Current Status

-November 2009-

Despite the difficulties faced by the MACHI-JCS children’s workshops in southern Belize over the last two years, the program today seems to be effectively reaching its students.  A few changes have taken place in this year’s program – the seven workshops devised with the help of intern Claire Novotny in 2008 have been consolidated in to six workshops in order to fit better in to local school schedules and of the seven communities targeted last year, one has been removed for its small class size (Santa Elena) and two have been added (Blue Creek and Aguacate). 

The students involved in the program this year are from the third and fourth grade as opposed to the fifth and sixth graders included last year. Morvin Coc, the Maya workshop instructor, is increasingly comfortable with the materials and the participatory activities, which include making clay pots and figurines, doing Maya math, and making headdresses, are well received by the students.  This year, a poster competition was introduced to the participating schools.  Students were instructed to create a poster expressing the importance of conserving Maya cultural heritage.  Over two-dozen entries were received and the posters were judged on October 28 by JCS affiliates – Pablo Mis, Iligorio Coy, and Jimmy Boucher – and Shoshaunna Parks of MACHI.  The winning poster was created by a group of three young ladies from the village of San Pedro Columbia and boasted a thatch house made of real thatch and a cacao tree with real cacao beans juxtaposed with beautiful drawings of ancient Maya pyramids and the hills of the Toledo District.  Thanks to the efforts of this group, the entire class in San Pedro Columbia has won a trip to the local archaeological site of Nim Li Punit. 

Numerous factors have contributed to the continued delay of the broadcast of the Q’eqchi’ radionovelas created by Fundación ProPetén on Ak’ Kutan Radio at Tumul K’in Center for Learning.  The program is scheduled to begin airing late this year, following the conduct of a “front-end” survey in several villages.  It will be played three times a week, in the morning and evening each day, for a six-month period.

MACHI would like to thank Connie Cohn, this year’s JCS intern, for her assistance in the execution of this year’s workshop.

Morvin Coc teaches students in Blue Creek about cosmology.

The winning poster made by students in San Pedro Columbia.

-August 2008-

In August of 2008 MACHI returned to seven Toledo classrooms to continue the education program that was initiated in February 2007 in collaboration with the Julian Cho Society. Joining Morvin Coc this fall was intern Claire Novotny, a PhD student from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This time around we decided to concentrate our efforts on seven communities that are in close proximity to the archaeological sites of Lubaantun, Nim Li Punit, and Uxbenka. These communities include Indian Creek, Silver Creek, San Miguel, San Antonio, San Pedro Columbia, Santa Cruz, and Santa Elena. By narrowing the number of communities visited, we have been able to educate more intensively by building on students’ knowledge; students and teachers can look forward to our visits every other week.

During the summer, we collected information from parents in these communities on what topics they would like their children to learn more about. Based on this information, we were able to design classes that addressed the main themes that were brought up during these interviews: General Ancient Maya Culture, Food and Farming, Household Knowledge, the Calendar and Cosmology, Ancient Entertainment and Writing, Rulers and Kingdoms, and Architecture and Belizean Cities. As the weeks go by the students are having fun participating in the hands-on activities, films, and games that we’ve incorporated into these classes.

For example, when learning about ancient Maya households the students made their own clay pots; after learning about the Calendar and Maya Cosmology the students made posters for the classrooms that illustrated the different parts of the Maya universe. During the Food and Farming class we played a game involving local spices, deer horns, turtle shells, feathers, and other items. The students had to identify the object and whether the ancient Maya used it by only touching or smelling. Other activities include making ancient Maya crowns, and competing in a quiz game to see who knows the most about conservation. The students are getting a lot out of the classes, and the teachers like that it compliments their curriculum requirements. We’re looking forward to bringing these classes to more Toledo schools in the future.