Photos from Mérida
I was very fortunate to receive a FLAS for Summer, 2009, enabling me to study Yucatec Maya for 6 weeks with an amazing group of professors and students. We had 4 hours of class each day in Mérida (weeks 1-3), with occasional presentations in the evenings in order to prepare us for the very different pace of the campo: 3 hours of class, 3.5 hours with families, and another 2 hours of afternoon class in Santa Elena (weeks 4-5). In Xocen (week 6), we did not have afternoon classes because we were traveling between the village and our lodging in Valladolid.
The language, like all languages, is difficult, but for me Maya proved particularly challenging because it is deeply rooted to an agricultural context that is not part of my life in Spanish or English. That challenge was both frustrating and fascinating. I like to imagine that Maya speakers would be similarly befuddled by Spanish or English: "how do they signal the transitivity of the verbs?!"
Overall, my experience was one of study, reflection, and diversion. Wither the trifecta!
Photos from Yucatán, 2009
Photos from Yucatán and Chiapas, 2010
Photos from Tijuana, 2007
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