Day Thirty-Four, Antigua

Bells at San Francisco 

Today started out slowly; shower, breakfast, and a leisurely walk to the Casa. However, I did finish page one of the Long Count Coloring Book before class. In history class we looked at the 1960s in Guatemala, starting with President Miguel Ydigoras Fuentes. We learned about the "Levantamiento" uprising of Arbencista army officers which failed and led to those officers fleeing to Cuba and forming the Frent Armada Revolucionario (FAR) and the MR-13. We then looked at the administration of President Enrique Peralta Azurdia from 1963-1966. In 1963 was the suspension of the constitution, 1965 a new constitution which names the military as the arbiter of the nations "independence, sovereignty, honor." The guerrillas at the same time were setting off car bombs, kidnapping important figures (including a US ambassador, killed, and Archbishop, released), and urban terrorism (including bank robbery). The US support for Guatemalan military government was both overt and covert at that time, even though the US was in the middle of the Vietnam War and the domestic protests against it. In the mid-1960s the death squads started; secret groups with military and MLN and other right wing political groups. We also mentioned the "disappeared"; the people who were kidnapped silently and never heard from again. In 1967-68 there were large scale counterinsurgency campaings in Zacapa, Seirra de las Minas, which led to the near complete defeat of FAR, PGT and MR-13: over 1500 civilians were killed when there was only an estimated 300 guerrillas in the area. We ended class looking at National Security Archives about US involvement in the overthrow of Arbenz: <http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB4/index.html> this is the article I focused on in my group.

Mural I wasn't suppose to take a picture of.

In religion class we had a second field trip to San Francisco, this time to see the murals on the walls that were covered up the first time we went there. We met up in front of the church as just as the professor started talking the bells started ringing. We went into the front of the church and got to look at one of the murals, but the renovations are still going on at the church so we were kicked out fairly quickly. We were able to go around to the side entrance and look at the second mural from a distance, but we did not get a good look. I did manage to snap a picture of the first mural, before I remembered that we are not suppose to take pictures in that church. We then talked outside of the church for a few minutes and we went off to look around on our own.

I went back to the Casa and finished the second page of the coloring book before having a lovely long conversation with Mily about public education in Guatemala and her thesis on education in El Salvador, which I asked for a copy of. We talked until I had to run back to my new home stay for dinner where I had another long conversation with my host Olga, only this time it was in Spanish. unfortunately my brain was rather fried by the end of that conversation, which was wonderful but difficult. I went to bed around 10pm without working on my map, but with much to think about for the rest of the week.