October 28, 2005 - page 2



A fun feature of our courses here is that they all include a class field trip.  Two of my classes have taken trips so far.  For SPA 270, we went to a ceramics workshop in Muna,

a small town outside of Mérida.  There we learned a little
about Maya art and had the opportunity to paint classic Maya designs on small plates.  I attempted to reproduce a representation of the god Tlaloc, a central Mexican deity similar to Chaac, the Maya rain god.  Best of all, the folks in Muna fired our plates and we got to keep them!

Our HUM 258 class took a trip to Uxmal, a Maya ruins site.  The buildings were well preserved and striking, and our anthro-professor-turned-guide Dr. Callaghan did a great job