Culture of Central America

Everyday life

• The market at Chichicastenango — Thursday and Sunday in the Guatemalan highlands: buying a huipil that took three months to weave, bargaining without insulting the weaver, copal smoke on the church steps, and a stallholder who switches between two languages.

Identity and society

• The Maya, then and now — Pyramids above the jungle, a real writing system, the zero and the calendar; and the six million people who speak some thirty Maya languages today, whose ancestors two travellers in 1839 proved had built it all.

Literature and storytelling

• Literature and storytelling in Central America

Places and landscapes

• Places and landscapes in Central America

History

• History in Central America

Read

• Balboa y el Pacífico — Balboa and the Pacific
• El acta de independencia de Centroamérica — The Act of Independence of Central America
• El canal de Nicaragua — The Nicaragua Canal
• El canal de Panamá — The Panama Canal
• El clima de Costa Rica — The climate of Costa Rica
• El mercado de Chichicastenango — The Market at Chichicastenango
• La niña de Guatemala — The girl from Guatemala
• La plaza del pueblo — The Village Square
• La United Fruit en Centroamérica — United Fruit in Central America
• Las ruinas mayas y los viajeros — The Maya Ruins and the Travellers
• Los mayas — The Maya
• Margarita, está linda la mar — Margarita, the sea is lovely
• Sonatina, de Rubén Darío — Sonatina, by Rubén Darío