City Tour: The National Palace

Today we took a break from the office orientation and toured the city. We visited the National Palace and Catholic Church, Central Market, the city cemetery, and the city dump.

Driving through the city. 

Pink storefront.

It was fascinating to see a woman dressed in traditional clothing, carrying her baby and on a cell phone, standing on the front steps to the National Palace (Catholic church in the background).

I had to snap the picture without her noticing so the lighting is not great.

The National Palace was completed in 1943 after 4 years of using prisoners and local indigenous people forced to work by a law that accused them of being lazy. Behind such governmental grandeur is pain, labor, and hardship. 

The large room where dignitaries are usually received. The rooms are covered in decorations of 12 or 24 karat gold. The star in the middle of the floor marks the center of Guatemala and is where all road distances are measured from (known as Zero Kilometer). Our tourist guide let us go behind the roped off area one at a time to take a picture.

This statue is located in the Peace Patio, where the peace accords were signed in 1996 to end a 36-year civil war. The rose used to be replaced daily in a ceremony that signified 24 more hours of peace in Guatemala. Now it is replaced by VIPs less often. The two left hands represent the guerrillas and the military who were fighting. 

With the current Guatemala Rep.

I was drawn to the connected hands on the statue.

Apparently the president during construction had a special like for the number 5, so everything was built in fives. (This is the Peace Patio where the statue is).

The 12 columns in front of the Catholic Church list the names of thousands of people murdered or who forcibly disappeared (40,000-50,000 "disappeared") in what is now recognized as genocide during the civil war. 

After touring the National Palace we visited the Central Market, the cemetery, and the city dump. Stay tuned for more pictures.