Guatemala Trip Report #1

en route to guatemala

we were greeted by the landivar students at the airport gate, and headed directly to "pollo campero" where the landivar students graciously bought us breakfast. a typical guatemalan breakfast consists of: eggs, refried beans, creme or cheese, fried plantains and tortillas.

after breakfast, we headed towards the textile museum, which had various examples of looming techniques, material/color choices. it was interesting to see how these textiles slowly evolved in conjunction to the evolution of their history

our first official group shot at the beginning of the trip. subsequently, we headed towards landivar campus to do introductions and our first official "meeting" which consisted of our itinerary, and things we should focus on for our research for the upcoming days- i also got to check out gaby's centrifuge at the landivar woodshop

Stefano (my landivar partner) and I spent a good chunk of the night in his backyard, putting together the honey centrifuge that we brought over from Cal Tech. I brought a print out of multiple images for instructional references from the states. It took awhile- but we figured it out, and i really learned from the process. (here's orlando -on the brick/tile team- helping us put together the device)

Here's the device as a whole. obviously, there were kinks and dinks- but in general, "it worked." this centrifuge is headed towards the beekeeping family in pasajquim (which i will discuss in the later posts)

took awhile for me to gather all my information from the trip to compile into the blog. im going to do my best to write steadily and sequentially during the next week about our trip to guatemala. i have to say, it was an amazing amazing trip. a beautiful country, lots of energy, color, and truly generous people. the landivar students were such gracious hosts and crucial to the understanding of our whereabouts, not to mention their translation skills. i learned so much from having first hand primary experience- being in guatemala, and having the luck to interact with the people involved in our project- it was definitely a joint effort and collaboration. I think we brought back with us lots of research to jumpstart our project, and also a feeling of connection with our guatemalan counterparts- which makes this a more personal project. i really feel immensely grateful for being able to partake in this experience.