Ancient & Colonial Heritage in Latin America: Cultural Treasures of the Maya

Today we went to explore the city of Antigua and establish reference points along the way. As someone with zero navigational skills, this was by far the most stressful day up to this point. The architecture is absolutely beautiful however I will admit from a directional standpoint after a while all the colorful houses and cobblestone streets tend to look the same.

The major landmarks that I use to orient myself are the most obvious and impossible to miss. For all those thinking of going to Antgiua, I suggest paying attention to central park and at least one connecting store in each direction. For me, this ended up being Wendys to the North, and a tented bazaar to the south.

Another great place to be on the lookout for is the Antigua Guatemala Cathedral, it’s pretty hard to miss and close to our central location at Casa Herrera. Just in case you do get lost though, I recommend taking some time to enjoy your surroundings!

 

-Varisha Masroor

Today was the day I have been counting down to since this past fall semester. I barely slept last night awaiting my journey to start my study abroad experience today! I woke up around 6 am to enjoy my last morning and coffee with my parents and pets. I also had to finish up some last-minute packing to make sure I had everything I need for the next 3 and 1/2 weeks! After enjoying my last few hours in the States, I departed for the airport with my mom and dad at 9 AM for my flight at 12:30 departing from Atlanta. Getting through security was pretty easy for me as I’ve flown internationally from Atlanta a few times before this. Once I was on the plane I fell asleep for most of the flight but woke up here and there to see the changing landscapes. Once I landed in Guatemala City, I met up with one of my classmates, Kelly, and we went through customs together and walked to meet the rest of our class at the entrance of the airport. Shortly after meeting everyone, we departed for our homestays in Antigua which was about an hour-long drive. Once we arrived, we had a few hours to settle in and meet our new families for the next 2 and 1/2 weeks! It was some much-needed decompression time as the full day of traveling exhausted me. Around 5 o’clock we went over to Casa Herrera, the UT building in Antigua, to tour the facility and have our welcome dinner. I really enjoyed the tour and the amazing view from the roof of the beautiful city and surrounding landscape (pictured below). For dinner, we had Pepián which is one of the national dishes of Guatemala. It was absolutely delicious and a great way to start a month of great food to come! After dinner, we walked back to our homestays and enjoyed a relaxing night to prepare for the journey ahead of us! I am so excited to start this program and learn more about the Maya!

-Kat Clauson

For my final blog post, I chose a picture of the tamales that we made as a group at Casa Herrera. I never expected food to be such a major part of my experience. Learning about maize in the classroom definitely contributed to my research project about the Maize god, but actually handling it and making food played a big role as well. I never understood the time and energy that went into the tamales that I often ate at dinner with my homestay. Tamales don’t need to have many ingredients, and I always thought that they were simple to make. However, having to carefully hand-make each tamale with the dough and plantain leaf over and over allowed me to realize how much of a commitment cooking really is. I often think of cooking as a chore, especially when you live alone. Making tamales with my classmates made me realize that cooking is a really important cultural activity. Not only are you bonding with those around you, but you are creating food out of corn, an important traditional food for the Maya. Traditionally, the Maya eat corn three times a day, once at every meal. According to the Popol Vuh, humans were made out of a combination of white and yellow corn. Corn is the food that sustains humanity, literally and figuratively. Making tamales was an experience that many people don’t get to have, and I am so grateful I got to partake in doing so!

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Crooked Tree was such a great experience for me personally. I really enjoyed getting to understand the way that a place’s history can really play such a big role in contemporary times. This town is unique because it has held on to much of its culture, and everyone is embracing every aspect of said culture. The food consisted of hearty portions, savory flavors, and meat that fell off of the bone. I am a firm believer that you can get a good understanding of a place through its cuisine. There were some items of food that I had not seen in Guatemala, but there were a lot of dishes that I found to be fairly common between both countries. I noticed that the methods of cooking plantains were vastly different. In Crooked Tree [Belize], I noticed that the plantains were usually more savory while in Guatemala I had only had sweet-tasting plantains. This highlights the fact that the entirety of the descendants within the Maya area are not homogenous in their methods of survival. The people in the highlands do things differently than those in the lowlands, as well as those in Crooked Tree. I really enjoyed learning about the cooking methods from the San Antonio village. It was amazing to see their ways of using contemporary Maya customs. Throughout each region, I really enjoyed seeing the ways that people have learned to adapt to their environment and be resourceful. This aspect really made me really impressed with each Santiago. I really learned a lot about the Maya people of Belize and Guatemala and have found a newfound appreciation for both countries. In the words of my cohort’s bus driver Edíomi, “We are all one people with one diverse culture. We are good people with feelings, and have nothing but respect for one another.”

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On my second day at Crooked Tree, I decided to go biking to see what this village looked like outside of our hotel. The sky was pouring, but I had gotten used to being under the rain during my time in Antigua, so I rented a bike and went out. 

First, I went out with the intention to go see the Baptist church myself. It is the oldest building in the village, built in 1835, three years before the abolition of slavery in Belize. The church still serves as a center of the community today, and the number of graves by the church seemed to tell the stories of people who had lived here for more than 300 years. 

I kept biking north, people were playing music, picking mangoes, and going about their daily lives. After biking for half an hour, I had countless mosquito bites so I decided to go back.

Mizuki Kurata _ Final Blog Post | JICA sign at Crooked Tree … | Flickr

On the bike back, I found a sign that said “flood shelter” with a logo of JICA – the Japanese International Corporation Agency. I thought to myself, how odd that is. Being from Japan, I have always heard of JICA, because it is a famous international aid organization funded by the national government in which many young people in their 20’s and 30’s volunteer for. After a  quick google search, it appears that JICA had done a three-year (2008-2010) flood risk management project in Central America – and that Crooked Tree was the location selected for Belize. In that time period, I was 8 to 10 years old in Japan, and I never really knew of the country Belize, and I definitely had not even imagined the people living there. But to know that a Japanese organization was establishing a flood shelter in Crooked Tree, and that I am seeing the record of it felt like an odd reminder of the interconnectedness of the world. Despite globalization through trade and digitalization, I feel like we still very much live in a society where we are disconnected from each other. We believe that our actions don’t have consequences and that we live on our own terms. But here there is evidence that we are connected. Perhaps the small amount of sales tax that I paid for the Japanese Government was used to aid this little sign in Crooked Tree, and perhaps the way I vote in Japan today determines how much money goes to Crooked Tree. 

Overall, this study abroad taught me the value of interconnectedness. As carelessly we want to exist – our actions do have consequences and implications to various communities across the globe. While it would be nice to believe that the way we purchase coffee has no effect on a person, the way we purchase coffee very much does affect the person working on a coffee farm in Antigua, as we have seen at the Azotea Coffee Farm. With this awareness that we are connected, I strive to be aware of how I exploit and benefit other communities and to take that into action.

As someone who has never left the country, studying abroad was initially daunting. However, even though my time in the program was cut short, I truly believe that this experience was extremely enriching and I am thankful for the opportunity.

One motif I noticed during my time in the Guatemala and Belize Maymester is how old customs, structures, and practices can mix with modernity. In my area of Texas I have almost no exposure to things or activities with origins that span over 100 years. However, from the colonial cobble stone streets in Antigua to the customary handmade textiles that many Maya people wear throughout Guatemala, the past and the present are more united in the region than I have ever experienced before.

One perfect example of this was Tikal. Tikal was once a thriving ancient city and is now both a symbol of antiquity and a keystone of culture in Guatemala. There are no longer people that live in Tikal, however, its cultural significance has been repurposed to be powerful and spiritual in an alternative way. People still go to Tikal to pray and people still see Tikal as important; Temple IV is even on the Guatemalan currency. The past is still relevant and has become intertwined with the present.

My language barrier in Guatemala also added another dimension to the program. I have a rudimentary understanding of Spanish, and there were times where I was unable to fully understand what people were saying to me. However, instead of being a burden or daunting, these instances were motivation to me. I will always be an outsider in Guatemala, but language understanding is something that people can control with study and practice. After being in these situations I was able to reaffirm my desires to share this language with the people that speak it.

Photo taken at Tikal on June 14, 2022.

Seeing the waterfall was one of my many highlights from the Maymester! It was the first waterfall I had ever seen, and it absolutely took my breath away! After taking pictures and marveling at the site, I could not believe we were not supposed to stop there. However, I am ever so glad we did. By seeing it, I feel like I could better grasp how the Maya see their environment as animate. It was a multi-sensorial experience. I could see the enormous downpour, hear the whooshes of the water, and feel the mist when I stepped closer. Being so close to it, I was reminded not only of nature’s enormities but also of the world’s. However, our group standing alongside others who stopped to marvel at the water felt like we were all a community. Additionally, it reinvigorated my desire to protect the land from corporations or others who mine it or seek to commit similar acts. It reminded me of what Dolores and Kawoq said about mountains either having a heart or being like family and I could feel that same strong energy radiating from the area. Looking back, it is nice to see the beautiful waterfall as a metaphor. Even though we may have driven down a few windy roads, there was something spectacular just around the corner!

Whenever people talk about how their semester-long study abroad has changed their perspective, I find it a little hard to believe. Yet our month abroad in Guatemala and Belize has changed more than just my perspective, it truly changed my life. From my lovely homestay mom who showed my whole group nothing but generosity and genuine kindness, to the beauty of nature I got to see every day on my way to Casa Herrera. I don’t think many people can say that they saw volcanoes on the way to class! Also, learning about the resilience of the Maya community was inspiring, and this whole trip really made me question a lot of aspects of travelling and tourism that I hadn’t really thought of before. It was hard to just pick one picture for this trip, but I had to go with an image of volcanoes from Lake Atitlan. This image was taken on a rainy evening walk, where a classmate and I got to watch the sunset beautifully like we had never seen it before. Pictures don’t do this scenic view justice, and the actual moment will remain engrained in my memories. Memories made with new friends, experiencing new things. This trip has given me a newfound appreciation for life that I will carry with me for years to come. 

 

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The biggest part of my study abroad experience that I underestimated was the meaningful friendships I would make along the way. There is something about being totally immersed into a different culture that has the ability to connect students on such a deep and mature level that is not possible in a traditional classroom or university setting. Before I went on this Maymester, I had no idea who I would connect with or what kind of relationships I would form with my peers. However within the first few days, I already knew that I was on a trip with people I will be friends with for a lifetime.

In my picture, Joelle and I are doing a handstand in front of the Jaguar temple at Tikal National Park. Joelle was such a special person to me along with so many others that always offered support, advice, and plenty of laughs. While there were many obstacles during our trip, I can honestly say that the love everyone had for each other and optimism to push through exceeded any difficulty that a study abroad experience can have.

Overall, I am so grateful to have had this type of once in a lifetime experience. Study abroad pushes you out of your comfort zone in a level you can never prepare for, and with it comes so much growth, memories, and meaningful relationships that I will always cherish.

• Brooke Betts

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This picture was of me on our last day at Lake Atitlan, June 5th. Looking back on my month abroad, I experienced so many things: good and bad. Let’s get the bad stuff over with first. I managed to contract a parasite, a virus, and a bacterial infection all in my stomach 4 days before this picture was taken and I wasn’t feeling the best. Feeling sick abroad is a lot more uncomfortable than when you’re in the comfort of your own home, but luckily the UT staff that were with us were extremely kind and helpful during this unfortunate experience. Now for the good: I still had the best time ever on all of the excursions and learned so much about the Maya, gaining a new perspective on life and valuing simple things I never really thought about. So many people in the places we visited were so happy to share parts of themselves and their identity with us and the geography as we traveled across Guatemala and Belize was insane! Seeing how different Maya urban populations adapted to and interacted with the environment around them was so interesting and it was the focus of my research throughout the program and the research I did now makes me view urban development with a whole new perspective.