The Leaving of Cleveland

Obligatory Selfie

In a little more than three days (80 hours or so) I'll be sitting on a plane headed for Houston to catch a connecting flight to Guatemala City to begin, what is arguably, the most epic undertaking I have ever had the pleasure of tackling. For anyone who doesn't know why I'm taking this trip I'll explain.

I'm a graduate student at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where I am enrolled in their Master of Sustainability program. Part of the graduate school experience is making a contribution to your field. This is usually in the form of a thesis that is proposed, defended and then presented as a requirement for graduating. So, what does an anthropologist who is studying sustainability do for a thesis? In this case he teams up with an Ethnographic field school (NCSU's Summer Field School in Guatemala) as a means to do research. I was awarded the Falk School of Sustainability Summer Fellowship (a hearty thank you to the fellowship committee, who I hope is following this blog) in order to do this research.

I will be using this blog to talk about my experiences in the highlands of Guatemala, around Lake Atitlán and (what I can) about the research I am doing. I'll be staying in a town called Santa Catarina Palopó with a family I am very excited to meet.

I will also attempt to utilize Twitter for random thoughts (and photos!) when I can. You can follow me @AnthroSouth (widget to the left of this post) or with #ScholarDo. Feel free to leave comments and/or questions here or on Twitter and follow me as I make my way through this experience!