Post-Pictures

I thought I'd post some picture for those still listening, now that I have my camera cord available.

Antigua
(first one from right outside our door)





this is pretty much your typical Antigua cafe:


(note the volcano on the far left -half covered in a cloud - smoking! This was the day after the 6.7-on-the-richter-scale earthquake)


From the big cross on the hill overlooking Antigua



(that's me)


The view from our room at the house where we lived (Spanish colonial architecture, with a patio in the middle)


Lake Atitlán (on the way to Chichicastenango)


woman in the market at Chichi with a chicken on her lap


Mayan Ceremony
(ajq'ij, or Shaman or "Daykeeper" to the right)



Various tropical birds





When we were going to the beach, we had to cross a river, this is how we crossed it. On these crazy one-car boat things.


The Monterrico beach





Women weaving the day we went on a fieldtrip to Xenacoj. The guy in the hat is my instructor from the first two weeks.



Me and my teacher from the first two weeks (he happened to be wearing traditional dress this day):


My teacher from the second two weeks (you can see her huipil and skirt here)


Goodbye, Guate...
taken from the airport runway, this picture is very much "Guatemala" in my mind


I love how you can see that little hill poking up through the clouds on the left

xk'is

Wakami janila yib'sion roma chwaq xkib'e pa jotöl. Ronojel ri ik' kan wawe' pa Iximulew yalan xikikot roma xe'inwetamaj k'ïy winaqi' ütz kina'oj, yalan kikokem. Chuqa' ütz nintz'ët ri Iximulew chuqa' ronojel ri iximulew winaqi', ronojel ri mayab' winaqi', chuqa' yalan katzinel xinwetamaj jun chïk k'aslem, kichin ri mayab' winaqi'. Kisamaj ri mayab' winaqi' yalan katzinel, rïn yikikot roma rije' ek'o ütz kina'oj, ütz kik'ux. Rïn yikikot roma xikoje' wawe' kik'in ronojel ri iximulew winaqi' chuqa' wachijil, chuqa' ninwajo' yib'e jun b'ey chïk pa jun juna'.

I'm sad today because tomorrow I leave for the US. My month here in Guatemala has been a happy one because I've met many kind people who have great ideas. I like Guatemala and the people, and I've enjoyed learning about another culture, that of the Maya. The work that many people are doing here is very important, so that makes me happy because they have good ideas and good hearts. I'm happy to have been here among the Guatemalan people and with Terry, and I hope to come back again a year from now.

Today was my last day of class. It was a fun class... we learned animals, so all the instructors had to act out different animals, and it was hysterical. My teacher from the first two weeks had to be a dog, and he crawled around barking, and then he went over to someone, lifted his leg, and pretended to pee on them!! I seriously about died laughing.

The cultural differences evident through the teaching have actually been pretty interesting. One day, we were learning transitive verbs (verbs that have an object), and they included "kiss" and "hug" to teach us. The way this pedagogical approach works is that people act things out, using only the target language. So they told people to kiss other people, hug other people, push other people, etc. It was all quite funny because people were dramatic and funny about it, but you would NEVER be able to do anything like that in the US. Another day we were learning words to describe things, like soft, tall, short, fat, and thin. Then they'd have people describe someone else, or have them pick out four "fat" people from the class. This was all actually quite funny, too, because people were dramatic and good-spirited, but man, can you imagine that in a US classroom? No way. (We later learned that, culturally, being "fat" or "medium" was a lot better than being "thin"... the opposite of US culture).

I actually got to know a lot of the students and teachers in the Tulane program, and I really liked everyone. So it was sad to say goodbye. I didn't really expect that when I came down here, since I didn't know I would be with a group. It's nice to know other people with related interests, and this is why things like Facebook and MySpace are infinitely useful.

I also made a good connection with one of the teachers who's written books on Mayan spirituality, and I hope we can stay in contact. I know OSU is trying to establish some sort of program for our students to learn Mayan languages, and at least 3 (very good) instructors here would be interested in working on something like that. So when I get back to Columbus hopefully I can see what's possible there, if anything.

Mayan languages

Yesterday I went with the Tulaneys to a neighboring town of Antigua, called San Antonio Aguas Calientes (aka Meq'ën Ya' in Kaqchikel) to have pepián chicken, which is a traditional guatemalan dish. We ate in the store of a weaving cooperative, which I think are actually pretty common in Guatemala. Woman usually have to stay home to take care of their families, but they want to contribute economically and aren't able to. So since most of them weave, often they start cooperatives where they can weave things and sell them to make a profit to help support their families. It's always a great thing to see in my opinion, because it builds on the idea of the community, highlights women's contribution to that community, helps preserve a valuable part of the culture (weaving), and allows families to earn a little more money.

Today we had a discussion about languages and a little bit about the culture here in Guatemala. It's interesting because in the Tulane program there's an armada of teachers (14), so there are a lot of perspectives to hear. So for example, we talked about how there are 22 Mayan languages in Guatemala. Certain people have proposed that historically, a country that has more than one language is by definition "underdeveloped." So we discussed whether or not that's an accurate assessment in the case of Guatemala. I have an issue with the above assertion because the idea that the preservation of Mayan traditions has prevented the development of Guatemala has been used for a long time in order to justify the oppression of the Maya. Nowadays, most people agree that it's important to preserve Mayan culture, but the question is how do you achieve political representation for the Maya in a state that is totally multicultural WITHOUT assimilating, acculturating, or devaluing the indigenous. It's a very, very difficult and hairy topic, because there are so many problems, but there is no clear solution.

Here is a map of the Mayan languages and their respective regions in Guatemala. I think this map is missing one of them (one was just established recently):


Kaqchikel-wise, we've talked about some things that I've never learned formally and had been wondering about, so that made me really happy. I had also asked my teacher to explain reflexive verbs to me, but she wasn't sure she could. So she asked Judie if she would instead, and she did and made it crystal clear. So having the armada of teachers available has definitely been beneficial.

I already feel like my time in Guatemala is coming to an end, and I'm sad about it. I've been thinking that maybe next year what I'll do is do the Tulane class, and then have 2 additional weeks of private instruction. That way I get all the contacts through this class, but I still get the more intense practice from 2 weeks of study. Now the problem is... funding (this is why we have FLAS).

Monterrico

We just got back from spending the weeekend in Monterrico, at the beach. Let me tell you... it was HOT. Like, human-beings-cannot-survive-in-this hot. Too hot to do anything but jump in the pool and sleep in a hammock hot. Or keep as still as you possibly can while reading your book, because otherwise you start to sweat like mad hot.

But according to the owners of our hotel, who have lived there for about 8 years, it was the hottest day and night the whole time they'd been living there. It hadn't been raining all week like it usually does, so the night was almost as hot as the day. I went to bed early because it was too hot to do anything else, and I got up early because the sun was up and it was way to hot to stay in bed.

The beach was pretty impressive, but you can't swim in the ocean because it has massive undertow. They were the most threatening waves I've ever seen... but it was sort of raw and beautiful and mysterious because of that. (It's the Pacific Ocean, on Guatemala's southern coast). We were across the street from the ocean (and I use the term "street" here very liberally), so all night you could hear the ocean, and it was so powerful that it sounded like thunder.

Quasi-funny story... the first day there I went down to the town to buy some beach towels, and after buying bug repellant and water from a sparsely populated general store, I emerged to see a giant pig walking down the street. Yes, a 2-foot-tall pig. It didn't seem to belong to anyone nearby, and it was just walking along in the heat. Just me and the pig. It was pretty funny... I wished I'd had a camera.

All in all, it was probably one of the most relaxing mini-vacations I've ever had, because it was probably the least I've ever done. Ever. In my entire life. Seriously, it was too hot to do anything besides jump in the pool (and I don't really like pools typically, but I was in that thing within 2 hours of arrival) and fall asleep in the hammock under the coconut trees. We planned and did absolutely nothing other than watch the sunset on the beach and eat. I studied a little bit on Saturday night before going to bed, but since it involved writing and that brought on profuse sweating, I opted to change to reading a book, which apparently (I never would have thought about this before) requires much less body movement than writing.

So although the weekend "vacay" was quite relaxing, it was nice to get back to Antigua today... this place is so familiar to us now. I actually recognize people around town every now and then (the bartender from Reilley's, a teacher from the PLFM). AND, it's much cooler, since it's in the highlands.

(FYI, I didn't bring my camera cable with us since I knew I'd be using cafes, so none of the pics I post here are mine. Later I'll post the ones I took. The waves in the above picture are nowhere near as threatening as they were when we were there.)