the name is Pop... alPop...

Anyone who made it all the way through the last post knows already I'm going to Guatemala this summer to do anthropology research. It's a 10-week program where I'll be doing participant observation, interviewing, surveying, etc. to learn about education and globalization. The opportunity sort of fell into my lap, and I'm really looking forward to picking it up. It'll be a lot of work. As soon as I started thinking about applying, I began attending K'iche language class. For those of you who've never heard of K'iche (I hadn't really, either), it's a Maya dialect spoken by many native people in the highlands. I'll be speaking Spanish and a bit of K'iche while I'm living there. Wahoo!

I was super-confused for the first few weeks in K'iche class (having missed out on the introduction portions of the class) - especially because no one goes by their real name in class. They all have K'iche names they go by. Recently, I'm proud to say, I was finally dubbed a Maya name, too. My name is Pop, which literally is a type of woven rug that women kneel and sit on when they're doing work in the home. It also has connotations of being an extension, which my teacher thought was appropriate, considering I'm gonna miss class for almost 2 weeks while I'm in Romania. Female names always start with 'al' (the 'l' is pronounced by placing most of the surface area of your tongue against the roof of your mouth and blowing). So there you have it. I'm alPop. But you can call me MightyPop if you wish... :)