Sunday is the main market day in Nebaj in Guatamala’s Ixil region. The people’s colourful clothing and goods for sale make the market very photogenic. (Richard McGuire Photo)
Sunday is the main market day in Nebaj, just as it is in some of the other towns in the region.
Several streets were taken over with stalls and stands of sellers of fruits and vegetables, household appliances, and pirated CDs and DVDs.
Markets are great places for people watching, especially the indigenous people who come in from the surrounding villages. Again I took some pictures of the market in action, both candid and posed.
Sunday is also a busy day for the churches, both the main Catholic cathedral and the many Evangelical churches that are scattered throughout the town. Guatemala has a very significant and growing proportion of Evangelicals, in part due to promotion from the United States, and in part because of support from some of the previous dictatorships that were run by Evangelicals.
Towards the end of the market in the afternoon, swarms of stray dogs pick through the garbage feeding themselves. Apparently many of these dogs are actually owned, but people have a different concept of dog ownership here, and the dog is only to guard the house at night — it’s not considered a pet or a member of the family as such. Many of the dogs are, however, strays and the municipality ‘cleans them up’ every now and then by poisoning them.
A young girl buys ice cream sticks from a vendor in the market at Nebaj, Guatemala. (Richard McGuire Photo)
Sunday is the main market day in Nebaj in Guatamala’s Ixil region. The people’s colourful clothing and goods for sale make the market very photogenic. (Richard McGuire Photo)Sunday is the main market day in Nebaj in Guatamala’s Ixil region. The people’s colourful clothing and goods for sale make the market very photogenic. (Richard McGuire Photo)Sunday is the main market day in Nebaj in Guatamala’s Ixil region. The people’s colourful clothing and goods for sale make the market very photogenic. (Richard McGuire Photo)This colourfully dressed old woman was at the market in Nebaj, Guatemala. (Richard McGuire Photo)A woman selling watermelon slices in the market at Nebaj, Guatemala posed for a photo. (Richard McGuire Photo)A young boy sells dried chili peppers at the market in Nebaj, Guatemala. (Richard McGuire Photo)A pack of semi-feral dogs cleans up after the market in Nebaj, Guatemala. Many dogs wander the streets in search of food. (Richard McGuire Photo)The iglesia (church) dominates the Parque Central (main square) of Nebaj, Guatemala. (Richard McGuire Photo)Nebaj, up in the mountains of northern Guatemala, is in the Ixil Triangle, an area populated by the Ixil indigenous people. The area was the scene of a number of massacres of peasants by the Guatemalan army during the civil war of the 1980s. (Richard McGuire Photo)
