Month: June 2018

I have been back home for a day now and it feels so strange to be back to “normal” life. I had so many amazing experiences while in Guatemala and Belize, especially during the past few days in Caye Caulker!

However my favorite experiences were the ones I shared with the people I met along the way. I loved eating meals with my homestay family and getting to know them over delicious, homecooked food. Doña Lucky and Don Jose are some of the kindest and most loving people I’ve ever had the pleasure to meet.

I loved meeting the guides and locals throughout the trip. It was incredibly powerful to learn about the work of the women at the Casa Flor Ixcaco and San Antonio Village co-ops. They are all dedicated and knowledgeable about the work they do, from dyeing thread to making tortillas! It was also incredibly meaningful to learn about stories or traditions I would have otherwise never have known, such as how the Civil War affected the town of Santiago Atitlan as well as all of Guatemala. It is very humbling to hear about the lives of people from another place/culture and I am very grateful to all of them for being willing to share their stories with us

This was my last class as a UT student and it was the perfect end to my undergraduate career. I encourage everyone, including graduating seniors, to study abroad! I know I will look back at my time in Guatemala and Belize with profound happiness. I am so glad I’ll be able to start life as a Texas Ex with more understanding and empathy towards the people and world around me.

Well, in my first blog post I wrote about being nervous and not knowing what to expect from my first time living in another country, and that insecurity quickly grew into an admiration and respect for the country of Guatemala and later Belize.

Our trip was filled with amazing, unique experiences and lessons we couldn’t have done or seen anywhere else. Before this, I have to admit, I never knew anything about either of these countries, their people, heritage, or culture, but I am so grateful to be able to have educated myself and learn about them first-hand. The Maya culture was especially eye-opening; I was so glad to see their culture, which we have seen before through the distorted lens of western media, for what it truly was and how it was still being practiced and kept alive. Of course, all the people from these countries, Maya, Guatemalan, or Belizean, were incredibly humble, kind, and generous, especially all of our homestay families who so graciously took us in as part of their own families.

Late Squad and the incredible, fabulous, loving Doña Ana!

Throughout the trip we took so many excursions and did so many things I never even thought I would ever experience. We toured and climbed up ancient Maya sites, climbed a volcano, experienced first-hand the consequences of volcanic eruptions, learned about the processes of chocolate, coffee, and jade production, saw the work of creating authentic ceramics and cotton clothing, rode through lakes and rivers, made tortillas and pottery, and scuba dived with sharks and sting rays. Lastly, but just as important, I made incredible friends along the way that I know will stay with me beyond this trip.

If that doesn’t convince you to try your hand at studying abroad, I’m not sure what else would! But I do know this, this trip opened my eyes to so many things I didn’t know before, and it will stay with me forever, and I am incredibly glad and grateful that I was able to do it in the first place and have the amazing instructors that I did.

So, to Astrid, Catherine, Mily, and Alex, thank you for all your hard work and dedication and making this program an unforgettable one.

A quick recap since Atitlan:

guat’s up!

We were on the lake for 3 days and, as I wrote about briefly in my “comedic” blog post with Alan a couple weeks ago, the Mayan Ken ceramics workshop had been my favorite excursion to date. While it’s still up there on my list, we have done SO many amazing things since then.

To start…..I got salmonella! That was a bummer (not amazing). Catherine (our wonderful amazing TA) and Mily (the sweetest amazing on-site coordinator at Casa Herrera) took Hayley (another sickie) and I to the doctor together one morning, and aside from getting blood tests, trying not to throw up, and talking about our stool, we had a pretty ok time! I got my prescription and started feeling better so fast! By the next day I was well enough to travel with the group to Guatemala City. I was so glad I was able to go to the National Museum after learning so much about the San Bartolo Murals and talking about them with our very own Astrid, David Stuart, and Heather Hurst. We were so lucky that our program coincided with the opening of this exhibition and the accompanying reception at the Casa.

Leaving Antigua was bittersweet: we all quickly became very attached to our homestay families and had become comfortable and familiar with the city. I’ve been missing it since we left and continue to now that I’m back home in Austin! On our last day, Kawok performed a Maya ceremony with us to send us off with well wishes and safe travels. It was the perfect way to leave such a beautiful place and to learn about our personalized nawales from an actual day keeper.

After a couple days of buses and plane rides, we made it to The Jungle. Lots of bugs, very sweaty, but my favorite part of the trip. I got to wear Scilla’s cool red bandana (thanks Scilla!) so I wouldn’t get bot flies in my hair! We spent the morning at Tikal exploring the grounds and climbing Temple IV, the tallest of the temples at Tikal. But after lunch was actually my favorite part: a smaller group of us went back out with Astrid and Alex so we got more time to have conversations about where we were, what types of buildings we were standing in/on, and how the Maya would’ve interacted in the exact places we were standing in. And to top it all off, we climbed to the top of Mundo Perdido to see the almost sunset (although we’re lucky we got to see anything at all after the guard told us we weren’t allowed onto the platform after our strenuous hike up). Even though this 4-sided ceremonial complex looked relatively small from the top of Temple IV, I felt like I could see everything from the top. Totally worth the steep climb.

From there we went to Belize. I could talk forever about everything we did but I won’t. I’ll just say that I had a great time on all the boat rides! And… I got sick again, but enjoyed every minute of this trip regardless. I have made lasting friendships, and can’t wait for the day that I can return to even one of the fascinating places I was able to travel to in this past month that felt like a life time.

byelize!

xoxo KB

Somehow I have found myself back in the suburbs of Plano, Texas. Looking back, it feels like this month flew by. Although I’m enjoying being back with my family and with my American food, I’m already feeling homesick for Guatemala. Antigua was by far the most welcoming and beautiful cities I’ve ever visited, and I will definitely be going back one day. This trip has been the ultimate whirlwind, taking us across two countries, through different climates and meeting different people. As a way for me to remember the amazing times we had, I’m going to outline my favorite parts of this trip.

Antigua!

This city is truly like no other. It’s architecture is a time capsule to the colonial period of this country, and shows the adaptation of Spanish styles to the mountains of Guatemala. The food here was SO AMAZING and I’m craving candle shop ice cream and Los Tres Tiempos fried cheese so much right now. But the thing that made this town so special were the people that welcomed me there. My host family always had interesting histories and ghost stories to tell us, and people on the streets had smiles and greetings. It also amazed me how open this city was to students, as I noticed so many families that opened up their homes, not just to us, but to other students and volunteers.

Dolores and Santiago Atitlan!

I’m so grateful that we got the opportunity to meet and talk to Dolores about her home. She gave us a real insiders perspective on multiple difficult subjects, including religion and war. The fact that she openly discussed these things with us, and answered my questions, really broadened my perspective of Guatemala and the people who live there. She was such an open woman, who really wanted to help me learn, and was also interested in me. Ultimately, she was one of the most important people I met on our trip.

Tikal!

Wow. This place was so freaking cool! It was hard choosing between this site and Lamani as my favorite, but what really made Tikal special was being able to wander through the palace by myself. My biggest piece of advice for future students, is to take your opportunity to explore the park at your own pace. Its amazing being able to go through the park with a professor that knows so much about Maya archaeology, but walking around with my friends and climbing around on structures was a great way to get to know the site on a different level. I got to walk around on ledges like Laura Croft and climb onto palace roofs with amazing views. Not to mention that this site is in Star Wars, which is pretty cool.

As a closing remark, I’d like to mention the Tim Cahill quote that Astrid wrote in my journal at the end of my program. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” This quote could not have been more true for this trip. All my memories of my time would not be as great without all the amazing friends I made along the way. I know I’ve met people I’ll love for a lifetime, and I can’t wait to see how our journeys will continue back in Austin.

I am on a flight back to the United States as I write this final blog post. I’m glad I was able to take part in this program, and sad to see it end.

I’ve stated this before, but initially I was a bit scared of how this trip would go for me. It would be  a long time away from family, and I was worried it might be difficult to get the emotional support and comfort that I normally count on from them when I am down or lonely.  All of you were so kind and friendly toward me, giving me what I needed to get through this trip, and for that, I am really grateful.  I wouldn’t have had as much fun as I did without you guys!  There were so many things I liked about this trip!  It is difficult for me to choose any one thing over others, but regardless, I’ll try to share a few of my favorites here.

First off, there was all the animals in Guatemala and Belize!  I know you guys probably noticed me taking a lot of pictures of stray dogs as we visited places, but that isn’t what I’m talking about.  Instead, I want to focus on the bevy of species that inhabit both Guatemala and Belize.  There are too many to list, and I loved observing them in their natural habitats, as opposed to more artificial ones erected in places like zoos. If one were to take an animal like the nurse shark, or the keel-billed toucan from their natural environment, it might be that the new environment that they are placed in would not cater to the individual needs (i.e. diet specifications, shelter) of their species quite as well.

In regard to the environment, I’m glad that Guatemala and Belize are not as urban or industrialized as you see in bigger countries like America or China. If Guatemala or Belize were to go down the path of more industrialized countries, it could spell calamity for the biodiversity of the region.  Not only would there be fewer spots for the animals and plants to inhabit, it would also cause their food sources (as in other animals or plants) to be killed off as well, leading to even more destruction of valued species.  In this era of rapidly growing population, rapid modernization, evolving technology, it’s reassuring to know that not everyone has forgot about the beauty and importance of the all of these species that we share our world with, and that these people strive to maintain it.

I also really appreciated the pace at which life went at in Guatemala and Belize. It’s very different from what I’m used to in America!  While I am reviewing a mental list of things I need to do and places I need to go on a near-constant basis at home in America, I found myself doing considerably less of that while in Guatemala and Belize.  Even though I still made myself set aside time to do more mundane things such as assignments or taking my clothes to the laundromat, my scheduling and deadlines felt a lot more flexible.  If there was something that I failed to accomplish on a given day, it seemed like I felt less guilty than would normally be the case, and I was able to more quickly make peace with the fact that I could just get back to whatever needed to be done tomorrow. From this, it became more apparent that while getting things accomplished and meeting deadlines are important, it isn’t the end of the world if I end up falling short sometimes. While I may still feel some anxiety about not being where I want to be in some aspect of my life, that feeling is only temporary, and life has a funny way of working itself out in the end.  If I just slow down once in a while, it not only helps me see the big picture of what is going on in my life at a given point, but also gives me time to make new observations and pick up insights that I might not notice otherwise. While it is hard to say whether these new observations and insights will help me achieve goals I am working toward at the time, who knows?   Maybe instead they will lead me down a completely different path where I might achieve even more than I had originally hoped for while doing that rushing thing.

Before going on this program, I had heard that studying abroad could be a life-changing experience. Now that I have experienced this trip, I would say I agree 100%.  By studying abroad, you are able to not only experience a whole slew of places you hadn’t previously, but also form new viewpoints that occur to you only by being outside your normal sphere.  While I wasn’t sure I would be comfortable with this program at first, I know now that I shouldn’t have worried. This was an amazing eye-opening experience for me, and I feel like it’s going to impact me as a person for a long time to come.

For me this trip has also been about a series of “firsts”, conquering fears, and getting out of my comfort zone. Starting with my flight to Guatemala I was alone and making my first real international trip. I was surprisingly calm but the journey was surreal and even when I was in settled in my homestay I couldn’t fully process the idea of being in a new country. I am typically reserved and introverted but being at my homestay and translating for my peers meant that I was doing a lot more talking than usual, at home and occasionally out around town. People were generally very friendly and I would ask people on the street for directions or recommendations. Sometimes people would stop and ask me for the same advice although I had no idea what I was doing either so we would try to figure it out together.

I went on enough boat rides to last a lifetime and enjoyed every single one of them (sorry Scilla!). I saw a few of my first -but hopefully not last- Maya sites where we climbed pyramids. At Tikal and Lamanai we had a spectacular view above the jungle canopy. At our stop at the Belize Zoo I saw a number of animals that I’d never thought I’d get to see up close. On Caye Caulker I was convinced to go snorkeling even though I do not know how to swim and I have no regrets! At one point on this trip I also had to boost myself over a balcony and climb down a ladder with my relatively short legs when we had an evacuation at our hotel.

I was even fortunate enough to have celebrated my birthday during this program with such a great group of people and all my future travels will have a lot to live up to. The past few weeks felt like they went by in the blink of an eye but I look forward to what these last few days have in store.

How did we almost die this time? We jumped into the Caribbean Sea and realized:

 

We freaked out and used life jackets to keep afloat while snorkeling (mind you we were the only 2 out of 11 looking like boo boo the fools).

 

We made a total of five stops on our trip. At the first stop we were planning on seeing a Giant Green Turtle, but he missed his appearance… I guess he slept in!  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We did get to see some barracuda and a reef shark though! We mainly just ended up swimming around for a while and accustomed ourselves to the waters and our newfound life support: our life jackets. The second stop consisted of us exploring coral reefs with our boat captain. Monika dove into an underwater cave with our captain and saw some sick fish.

 

It was at this stop that we realized that swimming is NOT EASY.

^ Us when we realized how hard swimming really is.

Thankfully we went straight to lunch afterwards in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We also got some homemade ice cream before heading back out to the sea.

 

On our fourth stop, we got to swim with sharks and stingrays! Now we know what you are all thinking.. but NO! We (unfortunately) did not get eaten alive by the sharks!! We swam with nurse sharks (a very docile type of shark), and our captain made sure to feed the sharks with a small snack of sardines so they weren’t hungry enough to take a bite out of any of us!

For our fifth and final stop, we went out to where the sea literally meets the ocean–the Barrier Reef! We had finally gotten used to the water and were able to ditch our life jackets and just be free in the water! Seeing all the different types of coral and witnessing all the colorful, Caribbean fish in their natural habitats was really an amazing sight to see. We even found some stingrays to follow around! Although our tour guides had told us we may be able to see manatees swimming by, we did not get to see any during our time in the water. Instead, our friend the turtle decided to stop by and say hey!

 

In the end, our first snorkeling experience was one to remember! We had a great time with our friends, and made it back to shore exhausted, but all in one piece (for the most part). 10/10 would recommend… without the floatie!

 

Written by yours truly, Kiona & Hansika

….I had to make the joke at least once.

A few days ago, we bid goodbye to Antigua and hello to Belize. Belize is amazing, but it was definitely bittersweet to have to leave our beloved home away from home.

To end our studies in Antigua, we attended a Maya religious ceremony. It was just us, Kawok (the daykeeper), his wife and two children. I was so amazed that Kawok was willing to take us to the sacred site (which he said was passed down generationally) and lead us, as foreigners, in a ceremony. In that sense it was really meaningful emotionally, and gave a lot of closure for my stay in Antigua.

It was also meaningful in a more academic sense. There were things about Maya religion and culture that I knew from studying, but seeing Kawok actually carry out the ceremony and explain the meaning of everything allowed me to put everything together in my brain and conceptualize it better. It’s so different to read about a religion than to actually take part in a ceremony and feel every sensation. I was talking about this to Andres and he brought up the idea of a multi-sensory experience. The ceremony was just that – a multi-sensory experience. It was more than just hearing Kawok’s explanations, it was a combination of seeing the altar, the fire, each item burning, and feeling the warmth when he stirred up the fire, or the cool wind in the air, and hearing the crackling of the sesame seeds, and him speaking in Kaqchikel. It was not detached words you read on a page, it was the sum of many visceral sensations.

For me, it was an incredibly special experience and I so appreciate Kawok’s willingness to lead the ceremony for us. I couldn’t have asked for a better way to mark the end of my first (and hopefully not last!) stay in Antigua.

We’re in Belize, can you belize it? We’ve each been allocated ten Belize-related puns for our time here, so if I sprinkle in a few in this blog post, it’s just because I’m trying to get them out of the way (and they’re fun). Our first stop here after the sweltering jungles of Tikal in northeastern Guatemala was the sweltering immigration office on Belize’s western border. We experienced unbelizeable amounts of sweat and a few tears waiting in line in that AC-less room as we truly came to realize just how hot and humid it will be here. After a few days and a few more treks into the jungle, you better belize that I’m still not used to it.

Overall, these last few days have been a complete whirlwind, quite unlike the daily routine we became accustomed to over two and a half weeks in Antigua. Yesterday, we made our longest drive yet and stopped along the way at the San Antonio Women’s Cooperative and the Belize Zoo. My inner child rejoiced at the opportunity to play around with wet clay and pet a fuzzy baby tapir. The tapir (or mountain cow) is Belize’s national animal and apparently they’re as ubiquitous as deer are in the US. For that reason, their natural environment is being encroached on by humans. The fresh baby in the picture is named Fuego because he was found and brought to the zoo after a fire killed his mother, but the adult is Navidad, his new foster mom! He seems to be doing pretty well and he even got a little nibble of my shoe that he looked like he enjoyed.

Today’s trip to the Maya site of Lamanai is probably one of my favorites so far. We took a two hour boat ride down the New River that simultaneously felt like a vacation and an educational lesson on the wildlife and history of the area. In the site itself, we summited the last pyramids we’ll climb on this trip and that’s when I started to realize that we’re at a really bittersweet point: so far in space and time from Antigua and so close to going home. We took the boat out again for dinner and watched an incredible sunset and then rode back to the hotel in pitch darkness, and that’s when the emotions really started to set in. Be-lease don’t make me be-leave Belize!