Ma'alob K'iin!: Working Hard or Hardly Working?

Based on my blog posts so far, you would think that I have not done any work since arriving in Belize! I bet you think that I've just been traveling, exploring archaeological sites, and drinking rum. Although I have been doing all of these things, I have managed to get some work done here in PG.

There are two different MACHI projects that are being developed simultaneously, one is the children's education program, which is my main task, and the other is the development of a mobile children's museum, which I am only a tangential part of. The mobile museum is a fantastic idea that is coming together.

We are continuing with the education program, which consists of visiting eight communities eight times over the next four months with games, activities, pictures, and movies about the ancient Maya. We'll see how it goes. Technically my co-teacher is supposed to be presenting these, while I play more of a behind the scenes role so that (theoretically) he can do this on his own when I leave. So I'm here to spruce up the program and implement fun activities with a person who I rarely see crack a smile!

This summer we've been driving out to the eight communities to present a movie about archaeology in the Maya area, and also a Jackie Chan movie to draw the crowds. Turns out people LOVE the archaeology documentary! In almost every village someone has asked me where we got it and where they can get a copy. While we can't burn copies for everyone that asks, we will be donating one to each school. We'll do another round of movie nights later this fall.

The Jackie Chan movie was "Legend of Drunken Master". I don't know if any of you have seen it, but it's actually pretty good, as far as kung fu movies go. I went to the video store here in PG and bought the first Jackie Chan movie I found (and the new Sex and the City movie!!! I was so excited to finally see it! Even though the quality sucks and you can hear the guy recording it in the back of the theater eating popcorn and burping! Ha!), so I couldn't believe it when I realized it has a cultural heritage theme!! In the movie Jackie Chan is fighting the British, who are smuggling jade artifacts out of China for the British Museum. It couldn't have been a better choice.

So the movie nights have been a huge success. People came out in fairly large crowds, and we used the opportunity to tell them about the school program. The only downside was that we scheduled the eight visits to happen four nights in a row at a time, over two weekends in August. Yuck. That meant long drives and late nights (not to mention the same kung fu movie over and over again).

Here's some pictures from the movie nights:

Advertising for movie night

Watching the Maya movie in San Miguel

Kicking back in Santa Elena

The other fun part of my job is coming up with ideas for games and activities for the lessons we'll do in the fall. It's difficult but fun to try to boil archaeology down to the elementary school level. One of my favorite ideas so far is to write songs - I want to figure out what tunes stick in the kids' heads here and then change the lyrics to conservation and archaeology themes! I still remember catchy tunes from elementary school, so if I can write some good words then the idea is that they will remember the lesson for a long time.

Here's a few more closing pictures of the villages. Toledo is really a beautiful place, especially in the remote villages in the evenings. Around dusk all the kids are on their way to the corn mill to get their corn ground in time for dinner. Then the cooking fires get lit, and if you're on a hill then you can actually see an ephemeral cloud of smoke rise from the trees. There are also lightning bugs in the villages, sometimes thousands in grassy field, which is a gorgeous sight. I can't wait to spend the night in one of the communities.