Tuesday, February 13

I've found that I just don't have time to attend Max's class anymore, with the organizational and preparational work I have to accomplish before my course starts in a week and a half. It is disappointing as I greatly enjoyed the experience. I used some of that time this morning to arrange the class trip to carnaval at Chamula, which will be next Tuesday.

I saw the dental specialist today. Very disheartening news. She noted that I will need dental surgery and some reconstruction and that there were risks involved, so that she hoped I could hold out until I return to Vancouver in May. But if the problem gets bad again then she says to come in immediately and begin the procedure. Arggghhhh!

This afternoon I joined Rita's class visit to the Taller Leñateros, a workshop of mostly Maya women involved in various paper- and print-making activities. Rita's photo of the first part of the tour is posted above. The tour was certainly interesting, and the inventiveness of the colours and designs was amazing. Maguey fiber was a principle source for the paper, which retained an interesting texture. The vegetal dyes were of course beautiful. The books and other materials are designed as limited edition collector items and are very tactile. The style seems designed to appeal to an art market. But I like things I can use, so instead I bought a shirt. It shows a Maya ruler riding a bicycle, which will go with my shirt from Belize of a Maya ruler diving in the coral reef!

Later Max and I went to the social sciences institute of the Autonomous University of Chiapas (UNACH) to meet the director. Max had already met some of the teachers. One, who teaches a seminar on gender, has invited Max's students to attend whenever they like. Many of the students come from the surrounding Maya communities. It turns out that there are real political problems about an appointment to the directorship of this institute, and the man we met is an interim director pending sorting out the difficulties. Nevertheless, there seemed to be a great opportunity for interchange between our two programs, and if we come back to San Cristobal for future LASOM we may want to use their larger classrooms.