Guatemala, a country with beauty and poverty

Guatemala is a country located in Central America with extraordinary landscapes but a great number of inhabitants with a bad quality of life. 
Throughout the year thousands of tourists go to this country to visit the Atitland Lake, Antigua (the first capital of Guatemala), the flea market of Chichicastenalgo, the Mayan´s ruins of Tikal, Rio Dulce… The lists of places you can visit and enjoy in this country are never ending. 

However, what I want, is to talk about the poverty of the inhabitants of this place.
Most tourists that visit Guatemala don´t want to see, or know how the Gatemalns live. What they eat or how their houses are. The reason is very simple, we don´t want to open our eyes and realize that there are people living worse than us, and even dying because they don´t have anything to eat.
When my parents went to Guatemala, they realized about the poverty of the country, and they decided to see it through the eyes of the inhabitants. They slept in houses without floors, they took “guaguas”, the buses that Gatelmans use to travel from one place to another. Although they enjoyed themselves a lot, they were very scared when some members of the army, carrying big submachine guns stop them at night when they were traveling from Flores to Rio Dulce in a “guagua”.
This experience helped them realize the fear that poor people suffer. Fear is a very subjective word, most people have fears. In my point of view we can´t compared the fear of these inhabitants with our fears. They are afraid of being killed, they are afraid to die of hunger…, these fears are caused by poverty, and that’s the worst point. We are all humans; however, some poor people believe that they are worse than us only because they had be born in poor areas.

Although they are afraid every day for their lives, they try to search for a reason to be happy, to smile. Poverty is the main cause of their fears, cold nights and hungry.  However it won´t be the cause of their sadness, because they value every single drop of water.

Peruvian cuisine

We know about many important gastronomies like the Italian, Spanish, French or the typical U.S. food but one of the best and unrated gastronomies in the world is Peruvian food and gastronomy. Their food is very ancient and you can find the typical food in each house of Peru, everybody prepares and cooks it and the recipes are transferred from generation to generation, old people teach the youngest to prepare the food.

 

Peruvian food is quite popular because of its colourful appearance and the way they use the spicy products that they add to their food. Peruvian people use a wide variety of ingredients, but the most important ones are the "papa", a type of tuber mainly used all over South America and in particular in Peru; also the "aji", a spicy plant used in Peru and some fruits like the"chirimoya" (custard) and the "locuma".

 

Like in Spain with the excellent 'Spanish omelette' and in France with the not as good 'French omellette' or in Italy with their pasta, in Peru they have some typical and famous dishes like 'cebiche'. In this plate Peruvian people include fish, lemon juice, red onion, salt and aji and they also add shellfish or vegetables to it. Another special dish is roast chicken, you will never eat such a good roast chicken as in this country

DON’T THINK, JUST SHOOT!

“Lomography is an analog camera movement and community, and is also a commercial trademark of Lomographische AG.”
Summarizing, lomography consists of taking photos with a special camera which creates special effects, such as producing a gamma error, a saturating of the colors or the appearance of frames.

It appeared in the 80’s in Russia, when a general decided to copy a Japanese camera for the Soviets. But it was in the 90’s when two students bought two of these cameras in Prague and started shooting without looking through the viewfinder. When they developed the photographies, they discovered that the photos were out of focus, brilliant, saturated and fresh, which transmitted vitality. After this, they decided to create a business.

Some years later, lomographic exhibitions and associations of lomography fans were created. At the end of the century, a website and international conferences were created. By this time, lomography had become important in the photography world.

In the year 2005 the manufacturer decided to stop producing these cameras because it was very expensive: the LC-A cameras became LC-A+ produced by China. These new cameras have a different lens, and there are 7 different models.

 

 The Lomo cameras are different because of their lens: it’s characterized because it intensifies the colours, especially at the centre of the photo, so it creates a tunnel effect. The excessive exposition created in the photos can be in automatic mode or manual. You can even create movement effects! Thanks to its rudimentary focus, the photos are out of focus but, at the same time, very artistic.

So, if you ever buy this kind of camera, remember its philosophy: Don’t think, just shoot!

GROOMING DOGS

We all know that dog is man´s best friend; that´s why 39% of Spanish population lives with a dog. Dogs are prety, funny, cute, clever and incredibly loyal animals. But, what about the remaining percentage?

In this 61% we can find people that don´t have pets because they don´t like animals, they can´t afford them, they are allergic, and also other millions of cases. Some people have farms and they own domesticated animals such as pigs, cows, sheep, chickens, and more. These animals produce food and benefits for their owners. Also, at some homes, people prefer to take care of different domestic animals, like cats, fish, tortoises or birds.

However, the weirdest case is that of people that want to have non-domesticated animals at home. Since this idea is very dangerous, they take advantage of their possibilities. This way they obtain what they want in a funny but strange way.

The first step is very simple; they only need to buy the dog they prefer, or the one they can afford. Finally, an specialist (we could also call him artist) transforms their dog into the animal they wanted to have, by painting it, cutting its hair or using some accesories.With thistransformation the dog can become a camel, a panda bear, a horse, or even a‘Ninja Tortoise'.

The results are quite amazing.Here you have some pics...

 

 They are a work of art! Aren´t they? Which one would you choose?