Catch-up: October 21st-October 31st

So I got behind in my posts on this blog during the last week of my first two classes and because of limited internet access it has become very difficult to get caught up. So! here is my solution: here is one long post which will incorporate ten days worth of information, October 21st through today October 31st.

Oct. 21st:
I created a large maps so that I could practice for our map quiz on Monday. I also hung out with Leslie, another Casa Herrera student, and I invited myself on her trip with some friends to Monterrico for the weekend. at night I color coded and mapped out my poster map for studying.

Oct. 22nd:
Three people from Casa Herrera, two Icelanders, a Dutch gentleman, and I all took a shuttle and boat to Monterrico, the black sand beaches on the Pacific coast of Guatemala. We stayed in a hostel called Delphin and spent a good amount of the day lounging in hammocks and swimming in the very aggressive ocean. We also visited a turtle sanctuary where they take care of turtle eggs and help the babies get to the ocean. I had a fantastic time enjoying relaxing for the day (other than the trying not to drown part).

Boat ride to Monterrico

Oct. 23rd:
Sunday was our second and last day in Monterrico, and we spent the majority of the day in the water, though I didn't stay in as long as everyone else. We chilled and enjoyed ourselves and I got a bit of a tan! We got back to Antigua around 5, and I headed home to study up for the map quiz in the morning.

Oct. 24th:
Had both classes. Archaeology: map quiz, Olmec-sacred landscape, San Lorenzo, "mother culture" or "sister culture"?, cave paintings in Oxtotitlan, and La Mojarro Stela. Hieroglyphics: the several variations of the name K'inich Janab Pakal. Due to the cruelty of a malicious pie, I got food poisoning before Spanish class and had to spend the evening at my home stay.

Oct. 25th:
Archaeology: Kaminaljuyu- right in the middle of Guatemala City, we discussed the site to prepare for our field trip to the site on Wednesday. We started with Monte Alban, San Jose Magote, and El Baul to get us ready for our discussions of Kaminaljuyu. Hieroglyphics: We discussed the 260-day and 365-day calendar systems in class, but we did not have time to get into discussion of the Long Count Calendar as of yet. 


Oct. 26th:
We went on a field trip to Kaminaljuyu and got a special tour of the site from the archaeologist who is currently working there. We got to go down into some of the tunnels in the temples and we got to go into the lab and look at some of the artifacts that they have from the site. In the afternoon we had Spanish class and took a quiz, which actually was ok... surprisingly.

Kaminaljuyu

Oct. 27th:
Thursday Prof. Stuart left to go back to Austin, so we had our TA Edwin and a grad student working with Edwin named Nick, teach our two classes. Edwin told us about the site that he and Nick are working at, El Zotz, and Nick gave us an intro to the Long Count Calender and did an overview of the glyphs from the sites around and at El Zotz. We also got a tour of the place where they do some of their work and I talked to Nick about working with them. After lunch I spent four hours working with Nick, which was monotonous and wonderful! I had an amazing time and I am so glad I have this opportunity!

Oct. 28th:
On Friday I spent the day getting some chores done around Antigua and also prepared for my birthday present to myself for Saturday. I also worked on research for our first paper in Archaeology on Teotihuacan.

Oct.29th:
My first piece in my Maya Portfolio, Self-Portrait #1, is very important for me and for a long time I have wanted my original figure, whom I call my spirit guide, tattooed on to my leg, and so, here, in the place where it all began, I am getting the tattoo for my birthday, which is also the date 1 Imix in the 260-day calendar, which is a variation on my Mayan name, Naab', both meaning "Waterlily," (my name "Susan" derives from the Hebrew for "Lily"). I got the tattoo on my right leg, corresponding to my right, dominate hand. The tattoo is a terracotta color and looks amazing. I am very satisfied with it at this point in time, though I believe when it is healed I am going to have some details added to bring it closer to the original drawing.

Right back leg

Oct. 30th:
I spent this day finishing up some chores, working on my paper, and attending the completion of my friends tattoo for her birthday which was this day. I didn't stay with her for very long, and I spent the evening working on my paper due on Monday.

Oct. 31st:
Happy Halloween!! Monday classes, and paper due! and this evening is horror movie night at the Casa! We are also celebrating both mine and Annie's birthdays during the break between classes. Spanish this afternoon!

Day Fifty-Five, Antigua

On Thursday the 20th we learned about the "early formative" period in Mesoamerica. The transition of cultures from archaic to formative includes the domestication of crops and a switch from hunter-gatherer communities to agricultural populations. We discussed what was needed to transition people into sedentary groups; there is a conundrum, does agriculture lead to sedentism or does sedentism lead to agriculture? Some of the necessary materials that helped transition the people of Mesoamerica to sedentism were: corn, beans and squash, tools made of stone and obsidian, the invent of ceramics, and jade, all of which would have lead to the separation of "classes" of people; who has it and who doesn't. The development of religion would have influenced the progression of community structures as well, with the furthering of class differentiation taking place as religious figure heads (ex, priests and kings) would come into greater power in the community.
In hieroglyphics class we talked about variation in glyph design and some of the important people in the field of glyph studies. We talked about Morley, Tatiana Proskouriakoff, and Ian Graham.

Day Fifty-Four, Antigua

On Wednesday in archaeology we started in on the details of the history of archaeology. We started with an over view of the "late post-classic" period of Mesoamerica and some of the sites that were up and running during the time of the Spanish conquest: Tulum, Tenochtitlan, Iximche, and a small touch on Nohpeten. During the 1600s Mesoamerica was kind of a no-mans land in regards to archaeological information; no one was building/creating new things, and no one was looking/finding the old things. In 1790 a large monument of the Aztec deity named Coatlicue was found in Mexico city long with the famous "Aztec Calendar Stone" or "Sun Stone." During that time no one alive knew anything about these things and they became quiet famous and people were fascinated by them, so instead of destroying them, like what had happened during and after the conquest, they were set in places of importance. This was the first "archaeology" in Mesoamerica.

In hieroglyphics class we watched the long form version of "Cracking the Maya Code" a fantastic documentary based off of Michael Coe's book about how archaeologist were finally able to decipher Maya script. I have seen the short version of the film several times, but this version had a lot more information and explained things a lot clearer and in more detail. The film was a wonderful introduction to understanding where scholars are in the decipherment and what is happening in that field of research. I would recommend the film to everyone who has even the slightest interest in anything Maya.

After lunch I headed over to Spanish early to go over more of my Spanish workbook and try to get me up to speed with the class. Class was ok, but I am still very behind and very uncomfortable in the class. When I got home I did more work in my workbook and did some more readings, but I am feeling fairly discouraged with the Spanish class as it is going now.

Day Fifty-Three, Antigua

On Tuesday the 18th of October we continued our look at the general history of Mesoamerican Archaeology to prepare us for delving into the details later. We talked about some of the more important sites in Mesoamerica and there influences on other sites. A lot of the first two days was more of a quick review for me, since I have taken classes on this before, and with our first readings in Susan Evans book it is very much an introduction.
In hieroglyphics class we started by comparing iconography and writing systems in Mesoamerica and Prof. Stuart emphasized that, to understand one you really have to study both. We sort of continued our look at the overview of the history of archaeology in this class, because it is all so tied together in these cultures. We looked at Ian Graham in particular, a "crazy English guy" who would go where no one else would in the dense jungles Mesoamerica and photograph the architecture and details of the sculptures, particularly the hieroglyphic scripts. from our discussion of Ian Graham we seguade into his "rediscovery" of El Mirador, and how that has led to the work that is being done there now. What was really very cool was when Prof. Stuart showed us that you can actually see the "super-highway" of El Mirador from Google maps!
At the end of class we did our second decipherment of the hieroglyphics on a sculpture of a dog from Tonina, which say "his dog" to the amusement of the class. But it is important to say that the Maya seemed to love to label all of there possessions, maybe to show status or to keep someone else from using their stuff, everything was labeled, from a bone instrument, to a cup, to a portrait of some mans favorite pet.

View of Antigua from Cerro de la Cruz

After classes I went back to my home stay for lunch. After two weeks of crazy rain storms here in Guatemala, which have done some serious damage to some of the small towns and villages, it was finally a beautiful sunny day outside, so the girls from my home stay and I decided to go hiking up Cerro de la Cruz, a famous lookout spot in Antigua. The hike was maybe 15mins once we got to the other side of Antigua, then we got one of the most beautiful views of Antigua I have yet seen. It was four of us that went up and we had a very good time, laughing and enjoying the weather.
After we cam back down we stopped at a cafe called "Cafe Sky" and sat on the roof deck continuing our view of Antigua; we even saw Fuego erupt/hiccup. After that we walked over to San Francisco and I showed them the church and Hermano Pedro's tomb. We also bought some candles to light at the church: two each, one red for love and one white for family. We had a lovely time and it was nice to finally get out of the house for a little bit.
That evening I continued my Spanish practice in my workbook and continued the readings for both the Casa Herrera classes.

Day Fifty-Two, Antigua

Monday the 17th of October was the first day of our new classes! At 9am we start with the history of Mesoamerican Archaeology, then at 11am we have Hieroglyphic writing, both with Professor David Stuart. I have been looking forward o these classes from the moment I heard about them, so I was pumped for the beginning of class!
In the first class we did a quick hour and a half overview of the history of Archaeology broken down in a very (very!) generalized timeline of Olmec, Maya, Zapotec, Teotihuacan, Mixtec, Toltec, and Mexica (Aztec). As we went over the loose time periods of the different ethnic groups we also got an introduction to some of the names of the archaeologists who work(ed) with these different groups; also a generalized timeline. We also discussed some of the terminology of the time periods and the groups of people.
In hieroglyphics class we looked at a general history of writing systems and the ways that they manifest. There are generally three types of writing systems: logographic (symbols which mean whole words. Ex: Chinese), syllabic (symbols which represent consonant-vowel sounds. Ex: Cherokee), and alphabetic (symbols for consonants and vowels. Ex: English). The interesting thing about Mayan hieroglyphics is that there are both logographic symbols AND syllabic, which made it very hard to decipher for a long time.

My written decipherment

At the end of class we did our first decipherment as a class of the hieroglyphs for "His bone, Holy Tikal Lord" which are incised on the surface of a bone instrument found in Tikal in the 1960s. We are going to do decipherments every class as a group and soon we will also be doing them for homework. We are all suppose to get a new notebook specifically for our hieroglyphic decipherments so that we can keep track of them, so after class I went to the store and got myself a small note book to work in.

After lunch I did some studying for Spanish class, then went there early to have my Spanish teacher go over my workbook and correct the activities I have been doing on my own time in the hopes of bettering my Spanish. Class was difficult again, and I am getting very discouraged, but my work in my work book is getting better and I am hoping it will help me make the final push to comprehending the work in the class better.
I spent time with the girls from my home stay and we are very much enjoying each others company; another girl also arrived and is in the room next to mine. We are all learning Spanish, but I have been doing it the most so I have become the go to person for translating and communicating with our host, Olga, which is also helping my Spanish a lot.

Day Fifty-One, Antigua

Sunday was another relaxing day and I had breakfast at a lovely place called Dona Luisa, a common tourist spot for breakfast. Though it was a calm day it was also the day that two new people arrived in my home stay to actually stay in the house. For a few days it has only been myself and a girl from Canada, but as it happens we are getting new people and changing it up a lot.
I spent the rest of the day working on some new art projects, to be shown in pictures later. I am loving adding color to some of my designs that I have been playing with and these two new pieces are getting much more into exploring the addition of color to certain parts of the pieces. I also worked on my Spanish and talked with Olga for at least an hour in halting Spanish.

Day Fifty, Antigua

On Saturday morning I slept in. This is sort of our winter break between our two mini-semesters, so I took the day to relax and also do some more of my personal art, which I have not have enough time to do in the last two weeks. I spent the day in my home stay, reading, and starting a new segment of my Maya Portfolio; small glyph portraits with the addition of colored pencil. I will have pictures of these new small pieces up here in a few days, they are small but intricate and take a long time to work on. I also spent a good portion of the day working on my Spanish. The day was very relaxed but I also did take some time to go out; I had to buy a new umbrella.

Day Forty-Nine, Antigua

Friday October 14th was originally planned to be the day that we would go to Iximche, a site about 2 hours from Antigua, however, because of rain and landslide conditions, we pushed the trip back to the next week. So instead of going to Iximche, we watched "The Lost King of the Maya" documentary instead. The documentary is about the discovery of the royal lineage of the kings of Copan, and the recreation of the hieroglyphic staircase. For a side note, walking to the Casa was a pain, because the rain was unbelievable and I got soaked through, however, Antigua is not suffering even a fraction as much as some of the outlaying area are.
I spent the morning in the Casa, watching the video, and hanging out with some of the other students. I stayed in the Casa throughout the day, working on this blog and setting up my registration for classes next semester back at MassArt (registration is Monday Oct. 24th). There were some concerns about my registration in regards to this abroad semester, but it all got sorted out via e-mail very quickly (Thank you Lois).
I stayed until 5pm here in Casa until it closed then I went home and worked on more Spanish, listening to the rain as it continued to come down.

Day Forty-Eight, Antigua

Thursday was the big day when we turned in our final projects for both of our classes. At the beginning of history class we turned in our research papers via e-mail, then we presented our creative projects in both our history class and religion class with a short break in between. Everyone took the concept of a creative project about religion and went completely different directions and angles. There were drawings, sculptures, presentations, and even a ceremonial alter design. We spent the entire two class periods going through the presentations for these projects and my presentation of the long count coloring book was the last presentation of the day.
After we finished our presentations and ended our last classes, we all decided to get dinner together with Professor Burnett (and her husband who came to visit) for a goodbye.
Before dinner though, I spent two hours reading "The Order of Days" at Cafe Fernando, then went to PLFM (my language school) to attend a class on how to make kites. In Guatemala there is a tradition of creating elaborate, and sometimes really large, tissue paper kites. I don't have any pictures of them but this site <http://www.travelsinparadise.com/guatemala/kites/index.html> has some lovely pictures to get a sense of the scale of their kite festivals.
I took the class with four people from my group of students and another student from PLFM. Creating the kites was difficult for some of us, but absolutely a wonderful time. I decided to change up the traditional designs and create my own, much to the confusion of the two men who were showing us how to make them. In the end we all really liked our kites and I want to make several more, more complex and much larger. I am also planning on going to the kite festival in Sacatepequez on November 1st.

After we finished up our kite making lesson, we all headed over to Casa to meet up and walk over to the restaurant for dinner. Everyone ended up showing up for the evening and we overwhelmed the little restaurant, but had a wonderful time. It was bittersweet, but we were all laughing and having a wonderful time by the end of the evening.

The whole group out to dinner,
going off into the distance!

   

Day Forty-Seven, Antigua

On Wednesday it was a holiday in Guatemala, so we did not have classes. I used this day to work on my creative project in Casa. Another student, Annie, also spent the day working on her creative project in the studio room of Casa, and we spent the morning and afternoon talking and working together. I managed to finish the aspects of this project that I wanted to complete for the end of this class, and even made photocopies of the pages to give to my professor as a preview of the final piece.
In the afternoon, at 3pm, I had Spanish class, and though I had been studying quite a lot throughout the week, I was still very behind in the class and we continued the program which added more information to what we need to know and be able to utilize. I am starting to work with the teacher outside of class time to try and better my Spanish.

Day Forty-Six, Antigua

On Tuesday I spent another full day working in CIRMA on my research paper. I continued to mainly use the dissertation I found the day before, but I also found an online resource which proved to be a little helpful. Most sources are on the NGO programs in Guatemala and not the public educational systems, so finding information I can use immediately (so something not in Spanish) is very difficult. Even the Spanish books are hard to come by and my pile of resources was rather diminutive. The online source was : Willford, Miriam. "The Educational Reforms of Dr. Mariano Galvez." Journal of Inter-American Studies, Vol.10, No.3, July 1968: 461-473.
Miraculously, though it is different than what I originally intended, I managed to finish the paper by the time CIRMA closed at 5pm on Tuesday. I spent another night working in my Spanish book.

Day Forty-Five, Antigua

Monday October 10th I was found in CIRMA from 9am to 5pm with just a short lunch period in the middle. I spent the day looking through several books with the exact information that I needed for my research paper, unfortunately solely in Spanish. With two Spanish-English dictionaries and a notebook, I spent the day trying to translate what I would need for my paper due on Thursday.
Near 3pm I found another book in CIRMA, this one a dissertation written for the University of Miami. This source has become the main resource for my paper. Hernandez, Roberto E. Public Education and University Reforms in Guatemala, 1831-1920. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1979.
I spent the whole day working on this paper, then went back to my home stay to continue working in my Spanish book.

Day Forty-Four, Antigua

On Sunday, Casa Herrera and CIRMA (where I was collecting information for my research paper) was closed, so I spent the day working on my Spanish. I have a workbook and a book called "Breaking Out of Beginners Spanish." I am trying to really focus on learning Spanish, and so I am taking it more into my own hands to learn as much as I can in a different way then the Spanish classes have been taking thus far. The workbook is a two year work book, and though I worked my way through the first section of the book, it is a real challenge for me, showing me that I am going to need to do much more work to get my Spanish to a working level.

Day Forty-Three, Antigua

On Saturday, Mily opened Casa Herrera for all of us to be able to work on our projects due in the next week. We had two projects due, the Creative Project and the Research Paper. I spent all day Saturday at the Casa working on my Creative Project, the Long Count Coloring book. Several other students also spent the day at the Casa working. I also spent a good amount of time talking to the people in my home stay.
I also started reading Prof. Stuarts book "The Order of Days" in order to better understand the long count system and its relationship to the culture of the Maya and the other two calendrical systems. I highly recommend the book to anyone with even a moderate interest in Maya studies.    

Day Forty-Two, Antigua

People of Maize 

On Friday, October 7th, we all got up early and headed out to Comalapa, a town outside of Antigua. In Comalapa we met with a Maya priest/shaman who showed us to where he performs rituals and keeps the count of ceremonial days. We took part in a ritual to bless our group and some of the students even took a greater part in the performance. Somethings were very intense for some of the students, so the whole experience was worth while.
After we left the shamans house we were given a tour of the Comalapa murals which depict the history of Guatemala, the good but mostly the bad and the struggles. The murals are very long and tell a story that is very sad and powerful. As an artist, the murals really spoke to me about the power of history on the contemporary Maya, and how the history of this country is still very prominent in the mind of the modern Maya people. I took pictures of all the sections of the mural, but I am only going to show a few of them here in this setting, to put into a visual context some of the things I have already mentioned in this blog.

Beginning of the Spanish Conquest

Beginning of the Rebel resistances and the times of violence 

The 1976 Earthquake 

La Violencia; The escalation of violence

Guatemalan Flag manipulated by the violence 

A new beginning with the introduction of the Peace Accords in 1996

Day Forty-One, Antigua

Lesley Lopez

On the last class day of the week we presented projects in both classes. In history we presented our map projects hung up in another room here in Casa Herrera. Everyone did something completely different and the presentations on the topics were fascinating. We ended up talking far too long, and going over our regular break time, so we jumped right into our presentations for religion class. We finished up our presentations in religion, and I was the last person to present. Both of my finished projects are in the links on the right hand side.
Attached to this post are three examples of some of the projects that were created for this class.

For the rest of the day I worked on Spanish and also continued work on my creative project due next week.

Ian Payne 

Casey Smith

Day Forty, Antigua

On Wednesday the fifth of October our Participant Observation Projects were due in our religion class, but we had regular class in history. So, in history we started with the 1982 military coup which put Efrain Rios Montt in the position of Chief-Of-State in Guatemala for a little over a year. It was during this short period of time that "La Violencia" was at its absolute peek with the most deaths and disappearances in the whole time of the Civil War. In the major cities, Montt stopped a lot of the violence that had the middle and upper classes afraid, and so for those people they thought Montt was a leader that was protecting the people, but in the rural areas "fusiles y frijoles" led to the deaths of thousands of civilian Maya people. In yet another coup in 1983, Montt was replaced by Gen. Oscar Mejia Victores, and a gradual transition to democracy started to take place. 1990 saw the beginning of the Peace Accords and by 1996 the civil war officially ended with the implementation of the accords. It was in 1998-99 that the truth commissions started and the realities of the civil war started to become apparent, something that is still happening today.

In religion we stated presenting our Participant Observation projects, each taking a different and unique look at religion and how we have all interacted with it here in Guatemala. The presentations went from experiences at Comalapa to new experiences at Evangelical churches here to Catholic mass, we all presented vastly different, wonderfully intriguing projects.

In Spanish, we had our second exam, and unfortunately we are all having a lot of trouble, so we are going to try to find a way to make the courses and our Spanish practice function better during the second half of the semester. I in particular am sick of not being able to retain the information that we are getting, so I went to a book store in the center of Antigua and bought a Spanish Two Year Workbook and a book entitled "Breaking out of Beginners Spanish" in the hopes that by doing the activities and having a more concentrated focus on Spanish outside of my two Spanish classes a week, I will be able to retain and utilize Spanish more easily and fluently. I spent several hours working in the workbook and trying memorize a few verbs. So far so good!  

Day Thirty-Nine, Antigua

I am not going to talk much about this day. We went on a very powerful field trip, and I would prefer to not talk about it in this setting. Suffice to say, it was a very interesting day, very informative, and relevant to our history and religion classes.
We did also have lunch together and had very interesting conversations as a group discussing our pasts. We are all becoming very close, and we are all starting to feel sad that the first half of this semester abroad experience is coming to an end.

Day Thirty-Eight, Antigua

On Monday, after our return from Lake Atitlan and the Chichi market, we were back to our regular classes. In history we started looking at the time of "La Violencia" from about 1978-1983 and beyond. It can be said that the catalyst for the eruption of violence that took place during this time was the 1976 earthquake which devastated Guatemala. The epicenter was Chimaltenango, which is near Antigua, and the effect of the earthquake cause so much shock and despair that people continued to die weeks later simply from the shock. This threw all of the political and economic problems into high relief and led to the re-formation of guerrilla groups including the EGP and ORPA. The Panzos Massacre of 1978 was the first modern massacre in the war and was the beginning of the escalating violence, which developed into the 1980 burning of the Spanish Embassy, a drastic increase in assassinations and political killings and the development of large scale massacres in rural areas.
Religion class was a little different than normal, our TA, Stephan, did his presentation that he has been preparing for presenting to UT as part of his dissertation. The presentation was on Protestantism in Guatemala, and how it has effected the country in the past and continues to effect it in contemporary times. We all got to bombard him with questions at the end as though we were professors at UT, but in all the presentation was very well done, and informative for us all.
In the evening we had our Spanish class during which time we prepared for our second exam on Wednesday.
At my home stay I some wonderful discussions with the others staying here and they are a great group to talk with about political and social issues here in Guatemala. Hearing about their days and practicing Spanish with them has become an important part of my day; I talk more about this in my journals on the right hand side of this blog.

Day Thirty-Seven, Antigua

Milady, Casey, and Annie sitting at breakfast

On Sunday morning we all ate a lovely breakfast right on the lake! It was a beautiful morning and we were all relaxed from our time off from class and work. At 8:30am we piled into the bus and headed over to Chichicastenango for the day. Chichi has a famous market and we also visited two religious sites, one a church and the other a Maya ceremonial site.
We all talked about our evenings and relaxed on the bus. We had to backtrack to get to Chichi and it took about an hour, hour and a half. The road to Chichi is extremely windy and wraps around mountains, going up and down. The bus ride was slightly frightening but also exhilarating.

Chichi Market, from the steps of the Catholic Church

When we got to Chichi we walked through the market to the Catholic Church. The market was crowded and crazy. I had left my bag in the bus and only had what I needed in my front pockets. The church was in the middle of mass when we got there so we went to the second site we were visiting, first. The site that we went to was on the top of a hill passed a small museum/house. The trek up the hill wasn't too bad and on the way we saw another smaller alter where the Maya shamans perform some rituals.
On the top of the hill is where larger more in depth rituals are performed and when we got there we got to see the tail end of a ritual being performed by a cofradie.

Maya rituals on a sacred hill top in Chichi

The ritual required fire, alcohol and the sacrifice of food (breads in particular) for the gods. We watched the cofradie and our tour guide explained some of what was going on. It was fascinating, after seeing Maximon the day before and the rituals preformed for him in a little shed like building, to see rituals performed outdoors in the open air. There were also animals that wandered the ritual site and added a layer of interaction that was unexpected but interesting to see; there were two doves, bees, and dogs.

The Cofradias changing of the saints
in the Catholic Church

After we stayed on the hill for a while we went back to the catholic church. In a wonderful coincidence we showed up at the church right as a cofradia procession started underway. As we learned afterwards, the Catholic church in Chichi has become more of a mixed religion building, both for Catholic prayer, mass, and worship and the worship of Maya religions and the performance of Maya worship. Because of this, the Maya cofradias in Chichi use the Catholic church for their worship and rituals one of which we were lucky enough to witness before going into the church.
Inside the church there are alters for both Catholic prayer at the front of the church and alters all along the aisle for ritual worship in the Maya religions. The building has become an intriguing juxtaposition of Maya ritual and Catholic worship. We spent some time in the church talking and watching, but there were still many rituals being performed so we left after a short time.

The Bustle of the Chichi market

Out side we all split off and had a good hour to do some shopping in the Chichi market and experience the atmosphere. I managed to get lost for a short time in the hustle and bustle, but the experience was wonderful. I purchased a bag and a pair of earrings for very little money and ended up purchasing a bookmark from a VERY persistent young girl whom I had a funny conversation with in Spanish.
When we left the Chichi market we went straight back to Antigua and were dropped off at the Casa. We each went back to our home stays to rest for classes on Monday.

Day Thirty-Six, Antigua (Continued)

View of the lake from lunch

After we went to the Catholic church at Santiago Atitlan, we went to visit the cofadia which watches over Maximón, the modern mix of the Maya deity Mam and the Catholic Saint Simon. Back in March I had visited Maximón with my group from MassArt, and had given him Q10 and a scarf. This time around I asked for the cofradies to pray to Maximón on my behalf; as my participant observation project. I wont talk about the experience here in this post, because I am going to have may paper and part of my presentation up on my Participant Observation Page on the right hand side of this blog by the end of this week.

Enjoying the view from the front of the boat:
Issac, David, and Elise

After we visited Maximón we went back to our boats, went about a minute to the right and got off for lunch. The view from the restaurant of the lake was beautiful. We stayed there for a while, walking through the gardens, and stretching our legs.
We left the restaurant and headed back to our hotel. The final boat ride was the best of them all; we all sat in the front of the boat and enjoyed the view, wind, and even the drizzle.
When we got back to the hotel we all got our luggage and put them in our new rooms. We were also given complimentary fruit drinks from the hotel to toast our official arrival.

Dinner at Sunset cafe with Professor Burnett,
Irina, and Lesley

After we all got settled in our rooms we split off into groups; one went swimming, one hung out in the hotel, and one went out to the market. I went to the market with the Professor, Lesley, and Irina. We walked to the street in a drizzle, talking about our travels, classes, and plans for next semester. We walked around the market, looking at wares and getting ideas for shopping at Chichicastenango the next day. We also grabbed dinner at the Sunset Cafe, the same place I had dinner back in March. There was live music, two Gallo girls in red body suits, and we watched the rain come down in sheets.
After we finished dinner we took a tuc-tuc home and I went off to study Spanish before I went to bed for the night.

Day Thirty-Six, Antigua

Lago Atitlan

At 7am Saturday morning, Casa Herrera students piled on a bus and drove the three hours to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan for the weekend. Our bus ride was very fun; winding roads, bumps and groves, and landslides covering roads. We passed through several towns and cities on the way, one of which is Chimaltenango, which had been the epicenter of the 1976 earthquake and where our TA was born and raised.

View of Lago Atitlan from our hotel

We arrived at Lake Atitlan and took some pictures from a high point with a beautiful view for a few minutes then headed off to the hotel we were staying at for the night. On the road winding around the lake we passed the city where I had done a one night home stay back in March and I pointed it out to the other students and the professor. I will be returning to this town at a later point during this trip to give the family I stayed with a photo album with pictures from our time together in March.We stopped at our hotel, which is right on the lake, dropped off our bags, and met with the six students who had come to the lake early.

Our boat at the hotel's dock

After a brief reunion, we all piled into two boats at the hotel's dock to head off to San Juan la Laguna and Santiago Atitlan. On my boat there was several students and our TA from Guatemala, whose nickname is Pollo. The driver of our boat was a young boy who claimed to be 13 years old, but was probably younger, and an older man who was mostly on the roof of our little boat on the way across the lake, and we were pretty convinced he was going to fall off of the boat at some point. The boat ride was fast and wonderful, and we all enjoyed zipping across the water from one end of the lake to the other.

Our "13-year-old" boat driver

The "Sleeping Prince"

We arrived at San Juan la Laguna first, and walked up a very steep hill to the town. Our first trip there was to a new church being built in the town to redo an older church that was damaged. We also got a good view of the "Sleeping Prince" mountain range that is shaped like an ancient Maya profile.

Woman's Weaving Cooperative

We then went to a small woman's weaving cooperative and got an introduction to their process of dyeing and weaving their wares.
After we left the woman's weaving cooperative we went to a natural medicine shop, where we were introduced to the gardens and all of the different plants with healing abilities. We were able to pick and look at all plants and shopped at their small home for some of the things they create with the plants from the garden.

View from the front of the boat

We walked back to our boats and headed around the bend to the city Santiago Atitlan. On this boat ride we all started really enjoying ourselves and we started to the climb around the boat, particularly the front, to get the best view.
When we arrived in Santiago Atitlan we went first to a Catholic church and then went to visit Maximon.

Christ Cross at the Catholic Church 

At the Catholic church we looked around at the saints who the people of Guatemala dress in clothing to keep them warm, and we looked at the Christ cross which was also dressed in bright clothing to keep him warm.

Day Thirty-Five, Antigua

Friday started out slow. I had no classes and no major plans for the day, so I stayed in my studio space at Casa Herrera working on updating information online (ie, this blog) and continuing my work on my coloring book. I got several pages completed for the coloring book and have them up on the right hand side to view. The book is going much faster than I thought it would, because it isn't as detailed as my usual work, so I am hoping to get more pages finished than I originally thought. I stayed at my studio working throughout the morning, and worked on my map in the afternoon, trying to get as much work completed as possible for next week.
At dinner, we had two more people staying at the house. Scott and John are missionaries who have worked in Guatemala off and on for a few years at different volunteer sites. We had a long talk at the table about what they have done in the area and what they think about Guatemala. We talked about some difficult issues, including orphanages, hospitals, and poor family dynamics which define a terrible cycle of neglect, abuse, and poverty. We also talked about a documentary that the two men saw premiered last year here in Guatemala, a copy of which they have lent to me to view with the rest of the Casa Herrera students.
That night I packed up for our weekend at Lago Atitlan, Chichicastenango, and some of the religious buildings at those places.