Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships. Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include * customs, values, and traditions * historical, religious, and political background * life at home * leisure, social, and cultural life * eating and drinking * do's, don'ts, and taboos * business practices * communication, spoken and unspoken

The largest and most populous Central American country, Guatemala is a land of contrasts and contradictions. It offers great physical beauty alongside ancient Mayan ruins and a conglomeration of diverse peoples and cultures. It is also unique in Central America in that more than half its population is of Mayan Indian origin. Today the country reflects a combination of ancient Mayan heritage, Spanish colonialism, and modern Western influences, mainly from the United States.Culture Smart! Guatemala introduces you to the complexities of Guatemalan society and shows how history has shaped the values and attitudes you will encounter. It describes different aspects of Guatemalan life, from festivals and cuisine to socializing and doing business. This new and updated edition provides key insights into the minds and hearts of Guatemalans today and offers practical advice on how to make the most of your time while being a savvy and considerate guest.

Guatemala is considered the land of eternal spring. Tropical rain forests, mountainous highlands, bubbling volcanoes, black lava sand beaches, fresh fruits and strange smells - this illustrated book shows the fascinatingly colourful facets of the country and gives insights into another world.

During the height of the Guatemalan civil war, Tomás Guzaro, a Mayan evangelical pastor, led more than two hundred fellow Mayas out of guerrilla-controlled Ixil territory and into the relative safety of the government army's hands. This exodus was one of the factors that caused the guerrillas to lose their grip on the Ixil, thus hastening the return of peace to the area. In Escaping the Fire, Guzaro relates the hardships common to most Mayas and the resulting unrest that opened the door to civil war. He details the Guatemalan army's atrocities while also describing the Guerrilla Army of the Poor's rise to power in Ixil country, which resulted in limited religious freedom, murdered church leaders, and threatened congregations. His story climaxes with the harrowing vision that induced him to guide his people out of their war-torn homeland. Guzaro also provides an intimate look at his spiritual pilgrimage through all three of Guatemala's main religions. The son of a Mayan priest, formerly a leader in the Catholic Church, and finally a convert to Protestantism, Guzaro, in detailing his religious life, offers insight into the widespread shift toward Protestantism in Latin America over the past four decades. Riveting and highly personal, Escaping the Fire ultimately provides a counterpoint to the usual interpretation of indigenous agency during the Guatemalan civil war by documenting the little-studied experiences of Protestants living in guerrilla-held territory.

Learn about the people of Guatemala and their culture.

Anthropologists and historians examine how postwar violence in Guatemala City is reconfiguring urban space, transforming the relationship between city and country, and exacerbating structures of inequality and ethnic discrimination.