On the eve of my honeymoon to Turkey, I bought my fiancée a book on Hellenic myths. That way, when we visited the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus and other once-sacred sites, she would know about the fanciful deities honored at them. Honeymooners and others who come to Guatemala with an interest in Mayan lore now have a similar book they can buy.

If you are even just an amateur archeologist, there is nothing in Viaje Inolvidable a Tecpán (“A Memorable Trip to Tecpán”) that you do not already know. But this comic-strip book presents facts that belong on a test that anyone living in Central America should have to pass.

Larger than life defines the new mural installed in the church of San Francisco el Grande in Antigua, Guatemala. Literally, symbolically and spiritually. The work by Guatemala artist Rosamaría Pascual de Gámez was inaugurated in April, in time for the second anniversary in July of the canonization of Saint Hermano Pedro José de Betancourt, whose tomb resides in the south nave. Saint Hermano Pedro is depicted near the top right of the painting, carrying the baby Jesus in his right arm and clutching his identifying bell in his left hand. He is gazing up at the image of God the Father with outstretched arms, an image emerging through an explosion of light that dominates the work.

Born in Guatemala in 1968, Jaime Permuth finished high school in Guatemala City, then earned a full scholarship and graduated from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with a dual major, a bachelor of arts in psychology and English literature. From there, he was off to New York City where he completed a master of fine arts in photography degree from the School of Visual Arts.

Dr. Al Thompson’s latest book COFFEE: From SEED to BREW is colorful, readable and informative—without telling you more than you want to know. It will occupy a place of dignity anywhere coffee is enjoyed. The book was written at the urgings of Transitions of Guatemala, a private and voluntary organization whose mission is to enable those with disabilities to lead happy and productive lives. Profits from the sale of the book will contribute to their work.

Printing was initially introduced in Mexico with the first printing house established in 1539. The Jesuit, Franciscan and Hieronymite missionaries initiated printing in Peru in 1584. The British Colonies in America followed with the Cambridge press in 1638. In 1660 Bishop Fray Payo Enríquez de Rivera brought the first printing press of its kind from Mexico to Guatemala. This marked the beginning of an independent printing era in Central America, heralding cultural perseverance and art voyaging.

Maestro Horacio Ozaeta Méndez marches to the beat of a different drummer. His impressive biography bears years of experience in two disciplines: music and journalism. But he does not have a phone and monthly publishes and personally delivers his magazines to literature racks in La Antigua Guatemala.

Aged art might appear finished to an amateur. Frame it. Shelve it. Enjoy it forever. Done. Artifacts dug up long after their useful life is over, having been protected by whatever buried them, are ready for museum cases, right? Wrong. Composed of molecules in a micro world, neither art nor artifacts are dead or stagnant. Exposed to realities of a living environment, they are subject to constantly changing elements that can cause irreparable damage.

La Antigua Galería de Arte presents A Tribute to the late Guatemalan artist Oscar Ríos. The show, sponsored by his family, will include numerous ceramic pieces and over 30 paintings that have never been shown publicly.

Mostly we disdain colados, those interlopers who cut in front of us at the checkout line without gauging our objection with a glance. This is the name Guatemalans give to such people, and also to the last bit of anything pressed through a strainer—such as the final drop squeezed by sidewalk orange juice vendors. The colado label is also applied to delayed arrivals in a family such as José Carlos Flores who was born nine years after the youngest of his five siblings. As the final child of a prosperous coffee broker and his wife, he was destined to become a career colado. But he would not be the self-serving kind. It was through merit, not short-cuts, that he won a place in line to attend Amherst High School near Boston, Ma. Life in the cradle of U.S. political thought was enough to tug him toward political science as a major, but not away from editorship of the 1982-83 Amherst yearbook.