poet name is all over of social media. She is not on…

Continuar leyendo…

Translated  by Katrina Hassan We see the calamity and shamelessness, the same as we have witnessed many other times. What has this time of pandemic taught us? Nothing. Of all the lessons to learn, we chose not to learn any of them. You say the world will change  after this? Yeah right!  That people will become more humane? Not that either. We are the predator species. We eat each other without squeamishness, without respite, the law of the strongest, meanest, and the biggest scoundrel. It’s just as it always is, everyday. We don’t even flinch to others’ pain and we encourage the disdain…

Continuar leyendo…

Translated  by Katrina Hassan The most vulnerable are always the ones that pay the price. This pandemic give us a chance for us to open our eyes and take notice of how many stabs in the back the neoliberal governments of our countries are giving us. Saving the oligarchies has always been the goal, as well as bleeding the state dry. I mean, the money of our people. Nothing is solved by praying, only science plus human resources and material that should be at our disposal for society at this moment. Any leader telling their people to trust in God to…

Continuar leyendo…