EIGHT DAYS IN THE YUCATAN

March 2006

by Fadwa Kingsbury, TPS class of 2006

Every year the eighth grade goes to a Spanish-speaking country to practice the language with the locals and to learn about the culture of the country they visit. This year our class went to Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.

What I think we were supposed to get out of the trip was an appreciation for a totally different lifestyle, a chance to practice our Spanish in a real-life setting, and an opportunity to learn about the ancient and current Maya cultures. However, in reviewing the journal I kept during the trip (yes, they made us keep a journal ––in Spanish!), I realized that I got all that and much more out of the trip.

I am going to share one interesting thing from each day of the trip. We spent eight days and seven nights in Mexico. The first and last days were travel days, and we didn’t learn much on those days except how tiring it is to travel.

The second day of the trip, the first real day with adventures, we left Cancún (which was our arrival city) and went to Valladolid, which is a beautiful town with houses of many bright colors. We had lunch at a restaurant there, and while we were eating, two men came in with a marimba and played several songs, in Spanish, of course. They were followed by three men, two with guitars and one with maracas, who sang several songs as well. To me the lesson of this day was how beautiful traditional music of a culture can be.

On the third day we went to Chichen Itzá and saw the immense ball court. Our guide told us that the king sitting at one end of the court could speak to his high priest at the other end without raising his voice because of the way the ball court was constructed. The ruins were magnificent. It is something I’ll never forget. I learned that a great ruler should never have to raise his voice to be heard.

On the fourth day we went to another site of ruins, Uxmál. There we saw a cenote, an underground lake formed by underground rivers in the Yucatán. Sometimes, though, there is no earthen roof above the cenote; it is just a large, sunken hole filled with water. The ancient Maya used the cenotes for two things, as a source of water and as a place to perform sacrifices. The Maya would usually sacrifice a young girl between the ages of 9 and 16. The girl would be put in a kind of steam bath for purification and then dressed in sacrificial robes and heavy jewelry. The priest would give her a strong, intoxicating beverage and push her into the cenote. With the combination of the beverage and heavy jewelry, the girl would drown. Luckily, the day we visited the cenote was of no great importance to the Mayas.

On the fifth day we went shopping in an open market. This experience was not like shopping in Philadelphia: We had to bargain for everything we wanted to buy. When we went through the shops, the store owners, perhaps seeing that we were tourists, raised the prices and we had to bargain in Spanish for a fair price. This was a new experience because none of us had ever haggled for anything, let alone in Spanish. This was a great way for us to practice our Spanish and get in some important souvenir shopping.

On the sixth day we went to Tulum, another site of Mayan ruins. Walking through a doorway there, one of my friends commented that it was a very short doorway. Being 4’ 10” tall myself, I did not notice. This led me to think that the ancient Maya were not a very tall people, which did not seem to matter, as the culture as a whole was very smart and advanced.

On the seventh day we visited a Maya household. The house had no TV, no radio–– no electricity at all––and no furnishings, except for hammocks that were brought down during the evening for sleeping. Visiting the house gave us a chance to see what a different lifestyle the people of the Yucatán lead. It was not any better or any worse than our way of life here in Philadelphia. Just different. The little children smiled at us and seemed to be very happy.

We had a great time in Mexico and learned a lot. As it turns out, keeping a journal in Spanish was not as hard as I thought it would be. And, later, when I’m older, it will be nice to have the journal to remember the trip. ¡Qué gran aventura!