Senaida Ba, from the mountains between Senahu and Cahabon, was recommended to us at FLAAR by Ing. Mauro Garcia. So Senaida started as a student intern and learned quickly to do photography, to do illustrated FLAAR, and in general documented that she was a good learner.
She applied for, and today was told that she was awarded, a full scholarship to the Universidad Rafael Landívar, Campus SAN PEDRO CLAVER, S.J. DE LA VERAPAZ.
The scholarship for 6 years will result in a capable and well-trained and experienced individual in plants, forestry, and related aspects. The technical name of the program is Ambiental y Agropecuaria.
We look forward to other student interns at FLAAR to apply for comparable scholarships, and to move forward in their lives to long-lasting and well deserved careers.
Congratuations Senaida.
Senaida Ba attended three printer expos in Europe last year. Here she is at Sign Istanbul in Turkey.
Here is the free FLAAR Report on the last year’s Guadalajara FIL 2016.
The Guadalajara International Book Fair is one of the best in the world, comparable with Frankfurt Book Fair.
Last year Dr Nicholas and graphic designer Lucia Brolo (FLAAR and MayanToons) visited FIL 2016. It was such a great event we are considering to send three to FIL 2017 (Dr Nicholas, Senaida Ba and another of our team of graphic designers for children’s books, www.MayanToons.org).
If you want to see books from publishers in Mexico, Central America, South America, USA, Canada, Europe, Middle East, Korea (and lots more countries) be sure to book a flight to Guadalajara for FIL 2017.
Drawing is by two of our team: university graphic design student Mellany and student intern Maria Josefina, copyright 2016 FLAAR.
The ancient Maya of southern Mexico, Belize, and Guatemala had a turkey species totally different than the North American turkey: the turkey of Guatemala is the ocellated turkey (Meleagris ocellata).
We show here two felines getting ready to have their yummy turkey feast (there are five species of felines in Guatemala: jaguar, puma, jaguarundi, ocelot, and margay).
We hope you enjoy our thanksgiving day bird feast humor. Don’t worry, we do not eat wild ocellated turkeys; they are protected species.
As a student in the 1960’s, most textbooks on the Maya featured maize, beans, and squash in their diet of Mayan foods. Then in 1966 Bronson suggested root crops were crucial to the diet, and several years later Dennis Puleston suggested ramon nuts were equally important.
I have been interested in edible foods of the Mayan people for decades and we now have a list of several hundred edible native food plants of the Mayan people: including edible flowers, edible plant stems, edible leaves, and literally hundreds of edible fruits.
Still, if you enter a Mayan house in a remote area, or if you hike through a milpa in a remote area, what plants to you actually find???
We will continue to work on this project and already have uncovered lots of great information, documented with high resolution photos (we hope you like our photo by Dr Nicholas of the maize, beans and squash that was arranged by Maria Josefina Sequen, one of our helpful Kakchiquel Mayan student interns). She is also an illustrator for www.MayanToons.org.
The bright orange pumpkins popular across USA for family Halloween decoration is a kind of squash.
Several squash were native to the Maya, Teotihuacan and Aztec areas of Mesoamerica (Central Mexico down to Costa Rica). But the pumpkin of today is descended from what grew thousands of years ago across what eventually became the USA.
In Guatemala we study lots of sizes, shapes, and colors of squash which are native to Mexico and Guatemala. But the traditional Halloween squash is the large and orange (and tastes yummy in pie or soup).
Here in Guatemala I love pepitorio, the seeds of one variety of native squash which is grown near Sayaxche, Peten (and other places in Guatemala). Roast & toast on a skillet for a few seconds, and great taste and very healthy also.
We usually don't dress for halloween but this year we decided to use Tim Burton's movies as inspiration for our costumes.
Specimen photographed in Ranchitos del Quetzal, Peten. Photo by Nicholas Hellmuth, Nikon D810 on a Gitzo tripod.
We continue working on improving the lists of Heliconias of Guatemala published by eminent botanists. Not one of these lists is consistent with other lists in other botanical monographs (because the authors were not in each eco-system of Guatemala: we have found two species of wild Heliconia even in the bosque seco parallel to the Rio de los Esclavos).
The Heliconia pictured here is in the impressive garden of Ranchitos del Quetzal, near the Quetzal preserve in Alta Verapaz (directly alongside the main highway towards Coban, CA-14, km 160.5). We photographed this in June and hope to identify its species or variety soon. We also strive to learn whether it is native in nearby areas of Alta Verapaz.
In August Elena Siekavizza was able to identify this as Heliconia adflexa. Then two weeks later Senada Ba spotted the same species up on a hill as we were driving through a remote part of Baja Verapaz. We found out who owned the property and went to ask permission to take photographs; permission was graciously provided.
Heliconia leaves (of other Guatemalan species) are used to wrap tamales. Heliconia leaves of other species are used to thatch Q’eqchi’ Mayan houses in remote areas: we have found two houses thatched with platanillo so far.
It is a challenge to identify atypical heliconia plants since the nice monograph Heliconia an Identification Guide (by Fred Berry and W. John Kress, 1991), is almost three decades out of date. And, as typical of all monographs on Heliconia, is not focused on wild heliconia of Guatemala. Most of the popular books on Heliconia are on garden varieties. Our interest is to encourage growing wild species so their wild DNA can continue.
