May 29- June 1: Kaqchikel Classes
Xqa q'ij, k'a! We have learned SO MUCH in the past couple of days - it's absolutely incredible. The classes are really intense and everyone must participate, but there's no time for self-consciousness or awkwardness because you're already being called on to answer a question in Kaqchikel!
The classes are completely immersive, which means that there's barely any Spanish (maybe a total of 20 minutes a day), and absolutely no English (except for a few hints here and there from fellow students!). But the teachers are amazingly good at making us understand what each word is referring to and encouraging us even when we're totally wrong about what we're saying.
We started with the most basic stuff:
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| What does juxb'äl mean again?! (photo credit: Omer) |
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| Tuq'! (photo credit: Omer) |
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| janila ütz tijoxela' (very good students!) (photo credit: Omer) |
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| Ixtoj (Sarah) studying hard! (photo credit: Sarah) |
The classes are completely immersive, which means that there's barely any Spanish (maybe a total of 20 minutes a day), and absolutely no English (except for a few hints here and there from fellow students!). But the teachers are amazingly good at making us understand what each word is referring to and encouraging us even when we're totally wrong about what we're saying.
We started with the most basic stuff:
Xseqër k'a! (Good morning!)
Xseqër, matyöx! (Good morning, thank you!)
¿La ütz awäch? (How are you?)
Ütz matyöx. ¿La ütz awäch rat? (Good, thank you and how are you?)
Ütz, matyöx. (Good, thank you)
Matyöx, k'a ri' (Thank you!)
And since then we can name classroom objects, the colors, the numbers, our names, where we're from, some transitive and intransitive verbs, describe what we look like and more!
It's been really hard for some of us (read: me) to pronounce the words in Kaqchikel. Here's a clip of my host mom pronouncing some words so you can have an idea of what the language sounds like.
q'ij (day/día), q'oq' (chilacayote, a type of squash), loq'oläj (sacred/sagrado)
We've also been hard at work on our research projects which are beginning to shape up. Kaqchikel has so much to study and we've barely scraped the surface of the interesting phenomena. It's been great to have some people with us who worked on the language last year during the trip to help guide us and give us their advice.
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| Collaboration in action at Arcos Café |
We're going to visit some Wuqu' Kawoq projects in Tecpán on Saturday and then we're going to San Juan la Laguna and Lago Atitlán on Sunday. We'll have lots more about that later!