We recently had the opportunity to visit two beautiful communities in the southeastern part of the state of Yucatan. We marveled at the architecture, learned from expert hands the process of pottery making, we made colorful paper lanterns, we observed the traditional dance of the turkey, prepared traditional food, visited the agricultural fields, played with lots of kids and we left with hearts full after meeting so many extraordinary people.
Take a look at our adventures!
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| The incredible architecture that greeted our arrival. |
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| Our host families received us with a smile |
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| Don Emilio and his wife Margarita explained to us the full process of ceramic making, from extraction of raw material to some techniques for adding color to the exquisite vases and other objects that they make. |
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| Guess what it is! |
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| Margarita taught us how to make whistles out of clay! |
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| Thank you for sharing your work with us! |
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| The next day we woke up early for our workshop on making lanterns with Don Bernardo. Using materials such as vines, cloth and colored paper, we learned a trade that has been passed down through the generations. |
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| Our students working hard |
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| A close up of their work |
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| Putting the final touches! |
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| The group with one of our lanterns and our instructors |
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| It's time to send our lanterns up! |
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| Up, up and away, our lantern sailed toward the moon! |
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| The next day we woke up bright and early to begin our day of cooking "pollo pibil," or chicken cooked in an earth oven. The first step was to harvest all the ingredients we needed from the backyard. |
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| Molly and Anna bringing a full load of firewood |
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| Don Luis showed us how to dig the earth oven where we would cook our lunch |
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| We dug and dug to make our oven! |
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| Banana leaves, achiote and onions are just some of the ingredients we used. |
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| It came time to put our chicken in the oven and wait for it to cook. |
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| Finally it was time to enjoy our delicious food! |
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| A huge "yu'um bo'otik" (thank you) to our teachers! |
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| After lunch we visited a new community |
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| We were greeted by our new host families |
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| It's the season for harvesting the milpa, the traditional agricultural fields. Our guide, Don Florencio, showed us the proper techniques for harvesting dried corn and for starting a milpa. |
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| The "bakche" is a sharp piece of wood or deer horn used to quickly open the husks and extract the corn cob. |
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| Grace working on her technique, great job! |
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| The harvest! |
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| After all that hard work, we were hungry! A huge thanks to Alejandra for providing a delicious lunch! |
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| In the afternoon, we had a cartography workshop with the children in the community. Each group mapped the town according to their own perspective of what the most important points are. |
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| Molly and her team mapping the community |
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| Some drawings included the central park, the cenote and the homes of our helpers and guides. |
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| The maps turned out beautifully! |
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Our last day of the trip, we became cave explorers! Don Miguel told us the history and showed us the ancient cave paintings that adorn the walls.
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It was a trip full of new experiences and many new and friendly faces!
