The Real Guatemala

Tuesday was another busy day. We hopped on the bus from our hotel to drive through the city and 30 kilometers into the mountains to a little town called San Juan Sacatepquez. Our bus parked alongside a steep hill high upon which was a Maya public escuela (private schools are called colegios). We climbed off the bus and hiked up, up the hill to the open air classrooms full of excited young children. I spoke with children in Spanish to get acquainted. But I’ll have to admit that with some of the youngest children even my “Como estas?” must not have sounded like anything they’d ever heard before because I did not hear an expected “Bien. Y Usted?” Ah, well. I’ll keep trying.



We also visited Luz Maria’s colegio where all of the teachers are using whole language for their reading and writing instruction. Luz Maria is on the board of the Consejo de Lectura de Guatemala – the association that is sponsoring our conference. She holds whole language workshops every month for her teachers and others in the surrounding schools.

After the school visit, we drove through the village in what must surely be the real Guatemala. Market day was in full color, with gigantic radishes, greens, and abundant vegetables for daily living.





Our drive from there to the Maya ruins of Mixco Viejo was quite the adventure of ess and haipin curves over winding mountain roads. Although the landscape was lovely with rolling hills and abundant flora, it was also abundant with litter. We learned that so far there are no laws or regulations for trash disposal, and so people just throw their trash “away.” It’s piling up in the valleys and in the ditches along the road.

But oh, the ruins! We hiked along a path out onto the plateau, climbed up pyramids and down into the ball court. During the 12th and 13th centuries this city had 120 buildings and 10,000 inhabitants. We learned that this was one of the last Maya cities to fall after defending themselves from Spanish conquistadors for three months of constant battles. The village was uncovered and excavated just in 1950. I'll try to show you some pictures tomorrow!