Loq’alaj iwonojel (dear all y’all),

Well, it’s been another few weeks and only one week remains of my language program! I can’t believe it’s gone so fast, but here we are a few days from our final exam, and while I still can’t understand everything that’s going on around me, I am able to follow many more conversations, explain basic things to my family, and untangle short stories after a few tries. Of course, the stories have been chosen by our professors because they’re at our level, but the sense of accomplishment after finishing a local folk tale about why all the rivers dried up many years ago is nevertheless quite large. We continue to laugh at ourselves, especially over pronunciation (another student and I spent at least 5 minutes today saying the words “b’aqa tz’i’” (skinny dog) to one of our teachers until she was satisfied that we were getting the q at least close to right), but we spend more time talking with our teachers in K’iche’ than Spanish these days, and, apparently, some of our families have been bragging about how well we speak K’iche’ (that made all of us crack up, but it’s nice to hear nonetheless).

Most days continue to go as I wrote last time, and while they are very full, there really isn’t that much new to report on the Nahuala front. I helped my host family make chuchitos this week and was definitely more successful than my last tortilla attempts. Chuchitos are one of the various Guatemalan forms of tamales and are made with pieces of beef in pepían (a tomato and pumpkin seed sauce), as opposed to tamalitos – the plain masa pillows eaten as an alternative to tortillas – or the chicken filled ones whose name I’ve forgotten. Before we started, my sisters handed me an apron to tie on over my skirt, a very smart first step, though I still managed to get pepían all over myself. Seeing as mom and I make tamales every Christmas, I thought I’d have a better handle on how this process worked, but sadly, my experience served little purpose.

Rather than squishing out a flat bit of masa on a counter, putting filling in the middle, and wrapping the whole thing up with corn husks and string, chuchitos are made by making a larger version of a tortilla (sigh, though my bigger hands helped), placing a single piece of meat and some sauce in the middle, and then quickly folding the circle in half and pinching the edges together. While my tortilla making skills have improved, it was in the folding and not getting sauce everywhere step that I generally failed, resulting in a very messy apron (my host sisters’ remained clean) and chuchitos that often had more sauce on the wrapping than inside. Instead of corn husks, the chuchitos are wrapped in banana leaves or leaves from the corn stalk, folded over many times instead of tied. By my fifth or sixth attempt, I was doing okay, but I probably only made half as many as my sisters and it was definitely possible to tell which chuchitos were mine when we were eating. They all tasted wonderful, but mine were nowhere near as nice to look at. They were still proud of me, though, and the sisters made sure to include me in the “we made a good dinner tonight” comment. As chuchitos aren’t an every day food in my family, it was a special venture overall, and was topped off with chocolate con arroz (hot chocolate with rice), one of my favorite drinks here, making for a wonderful dinner.

Otherwise, I’ve been enjoying my weekend adventures to various parts of the country. After our trip to Xela, I spent the next weekend in Antigua and Guatemala City visiting my friend Amanda, another history PhD student from the University of Chicago. She is beginning to prepare her dissertation proposal and, as always, we had plenty to talk about relating to the history department and our program, and especially to the adventure that is doing historical research in Guatemala. As I have yet to really explore any of the archives here, she was incredibly helpful in orienting me to the basics of how the different places work, how best to approach their curators, and what I might expect to find. As I’ve spent my time in Guatemala thus far surrounded by anthropologists and linguists, it was wonderful to talk to another historian who understands the difficulty of getting at information about the country from before 1960 and who is now going through all the trials and tribulations I’ll be putting myself through in the coming years. We treated ourselves to good food, good showers, and leisurely wanders through Antigua, followed by a slightly less relaxing if perhaps more productive stint in Guatemala City. As we only get Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon free and Nahuala is 3ish hours from either place, I felt rather lucky to get a ride both ways from one of our professors – Sergio - who is originally from Guatemala City and was visiting his parents and doing some work in the city that weekend. Much more comfortable, if slightly less adventurous than taking a chicken bus, the ride also included an obligatory stop for hot chocolate and pie at a place he always always visits on his drive. Well worth it, too.

Last weekend, four of us bummed a ride to Antigua from Sergio (again), and after a nice dinner with another of my friends – Caroline, from Harvard, who is studying Spanish for a few weeks here –, we turned in rather early in order to catch a 4am shuttle to Copán, Honduras. While the shuttle ride was somewhat unpleasant due to the other occupants, more traffic than expected, and numerous delays related to missed bus connections and a too-long breakfast stop at a mediocre resident, we made it to the town of Copán Ruinas by noon. Copán is only 20 minutes or so from the Guatemala-Honduras border, and is one of the better known classical Maya sights, renowned for the incredible quality of its sculpture. Apparently we arrived at the same time as a tropical depression that resulted in torrential rain, but as we only had Saturday to see everything (we had to leave early Sunday in order to get back in time for dinner with our families), we ventured out nonetheless. Us three girls had umbrellas (they only did minimal good), but Derek stuck it out without, at one point resorting to pulling off his t-shirt and wringing it our, as much good as that did. And while us girls had managed to stay damp rather than sopping, our tuk-tuk ride back to the hostel made that irrelevant, and we all looked like we’d just jumped in a swimming pool when we arrived. Hoping to avoid another soaking, we spent the rest of the evening in a restaurant playing Euchre, eating brownies and pasta, and drinking beer.

Copán was worth it, though, as the things that have been uncovered are incredibly beautiful. Luckily for us, the site has as a spectacular museum that contains many of the nicest pieces (originals, and a few replicas) that have been found. Intricate hieroglyphs, wonderful relief sculptures animals – bats, macaws, frogs –, as well as restored facades of buildings complete with representations of kings, queens, scribes, and gods. The detail worked into many of these images is unbelievable and I only hope that the photos I took do it justice. Robin, one of the other students who came, is working on glyphs in school, and Copán especially, and so she was able to elucidate much of what we were looking at much better than any of our guidebooks. The rain let up a bit as we finished the museum, so we headed out into the ruins themselves, only to find ourselves again subject to downpour. Throwing up our hands, we continued on our way, clambering over steep sets of stairs on the sides of partially reconstructed pyramids, splashing through puddles in order to see the dancing jaguars carved into the side of one building, and, according to level of commitment, braving rushing streams to get a better look at stellae.

Another unique feature of Copán are the archeological tunnels that have been stabilized and opened up to the public, allowing people to see the still intact “Rosalia” temple that was found buried under another, more recent construction. Though there’s a guard at the entrance and the whole thing is relatively well lit and carefully blocked off in sections, it still feels pretty adventurous to go running around inside a pyramid, getting a close up look at what archeologists have been working on for the past decades. Because it was so thoroughly and carefully buried inside another building, the temple is very well preserved and little of the detail in the carvings has been worn away by weather and time. It was also, of course, another way to escape from the rain.

This weekend is a class trip to a number of K’iche’ speaking cities, each with its own dialect, and I’ll be sure to write about the experience some time soon. As this coming week will include a number of good bye parties and the like and once the program is over, I’m spending a week trying to get to Tikal and back, seeing the northeast of the country in the process, I’m not sure when I’ll write again. I should be able to post photos at that point, though, and I’ll be sure to send along links if nothing else (I actually don’t have many photos as taking photos of people without their permission is very culturally inappropriate, but my family has okayed some group portraits and I have weekend shots as well). After that, my mom is going to meet me in
Antigua and join me for the rest of my trip northwards, two weeks we plan to spend seeing some of the places she visited many years ago and exploring Chiapas and Oaxaca. I'm so excited that she'll be traveling with me, as it makes the prospect of traveling for another month much
more inviting!

Chab'ej chik (We'll talk soon)!