Greetings from beautiful San Juan Del Sur! After two weeks of roughing it on the permaculture farm, Maya 2015 enjoyed five full days of group activities and beach days–and the luxury of not feeling the heat of 1,000 stewing poops warming our bums everytime we used the bathroom! Permaculture is fascinating, but I think we’ve all had enough hands-on experience with compost toilets! Anyway, on day one with Woo, we… Read More
Hola. The group has gotten very good, at becoming very comfortable, very fast. After a long day of travel, we arrived at the Bona Fide Permaculture Farm. Permaculture is a design science, an agricultural system that is the most sufficient, simple, and sustainable way of human life. A system in which every element has multiple functions, and every function has multiple elements. We started off the week with a brief… Read More
As we spent our last couple of days in Matagalpa enthusiastically talking about our Halloween trek through the Selva Negra all of the talk finally became realistic. Our 30 minute car ride was filled with excitement as we inched closer and closer to our hiking destination. Once we started our trek we stopped every so often to take some pictures and take in all the scenery that was around us… Read More
Hola y Buenas Dias!
This week we moved in with our homestays in Matagalpa. This is the most progressive and feminist city we have visited yet. We are all a little relieved to be finishing our last week of Spanish classes and we have been involved in several different cultural activities. From cooking, to history, to dancing, we finished our last activity this week with a testimony from a LGBT… Read More
Hola all!
This week was a nice transition into our new home of Nicaragua for the next month or so. Traveling went as smooth as we hoped and arrived to the Mariposa School early Sunday morning. The first thing that we did was split into groups of 4 people to do 3 different types of service projects. Audrey, Ariana, Emily and Ottilia volunteered at a local primary school reading and… Read More
Nestled between the papaya, banana, and coffee trees on the banks of Lake Atitlan lies a mystical yoga farm where we would spend the next 5 days. Between the sounds of the drum or the didgeridoo waking us up in the morning and the chanting and songs after dinner, our days at the Mystical Yoga Farm were filled with a lot of personal reflection and gratitude.
Each morning we were… Read More
Saq’iriq (Buenos dias, or for the rest of you English speakers, good morning) from Pasac!
This week started off with a much needed sleep-in day after a tough night hike up the volcano Santa Maria. Originally the plan was to hike from midnight straight through morning for a sunrise cup of hot chocolate on the summit. Unfortunately, not everything goes as planned and we put our group skills to the… Read More
Hello from La Escuela De La Montana! Today is our last day in this paradise. This week has been spent learning in bungalows and eating with local Guatemalan families from the quaint surrounding village. Here we have learned much about the culture and history of the people in these small communities. From playing cards with our host children to studying in hammocks we have spent this week in a relaxing… Read More
!Hola from Maya’s first day at The Mountain School! We left Xela this morning and have checked off our first out of 12 weeks together and will be officially 2 weeks on Tuesday. These past 12 days have been awesome! We slid into the first week of orientation where we stayed together in a cozy hostel with an amazing view of the mountains and city (pics below) and get to… Read More
Que Onda Vos? (What’s up dude?)
It’s John and Alex on our Scavenger Hunt around Quetzaltenango also known as Xela. So far on this trip we have had some orientation days and chances to explore this city. We will be here next week as well to have a chance at spanish classes and homestays. On the Hunt so far we have tried and failed to find a bus schedule and… Read More
We arrived in Guatemala a couple of days ago and have been doing orientation and exploring the city of Quetzaltenango. Its a really nice city surrounded by volcanos that many of us have hiked. Yesterday, Danny, John, Kerry, Emily, Audrey, Ariana, and Jelte hiked to Baul Mountain and enjoyed a great view of the city and picniced atop the mountain. While hiking down, they were caught in a rainstorm and… Read More
Heyyy guys it´s Nicole and Ariana here currently on a scavenger hunt, loving life, livin in the moment. the city is soooo beautiful and the people are so welcoming. our spanish is iffy but were making the most of it. We’re sending good vibes and love to our families an friends, we miss you guys!!!! talk to you soon(:
peace out… Read More
Hello everyone! Guatemala is beautiful! Our group is awesome, lots of really fun personalities and we are bonding really easily. Tonight is our last night in the hostel before we start spanish school. Not too much to update you on yet, our next post will be far more interesting. Everything is fine. Love you all! more later. -Jill and Ottilia… Read More
Hello from Audrey and Emily! We are in Xela on a scavenger hunt through the city. Guatemala is beautiful and the mountains are gorgeous. Wish you could be here! We will post pics soon. Love you momz and dadz!… Read More
The MAYA group has landed in Guatemala! After a smooth flight, Kelsey and Angie have let me know that they group is now en route to Quetzaltenango to settle in, have some lunch (and probably a nap after their overnight flight) and get started with their orientation activities. They will be posting to this blog in the coming days to update you on their orientation – as well as throughout… Read More
Good evening family and friends,
The Central America MAYA group has all arrived safely to LAX and they are about to proceed through security and begin their adventure together.
We wish them all the best as they traverse new internal and external landscapes over the next 3 months. Based on the fortuitous sign they found, we are feeling pretty good about this crew 🙂
Buen viaje, MAYA!… Read More
Hello Team Maya 2015! This is Kelsey and Angie checking in on this beautiful Friday afternoon. We are in the process of wrapping up our training here in Portland and preparing ourselves for the coming semester which promises to be legen… wait for it… dary. We wanted to take this time to begin one of the rituals that will be a part of our time together- writing the group blog.… Read More
Dearest students who smell really great, and families who have the privilege of receiving said delightful-smelling young adults, We have already gambled away all the money we saved by not having to pay your Honduran departure fees, and now we are writing for help. Who knew we would so quickly lose our way without you here? Please send care packages of Chickys ASAP, as we are entering withdrawal. It also… Read More
One-upping my group members yet again, we spent the week and a half after Project WOO at Bona Fide permaculture farm, on Isla Ometepe. It's a volcanic island made up of two volcanoes, hence the two boulders. And they were some niiiiiiice boulders! A typical day at Bona Fide consisted of getting up at six, starting work at seven, eating breakfast at eight, and doing three more hours of work… Read More
So finally, we made it to the ocean. The group was overjoyed, and understandably so, given that our only contact with large bodies of water has been Lake Atitlan. Our contact organization is Project Woo, an organization focused on community-driven development and regulating the effects of Voluntourism. We started off our week by helping some local fisherman haul in their fish nets. Unfortunately there were only eight or so fish… Read More
