WHAT PROJECT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?

I’ve done research in the same part of the Yucatán Peninsula in México for the past twenty years.  Recently I’ve undertaken a fairly large project for the small Maya community of Yaxunah, my home base while there.  Members of the village have approached me about helping to build a community center/museum/library/botanical garden project beside their plaza. 

 

 Yaxunah is an indigenous ejido (communal lands held corporately by 136 certified heads of households), and the village lands contain a large archaeological site, which was occupied form the Formative Period (at least as early as 400BC) through the Post-Classic Period (probably as late as AD1500).  Discoveries made at the site will provide a substantial portion of the museum displays, and young people are writing a play about these discoveries that will be presented at the community center.  In 2007 a road was built connecting the ruins to the regional highway some 17 kilometers to the north.  As the archaeological site is a kilometer away from the village itself, it is feared that tourists will have no reason to enter the community unless something interesting is there to attract them.  It is believed that the museum, the botanical garden and special programs in the community center can be this attraction and will help bring much needed revenue into the village.  The library is conceived of as housing research materials in Maya, Spanish, and English that pertain to the local environment and the archaeological history of the area. 

 

Besides the historical museum, the community center is intended to house a language school where young people from this and other villages can both learn and teach Maya, Spanish and English.  English skills are highly important as community want to sell their crafts to tourists, and as many young people have to leave the village to work in hotels in resort areas to make much needed cash.  Any level of English proficiency helps them to get better jobs.

 

HOW DID YOUR INVOLVEMENT IN AMIGOS IMPACT YOUR LIFE?

I think my involvement with AMIGOS was probably the first truly formative adventure I undertook on my own as a young adult.  It was the beginning of a life-long love of Latin America that has been at the core of my career ever since.  I’d have to say that AMIGOS was instrumental in leading me to Anthropology, and it spurred me to knuckle down in studying Spanish.  

 

WHAT WAS YOUR AMIGOS EXPERIENCE LIKE, AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR PARTICIPATION? 

We were in two places in Honduras doing vaccinations and dispensing treatment for intestinal worms.  Our sites were the villages of San Ignacio and Minas de Oro.  I have clear memories of the kindness and generosity of the people, of the beauty of the fog on the mountains, of bromeliads (the first time I’d ever seen any).  I remember a particular kind of smell of wood smoke in the dampness of early morning.  Even now, so many years later, if I get a whiff of that smell, I’m instantly transported back to Honduras.  I remember all of us standing in the airport in Tegus. with Guy Bevil singing “Impossible Dream” before we got on the plane to come home.  I think that’s pretty good remembering for someone who was in AMIGOS in 1967!