NYMPHS IN THE PARANYMPH

It is always a pleasant surprise to find, in the midst of noisy downtown Guatemala, quaint and quiet enclaves of "Old Europe," most dating to Fin de Siécle France (1890s). The autocrats of that era in Guatemala were ardent francophiles, and while striving to impose Liberal (as in free market) policies in the 19th Century, they combined it with lots of pretty Frenchified urban planning.

They also seem to have had a penchant for statues of nubile women. I keep finding them everywhere in these historic places, with their heads sweetly cocked to the side: I've left my neck vulnerable to attack! That means that I am tame and submissive, they seem to be saying. I guess they are nymphs.

The gardens are very cool, though, and at El Paraninfo all the buildings, which are beautiful (designed by an architect imported from Italy), are nested among lovely gardens and ancient old trees. It is open to the general public, yet few visit the gardens because they don't know about them or if they do--get this--they avoid them because they are supposed to be haunted.

The rumor may exist because not only are the buildings very old, but one used to be a morgue for students to perform autopsies. BTW, the meaning of the term paranymph, according to a googled definition, is a term "generalized to refer to attendants of doctoral students."

El Paraninfo is comprised of several buildings that were the old school of medicine, which today house the university's Cultural Center. One section is cultural center (concerts, art exhibits, plays), another a branch of the art school, and another a branch of the School of Dentistry of Universidad San Carlos.

Don't ask me why combine dentistry with art school. I don't know. In Guatemalan logic, perhaps it makes sense. Or not. Things don't have to make any real sense here.

Built in 1890, El Paraninfo has a beautiful main building with theaters, music rooms, amphitheaters and an awesome staircase of the wide and curving type (above and below). The type of stairs that make you want to walk down regally, swaying wide crinolines, one hand delicately holding a rose to your nostrils, the other hand gliding over the balustrade ...

Place is full of art students, too.

I like these art students, many are the most "avant garde" type of young people I have seen in Guatemala yet. You know the type, weird punk haircuts, purple hair, piercings, cool artsy clothes. Such looks may be a mainstay of universities back home in the U.S. but Guatemala is tremendously conservative fashion-wise. Thus, to see some students break the mold a bit is certainly refreshing.

More visuals of the staircase which, oh yeah, I almost forgot, is also haunted. The lore is such, that the students, as a joke I guess, created a human-sized figure of Death hanging over the staircase (see below).

The balustrade balcony hangs over the one in the photo below, so at all points you pretty much face the death mannequin, or whatever you want to call it. I love it.

See photo below: Top of the staircase and across, at the very end, outlined all in black against the window, you still see the skeleton. It is dressed in graduation robes.

A lot of the classrooms open onto exterior hallways on the first and second floors. These are soooo like Southern plantations in Georgia and Louisiana. Something about the building's design makes it always much cooler than the outside, even in the most intense summer heat.

Note that the glass on the doorways is also antique. Did I tell you that the building houses a student-managed TV station? It is full of quirky little surprises like that.

Above is one of the first floor open galleries and below, a photo of the second floor. Mind you, there are more of these loooong hallways, the place is really very big.

Anyhow, I went by today to register for anatomical sketching classes. The University of San Carlos School of Art classes are more expensive but less crowded than at the Municipal School of Art, another palatial building where I also take sketching classes.

This is my post-dissertation vacation of the mind and soul. It entails, basically, going to art schools in beautiful old buildings. Real life will catch up with me soon and I guess I will have to return to a life of academia. That will be sometime after January but for now, I plan to haunt these buildings, like the alleged ghosts, take art classes and ...

... dig into old historical archives close by just for the pleasure of finding out stuff that may, some day, become a very interesting article or book.

Of course, helping manage The Inn comes into play, but that is fun too, especially all the fantastically interesting people one is always meeting. Tonight, for example, went to dinner with guests, a German-Persian couple who happen to be historians and have become our friends. Fascinating conversation. Lovely people. Good pizza. Cold beer.

The photo above is one of the classrooms with its original furniture,"auditorium" style but the size of the desks reflect the size of the students back in the day, so the spaces are kind of narrow, yet the wood is old and lovely. It has that great "old wood" smell.

Photo below is of one of the building's windows, handsome young student and all. And so, life goes on its way, taking us inexorably along ...

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