Dear Reader,
Today I took a lesson from Eminem and cleaned out my closet. It wasn't just a spur of the moment thing and it wasn't because my mom told me to (well it kind of was), but it was also for the purpose of donations (so that counts as part of my project, right?). As Kit has mentioned in one of her posts, our project is mostly done, which means I've been trying to use these last few days to fill in space. I've met with other fellow senior project people who are struggling to get stuff done, meanwhile I'm kind of struggling to find things to do. I've taken to cleaning out my closet, my mom's closet, even my brother's closet (he's insanely tiny so I wouldn't be surprised if most of the girls could fit his clothes) to use as donations to A Broader View and the women's shelter we worked at. Petra, on numerous occasions, told us that our work didn't have to stop the moment we left Guatemala, that we could do more and that's what I've decided to do. I needed to clean out my closet anyway, on account of going to college in a few months. I was originally planning to donate to the Salvation Army, but now I'll just donate to both. I'm sure I have plenty of clothes that I almost never wear that the girls and anyone else would be very grateful to have.
So that's what I did...for three hours. I kid you not it took me three long hours to clean out, sort, and distribute my clothes into 3 separate trash bags. Over the next few days I plan to also ask my friends about cleaning out their own closets so that I can get even more clothes to donate. I only wish I'd started this sooner so that I could get a school-wide drive for clothes, but unfortunately with it being the end of the year, it's very unlikely that I'll be able to do that. Instead I'm sticking to family and friends, knowing that I can get just as great results from that.
I've also taken to doing further research on things that interested me in Guatemala and/or things we didn't get as in depth a look at. In a few posts I talked about Indigenous Cultures or more correctly how fleeting it was while I was there in Guatemala. My exposure to Indigenous cultures came solely from the sellers I met at the market and on the streets as well as the people Kit and I saw on our two excursions (the volcano, Santa Maria and Fuentes Georginas). That's not much to go off of and after talking to Jaime on my last day about his family (which is indigenous people) and his desire to be a lawyer in order to protect their rights, my curiosity got the best of me. I wanted to learn more, not only about the rights of indigenous people in Guatemala, but their way of life, their beliefs and more. Since, as I've noted before, there are many sub-groups of Mayan culture, I stuck strictly to K'iche speakers (this is also what Jaime's family is), which is the largest Mayan language in Guatemala and is used almost exclusively in the highlands (cities like Quetzaltenango would be an example of a highland city). I actually learned a lot. Here are some of the really interesting things that I learned:
-K'iche people constitute 11% of the Guatemalan population.
- The population of Quetzaltenanago is 26% K'iche people
- K'iche was originally an independent state that continued to live on even after the fall of Mayan civilization
-K'iche civilization continued on until it was conquered by Pedro de Alvarado
-There is a document called the Popol Vuh that is still in existence today and it talks about K'iche stories and religion
I think today was a successful day both personally (I mean I did clean out my closet) and academically. I learned a lot about the K'iche indigenous culture and I'm excited to be able to share this information during my defense in the coming week.
Sincerely,
Journey
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