Trip to Comalapa, classes ending, more fun events

     Last Friday as a group we went to a town an hour and a half away from Antigua called Comalapa for a cultural excursion. There we visited a Maya priest and participated in a Maya ritual ceremony. In the ceremony each of us lit candles and offered them to our ancestors in front of an altar in the priest's house. The ceremony was very interesting and had a profound effect on some people in the group. One guy was singled out because the candles he lit produced an unusual amount of wax which dripped to the floor; the priest interpreted this to be a sign that his ancestors were not pleased with him. The wax dripping down represented the "lagrimas," or tears of his ancestors.     
     In Comalapa, there are many murals painted along the walls of the main street that depict historical events of Guatemala. As many other visual mediums are here, some of the murals are very graphic but accurately represent the tragic events that have taken place. The mural's depictions begin with the Maya people before the conquest of the Spanish and continue until present day.

A portion of the mural representing pre-conquest Maya cosmovision and practice

Atrocities of the military during the Guatemalan civil war









     I really ejoyed our trip to Comalapa, minus the ride there and back. We rode in small (bouncy) vans, the driver wasn't the best at manual shifting, and the winding roads there all contributed to my motion sickness that lasted the rest of the day.

    

     This past week, our Religion in and History of Guatemala classes ended. Goodbye, Dr. Burnett! She was a very good professor who knows absolutely everything about Guatemala. Tomorrow will begin Archaeology of Mesoamerica and Maya Writing and Hieroglyphs taught be the Dr. David Stuart. I'm looking forward to the change! Yesterday was also the halfway point of our study abroad program; we have seven more weeks to live it up in Antigua or seven weeks to count down until we return home. I will be doing both.

     This past Sunday I went to another soccer game with my family and a couple girls who live in the dorm my host parents own. It was another exciting game, and it was fun to get to know the girls and what they're doing in Antigua.

Back: Me, Flor, and Mette (who lives in the same house as me, from Washington state). Front: Molly (from Wisconsin), then Marian (from England)