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An extra day in Ecuador
Today I missed my flight out of Quito by a factor of three: first, they expect international travelers to arrive three hours early and I had allotted two; second, we hit traffic so I was only an hour...
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Fun at the FEL conference
Here are some pictures of new friends from the Foundation for Endangered Languages conference in Ecuador; presenters of many nationalities spoke about their efforts to revive languages as diverse as...
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Pissing on Main Street
On my first visit to this region eleven years ago, I was given the name of a farmer (Lorenzo) from the countryside and instructed to take a small bus to the remote trading town of Tarabuco, where I...
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Twenty-four Hours in Tarabuco
I spent the next twenty-four hours hanging around with Modesto´s kids in Tarabuco. His wife and sister left almost immediately for the countryside after doing their marketing, and Modesto had work to...
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Twenty-four Hours in Tarabuco
I spent the next twenty-four hours hanging around with Modesto´s kids in Tarabuco. His wife and sister left almost immediately for the countryside after doing their marketing, and Modesto had work to...
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Monteczuma’s Revenge, Part XXI
Enjoyed a night using my new flashlight in an unfamiliar outhouse. The outhouse is shared between Modesto and Lorenzo´s portions of the house. In the morning, Lorenzo showed me how to thoroughly clean...
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Hiking to the Countryside
In the morning, I met with the assistant to the school district’s authority on education. I explained the history of our child language documentation project and that I would like to revisit the...
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Two weeks in Chuquisaca, and back
I have been way too busy to blog for some time; having left off just when things got exciting (around the time I embarked on the field portion of the research, in other words, my residence in a rural...
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Yachay Q’ipi Norte (Bringing the Wisdom Bundle Home)
Late October and early November brought several of my indigenous colleagues north on a joint speaking tour. It was truly a dream, and sometimes a bit of a nightmare, to introduce these friends to life...
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Against linguistic extractivism
Rufino Chuquimamani – Quechua expert and author, invited comentarista at Monday’s talk I’ve found myself declaring lately that I am trying to practice an alternative to linguistic extractivism – but...
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Sacred Valley
I’ve been taking a break from work this week and following the course of the Vilcanota River through the Sacred valley of the Incas. We started in the market town of Pisac and wandered through...
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Singing garbage trucks
We were awakened at 6:30 AM by loud music blasting from a megaphone on a truck. I was puzzled – could it be a political campaign? Anywhere else, blasting music so early would count against you! No,...
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Spring Break
Many students and faculty in the US celebrated Spring Break last week and I did too, though it is Fall here. My husband, sister and brother-in-law came down to join me in these extraordinary places. If...
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Blockade
I know I’m back in Bolivia because I was immediately greeted by a blockade. As I emerged from the airport in Sucre, I was accosted by a taxi driver who offered to take me down to the city, but at a...
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Killing Time
How does a person who is crazy about teaching and learning languages kill a little time? The people I was supposed to work with haven’t arrived yet, and a friend who is qualified to teach Quechua at...
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Holy Week
Selling palms for Palm Sunday in Cusco, photo by Judy Kalt Skeels I’ve always been curious about the things people consider important enough to celebrate on a regular basis – whether daily, weekly, or...
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Connecting rituals
I’m a person who gets really excited about the underlying connections among different people’s rituals. So let me continue by recommending the first chapter of the book Zealot: the Life and Times of...
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Paying attention
The woman who wove this belt was obviously paying attention! First, I see a llama, then a condor attacking a rodent, a surprised fox, a rooster confronting another condor attacking another rodent, a...
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Welcome to the field
I’ve been putting off writing this next blog post… where to start? When entering a community to conduct field research there is a need to establish trust and common ground – two elements that are hard...
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