Day 6 - San Juan Laguna - curricular update

Today, students are immersed with their homestay families for the whole day. Except for an individual phone call check-in with a trip leader, either Raquel, Tetox, or Nicola, each student is experiencing the day in whatever way the homestay family does. Basically, our students are on their own; however, I (Peter) just ran into a group of happy Menlo students whose closely-related families were about to dine together.

Given that we won't have any student blogging today, and given that students don't always choose to blog about particular aspects of our program anyway, we thought a curricular update might be in order. The interwoven themes of the last ten (or so) days come from the subtitle of the Menlo Abroad Guaté course: cultural survival in a changing world. We began with introductions to Guatemalan society in general (geography, demographics, history) and, once in-country, the Maya population specifically with student-translated lessons (guided hikes, slide presentations, etc.) on the knowledge and experiences of the ancestral Maya as well as challenges facing the Maya today. Students have identified individual interests and observations to note in their journals, e.g.,  gender differences and norms, fashions, cultural mores, etc. Local teachers and experts introduced us to some uniquely Mayan ideas like cosmovision, syncretic religious practice, and Mayan values like caring for the land. Then, we engaged with modern strategies supportive of ancient Mayan values like the ones we learned at IMAP in San Lucas Toliman. The focus, then, has been to highlight and note some aspects of Maya culture and strategies the Maya have used to adapt or to face challenges threatening their culture's survival.

Here in San Juan Laguna the homestay experience is the major focus and change, and thus we spend less of our days all together as a single group and less of a given day is scheduled. At the same time, students are engaged in extended and personalized Spanish language classes each weekday, and the group curriculum we do have is, in general, active and student-directed. For instance, students have worked in a garden and had direct discussions with local high school students (in Spanish) about women's empowerment. Tomorrow (Monday) or Tuesday, our intention is for Menlo students to meet and engage in discussions (again in Spanish) with a group of local students on some of the cultural challenges facing the Tz'utujil, the dominant Maya population here and around Lake Atitlan. Given a choice of doing a cooking or weaving class, our students have voted with their stomachs, so we will also learn to cook! In the next couple of days trip leaders plan to engage the students in additional discussions about politics in Guatemala and San Juan Laguna, where the political parades and fireworks are everywhere, anticipating upcoming elections. We also intend to have a more general discussion about the meaning of service.