spanish
- Plantas medicinales and Sustainable Agriculture: They are trying to teach their community the uses of the rainforest plants, and especially the medicinal uses of those plants, before that knowledge is lost. Along the way, they're trying to promote sustainable agriculture in a place that is being ravaged by slash-and-burn corn farms. These farms are only productive for 2-3 years on the fragile and thin rainforest soil of the Petén region, after which they are depleted. The Mayans used a system of crop rotation and of letting land lie fallow as a sustainable means of recharging the forest soils.
- Reserva Bio-Itzá: They are preserving one of the largest pieces of unbroken rainforest in the Americas, mostly without government or NGO support. While we were walking on one of the trails with two of their rangers (they have three) one of them stopped and got an anxious look in his eye. He held up a hand for us all to be silent. Very faintly in the distance, we heard it: a chainsaw. The director of the reserve, who was with us, gravely sent off the other ranger to look into it. "Sólo mirar, ¡nada más!" he said: just look, but don't do anything else. The rangers don't carry any weapons and they cannot afford to carry powerful radios or telephones. So they walk the perimeter trying to intercept people who are hunting endangered animals or cutting down ancient trees. When they find those people, they use the most powerful tool they have: they talk with the poachers and try to teach them about the forest they are trying to preserve. When the poachers have automatic weapons, this is a very risky business. These intrepid rangers consider it worth their while. Visit the reserve if you are able - it's an amazing education in itself, and the largely unexcavated Mayan ruins there are well worth seeing.
- Asuntos Sociales: They provide funding for rural students to stay in school, and are working on a number of other projects to try to improve the well-being of their community.
- Lenguas Mayas: One of their earliest movements was an attempt to preserve the Mayan languages of their region: Itzaj, Kek'chi, Mopan, and a handful of others. One reason to do this is that the names of the plants and animals in those languages are not just names but stories. Another reason is that the languages used to bind them together as a community. Unfortunately, they lost a generation that was castigated and fined for speaking in Mayan languages. On the positive side, there is now an institute in San José that is dedicated to preserving and teaching these languages.
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Gracias, señora Orza
Estimada Sra. Orza,
One day when I was in middle school in New York you said to me “You’re good at languages. You should go to Middlebury.” I hadn’t heard of it before, and I had been planning to attend the cheapest local college I could attend, to save my family the cost of college. Then you handed me a brochure from Middlebury, about their summer language programs. A year later, when I was leaving to work in Nepal for the summer, you gave me a blank journal as a parting gift, reminding me that writing matters.
I haven’t seen you since then, and I haven’t been able to track you down to thank you in person, so I’m firing this out into the internet to say thank you to you and to all the other teachers like you. Why? Because you changed my life.
Three years after I last saw you, I drove to Middlebury to check it out, and I fell in love with the place. I sat in on a Religion class (a subject I thought I wouldn't find interesting at all) and learned more about religion in that single hour than I thought possible.
So I applied, and I got in, with a scholarship. I guess they thought I should go there, too! Over the next four years that college made it possible for me to study in Spain; to learn to read and translate multiple forms of classical Greek; to be exposed to history as more than names and dates; to study physics, and math, philosophy, and even a little more religion.
Looking back on those years now, I see that my whole career has arisen out of classes I took there.
And best of all, I met this amazing woman! I think you’d like her. Like you, she’s smart and sweet. Like you, she encourages me to keep learning. And like you, she’s fluent in Spanish.
Far more than the classes, she has changed my life. So often it's the people you meet--and not just the things you learn--that change you. I'm grateful to have met you both.
So thanks for being a Spanish teacher in a middle school in rural New York. Thanks for putting up with all of us kids in your classes, year after year. And thanks for taking my future seriously enough that you thought that my life, my travels, and my studies really mattered. You saw all that far more clearly than I did back then, but over the years I’ve come to see what you saw, and I’m forever grateful.
Your loving student,
Dave
One day when I was in middle school in New York you said to me “You’re good at languages. You should go to Middlebury.” I hadn’t heard of it before, and I had been planning to attend the cheapest local college I could attend, to save my family the cost of college. Then you handed me a brochure from Middlebury, about their summer language programs. A year later, when I was leaving to work in Nepal for the summer, you gave me a blank journal as a parting gift, reminding me that writing matters.
I haven’t seen you since then, and I haven’t been able to track you down to thank you in person, so I’m firing this out into the internet to say thank you to you and to all the other teachers like you. Why? Because you changed my life.
Three years after I last saw you, I drove to Middlebury to check it out, and I fell in love with the place. I sat in on a Religion class (a subject I thought I wouldn't find interesting at all) and learned more about religion in that single hour than I thought possible.
So I applied, and I got in, with a scholarship. I guess they thought I should go there, too! Over the next four years that college made it possible for me to study in Spain; to learn to read and translate multiple forms of classical Greek; to be exposed to history as more than names and dates; to study physics, and math, philosophy, and even a little more religion.
Looking back on those years now, I see that my whole career has arisen out of classes I took there.
And best of all, I met this amazing woman! I think you’d like her. Like you, she’s smart and sweet. Like you, she encourages me to keep learning. And like you, she’s fluent in Spanish.
 |
| We started dating in college, and we're still dating each other now, even though we're both married. I think you'd like her. |
Far more than the classes, she has changed my life. So often it's the people you meet--and not just the things you learn--that change you. I'm grateful to have met you both.
So thanks for being a Spanish teacher in a middle school in rural New York. Thanks for putting up with all of us kids in your classes, year after year. And thanks for taking my future seriously enough that you thought that my life, my travels, and my studies really mattered. You saw all that far more clearly than I did back then, but over the years I’ve come to see what you saw, and I’m forever grateful.
Your loving student,
Dave
∞
and it's also a short trip to Tikal:
They also have a school for teaching indigenous Mayan languages like Itzá, Quiché, and Kekchí.
There are some slightly cheaper language schools in Guatemala, but this one makes your money go a long way, since they use the income to preserve and protect one of the largest unbroken stretches of rainforest North of the Amazon, and to preserve indigenous culture, protect archaeological sites, and promote sustainable agriculture. In addition to learning Spanish, you can learn about medicinal plants; local cooking, music, and culture; rainforest ecology; Mayan archaeology (they have a licensed archaeologist on their staff); and a lot more. Students interested in rural medicine can ask about arranging to work in the local medical clinic. Worth every penny.
(Thanks to Luke Lynass and the other Augustana College students who worked to get this new website up and running.)
New Bio-Itzá Website!
Check it out.
The Asociación Bio Itzá does great, inexpensive Spanish-language immersion programs for individuals or groups in Petén, Guatemala. It’s a short trip from the Flores airport to their school and homestays in San José:
and it's also a short trip to Tikal:
They also have a school for teaching indigenous Mayan languages like Itzá, Quiché, and Kekchí.
There are some slightly cheaper language schools in Guatemala, but this one makes your money go a long way, since they use the income to preserve and protect one of the largest unbroken stretches of rainforest North of the Amazon, and to preserve indigenous culture, protect archaeological sites, and promote sustainable agriculture. In addition to learning Spanish, you can learn about medicinal plants; local cooking, music, and culture; rainforest ecology; Mayan archaeology (they have a licensed archaeologist on their staff); and a lot more. Students interested in rural medicine can ask about arranging to work in the local medical clinic. Worth every penny.
(Thanks to Luke Lynass and the other Augustana College students who worked to get this new website up and running.)
∞
This is a small, non-profit group run by a few devoted individuals who are trying to preserve their language, their forests, their modes of agriculture, and their communities. They teach Spanish by full immersion, providing four hours a day of individual instruction tailored to your needs, homestays with delightful local families, and the opportunity to experience both contemporary Guatemalan and traditional Mayan cultures.
So why am I writing about this? Because their Spanish school is their means of raising money to support a number of other important endeavors including:
Learn Spanish in Guatemala, Help Save the Rainforest
I think the best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it. Read books in the language you want to learn, eat the food of its cultures, and, if at all possible, travel to where it is spoken.
If you’re thinking about doing this with Spanish, let me recommend a place to do this in Guatemala: the Asociación Bio-Itzá in San José, Petén, Guatemala, on the Northwest shore of Lake Petén-Itzá.
This is a small, non-profit group run by a few devoted individuals who are trying to preserve their language, their forests, their modes of agriculture, and their communities. They teach Spanish by full immersion, providing four hours a day of individual instruction tailored to your needs, homestays with delightful local families, and the opportunity to experience both contemporary Guatemalan and traditional Mayan cultures.
So why am I writing about this? Because their Spanish school is their means of raising money to support a number of other important endeavors including: