(HAPPY) Antigua

“I am guessing that when you were a kid, dear reader, you had to answer the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” more than once…” 

An old post started like this (“Don’t Burn it Down!!”); though I reckon you probably cannot remember (…that is, if you ever read it at all). 

I did happen to remember it, because I ran into something quite funny a few days ago: 

It seems that the “Don’t Burn it Down!!” childhood-Orca-drawing-attempt was not that far from matching the original ones!

So, my dear readers, as I have been saying for the past couple of posts: This is one of the last times I will be writing this Follow mE blog (it is the second to last post I will write to be more concrete!).

But before saying our farewells, I thought of giving you a long-distance visit to a nice and beautiful place here in Guatemala. If I would ever live in this country for good, I would definitely chose this location as a place ‘to call home’, at least for a few years. 

Due to the fact that I am out of brain cells for writing today… and due to the fact that tourists seem to almost always give positive comments, and fresh views, on the sites that they visit… 

-Open parenthesis-

(the following comment makes out a perfect example: 

Lucky her for being able to write the first two sentences)
-Close parenthesis-

…I decided that this post would be written by outsiders! By those one who have visited the place and that have left some written comments along the way.

Ladies and Gentleman: Many bloggers are about to present you the city that, instead of succumbing or kneeling before a series of harsh earthquakes that shaked it throughout its extended existance, chose to explode with colors, life and uniqueness: Antigua Guatemala… Antigua (Happy? Happy!)

 

I took (…I "tried" taking) some pictures from Antigua this weekend, but apparently this Blogger thing does not allow me to add a web album over here for some reason. I've been trying for enough time to annoy someone at a 1,000% level, but it still does not work! SO. I placed them in a video, which makes them look shitty (or I reckon that "more shitty" for those that like photography; as I am 'training' myself with using the manual camera mode), but whatever... it is something!

 

I hope you liked the post my dear readers, and that hopefully you can come and visit Antigua one of these days (if you so desire, of course). It looks and feels much better in person!

Thanks for visiting the blog (thanks for those who wrote the nice comments I used for this 'article') and, 
'till the next (and last) post! 
PEACE OUT
Your writer,
Maria 

The Guatemalan Hofstede 'Amalgam'

I suppose that it is about time to write a post in this blog! 

Specially because we are running out of seconds (minutes, hours, days...) my dear readers. Two more weeks to go and “adiós” we will have to say! 

[AND, I know… I know. ‘Your writer’ has (again) vanished from the face of this blogging platform this past month. I said I would write every week, but unluckily I (again) have had a major meteor shower of things to do; making it difficult to come up with the time and ‘creative mood’ to write something down.]

Despite my dissapearance, the “Green Cinematographic Therapy” situation has not changed much:

The graduation internship is still on, and currently I find myself struggling with SPSS. It was all summed up to days of "hard, painful and arduous work" for just creating the variables, the so called ‘multiple response sets’ and putting all the questionnaires’ output in the program’s thing (…in case you are an SPSS expert, you must probably be laughing at my ‘statistical handicap’ right now).

At present, I finally have an SPSS screen full of numbers. The only problem (and 'small little detail') is that I have absolutely no idea of what to do with them! (I guess Mr. YouTube will be giving me some lectures this upcoming week... or my SPSS guide "for the unfortunate"!).

(..haha!)

The new film studies are, as well, still on. They make up four hours of my day(s). 

A script for a 3 minute short film has been conceived along with its ‘production dossier’, plus a pitch to ‘sell it’ to the teachers (a pitch kind of similar to the Fontys 'Mr. Matata Breaks' I told you about a few months ago). 

The 3 best scripts are to be recorded, so hopefully I will have the chance to record my creation “Brazo”. 

(By taking a look at the ‘preliminary’ cover you would think it is a violent film, but not really –surprise, surprise– ..better leave "the blood stuff" to Quentin Tarantino). 

Photography classes have also started recently and so I have shot my first (and hopefully not last) work of art, in which my crazy “gato” (cat) was the 'comical' model... 

The leg injury therapy is also existing and (apparently) going much better; though still having to wait a few more weeks to ride horses again. Meanwhile, the only horse-related thing I am able to do is.. taking pictures of them. 

This is pretty much your writer’s Fontys semester update… 

BUT, BUT, BUT... because we are in Guatemala (let’s not forget about that), I thought about giving you an idea of what this 'nation' is all about... this, I mean, apart from the corruption, violence, impunity and all the series of clowns who go by the name of "political leaders" in this circus (I might have mentioned some of these characteristis a few years ago - "Country of the Eternal Spring").
[Yes. This country, or better said "society" (because the country is very beautiful), is undoubtedly hard to love.] 

 

In order to do this I have decided to grab: 
- A man
- a research and,
- the top two country visitors of this blog 

The man is called Geert Hofstede, from The Netherlands; his research is related to culture and the top two country visitors of Follow mE are the United States and The Netherlands!

I decided to use this because, to be honest, when I first read about his research on the Guatemalan culture during my studies at Fontys, I was surprised to see how correct 'Mr. Hofstede' was. On the other hand, his website (http://geert-hofstede.com/) allows you to compare the cultures of 3 different countries. SO, I decided to compare Guatemala’s culture to Follow mE's two "loyalest" regions. 

SOOOO...

Thing is that, Mr. Hofstede, studied a variety of cultures around the world by evaluating them along 6 dimensions. These dimensions are: 

• Power Distance: “The extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally.”
• Individualism: “The degree of interdependence a society maintains among its members.”
• Femininity vs. Masculinity: “...what motivates people, wanting to be the best (masculine) or liking what you do (feminine)”.
• Uncertainty Avoidance: “The extent to which the members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these”.
• Pragmatism: “How people in the past as well as today relate to the fact that so much that happens around us cannot be explained”.
• Indulgence: “The extent to which people try to control their desires and impulses”.
   

We can see then, that here in Guatemala the Power Distance (dimension is quite high. And yes. In comparison to the U.S. and The Netherlands where it is very difficult to see a marked contrast in between social classes, here is definitely not. 

For example, here in the city everything is divided by zones. You have 'high class', 'medium-high class', 'medium class' zones and on the other side you can see really poor areas. By poor I do not just mean people living in slums, but it also reaches to the extent of people living in rubish dumps (they do not just work there, they live there).
Something to be shocked about is that if you compare Guatemala's Power Distance to that of India's (a country runned under a rigorous cast system) Guatemala's is still 20% higher. I was surprised to see this, but the answer is clear: If you go to India you still see extremely low classes interacting with people belonging to a high class. Here in Guatemala it is not much the case, everything is divided and you will never see a family of poor people sleeping right in front of a huge 'high-class' house (a very common scene in India). 

[Now, I am no communist (...and definitely no politician) but if you ask my opinion, I would say that I would be happy to live in a planet where all living creatures and every single being (no matter what species) has access to the basics of water, food, shelter and clean air to breathe. From that point on, you can have all the social classes you want, but every single being should have those basic needs covered.] 

Regarding Individualism Guatemala has a very very low score; being translated into a very very high collectivism one. 

We can see it like cats and dogs: The Netherlands and the U.S. are a cat culture, while Guatemala 'is high on' a dog culture (almost everyone belongs to a "pack"). What better way to explain this than with a common Guatemalan quote:

It can be translated to "tell me who you are with and I will tell you who you are". In other words, if your friends happen to do drugs (for instance), even if you have never touched an illegal substance, for the rest of society you are already a junkie. Who you are with, will define who you are; the 'individual' here does not play that much of a 'role'. It applies to all kinds of situations really, and it is something very common over here. 

As Hofstede explains in his website, this collectivism also implies that relationships are far more important than getting through with tasks. So, in a business situation (and in almost any other social interaction cases) you will often see how people treat each other like fragile little flowers (to the extreme... you would be surprised)! People try to not offend others, which in my opinion just leads to hypocrisy (which, regrettably, is also very common over here... to the extreme!).

Moving on to Masculinity vs. Femininity, Guatemala is more feminine than masculine; The Netherlands takes the 'femininity trophy', and the U.S. takes the 'masculinity price'. 

This means that in the U.S. it is all about "showing off". Showing how 'succesful' you are, by demonstrating others the several symbols you have acquired before dying. Symbols such as expensive cars, huge houses, 'bling blings' (...a barbie model for a wife), and all those 'American Dream' kind of "artifacts" that society has lead to identify as indicators of 'achievement' (I am sorry I wasn't able to not write this with a tone of criticism! No offense intended). While The Netherlands is kind of the opposite and Guatemala has kind of a little bit of both sides, according to the research.

Guatemala and Uncertainty Avoidance get along very well apparently. With a 99% this culture really does not enjoy not knowing what will happen tomorrow! 

How is this possible?!! (If that's the whole magic of life, in my opinion at least!)... A pity, but I suppose I know the answer to my own question: Uncertainty here, is definitely not the same as uncertainty in The Netherlands or in the United States. 

Guatemala has been in conflict for as long as its existance I think. Beginning with the Spanish colonization, following with the taking of power of several idiotic politicians, the armed conflict (even the U.S. intervention)... proceeding with the "end" of the never resolved armed conflict and now with the 'reign' of the drug cartels and money laundering (or money "dry cleaning" as some might call it!). In other words, Guatemala has never been a very safe country (SPECIALLY NOW!). 

The point is that when you wake up and go out to work, for instance, in a country such as The Netherlands, your chances of being shot, or robbed and assaulted, or abducted (...or all of the bad things you can imagine happening to you) decrease considerably in comparison to here. Therefore, it is obvious that many people avoid ambiguity in Guatemala: Ambiguity here is more about "survival", ambiguity over there is more like "will it rain and my hair will get wet today if I do not take an umbrella?".      

This is why you avoid reading the newspapers in Guatemala! ..Unless you are seeking to completely lose hope in the human race. Because there WON'T be a day when a "shitty event" has not happened!

In 2013, for example, there were 15 deaths per day caused by violence ("Hubo 15 muertes por día en 2013"). Those are deaths which were registered, so you can add a few more dead bodies to the list!)  

Both the Pragmatism and Indulgence dimensions have never been studied for Guatemala, so these two remain with a question mark. For the U.S. and The Netherlands it has been, and results are on the table above or you can find more in Hofstede's website.

I will stop writing now, because I believe I gave you too much of a boredom dose after with this long post (that is.. only if you survived reading up to here!). I hope that, if it was not entertaining enough, you at least you learned something new!

Ok my dear readers: I will try my best to write next week, probably the post before the last! Anyhow, in case I would not have time I will of course write a post to say farewell. I will certainly miss writing for you my super readers (So ROMANTIC!). 

Thanks for scanning through this and enjoy your week!
(...and free yourselves from the 'cultural chains' we have been programmed with! Haha!).

¡Hasta la próxima!
Your writer,
Maria