Patricio Balona demonstrates how to properly garnish a Maya feast he helped prepare for the Maya at the Lago Conference Friday.

By KAREN CIMINO WILSON
DavidsonNews.net

Davidson Day students and family members joined others attending the school’s Maya at the Lago Conference on Friday night for a contemporary Mayan feast featuring a spicy grilled chicken and a dessert made with ground vanilla beans and sprinkled with chili powder for added zing.

As they expanded their palates, they listened to retired National Geographic correspondent George Stuart, who shared stories from his 30 years with National Geographic and excavations in Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.

Retired National Geographic Correspondent George Stuart lectured Friday at the Maya at the Lago Conference.

The meal was part of the Maya at the Lago Conference, which  featured more than 20 of the nation’s top Maya archeologists and scholars. The conference started on Thursday and ends on Sunday. Researchers from institutions such as Harvard University, Boston University and National Geographic delivered lectures and workshops on the Davidson Day campus. The dinner Friday was at the Hilton Garden Inn in Mooresville.

Thorson

“I didn’t realize how similar ancient Mayans were to people today,” said Davidson Day 10^th grader Sierra Thorson, 15. “They shared an interest in art. They had a class system. They had writing. They had a game that they made a ball out of rubber for.”

Sierra and several other Davidson Day students are attending the four-day conference organized by their teacher Mat Saunders, who joined Davidson Day’s staff in the fall. The students must attend the conference if they plan to go to Belize over the summer to participate in a real archeological dig on Maya ruins.

Mr. Saunders, who teaches world religions, mythology and anthropology, came to Davidson Day from a public school in Palm Coast, Fla., where he had organized Maya at the Playa, a similar conference meant to expose high school students and the public to some of the top Maya researchers and archeologists in the world.

Mr. Saunders said he started the Maya at the Playa conference about four years ago. For the past six years, he has taken students to Belize during the summer for real excavation experience. Davidson Day students have been doing a similar trip for about three years. Mr. Saunders said he met Davidson Day’s headmaster on one of the trips and she recruited him.

As soon as Saunders joined Davidson Day, he started planning the Maya at the Lago conference, which he hopes will become an annual April event, one that will complement the October Maya at the Playa event in Florida. Saunders said Davidson Day will oversee the organization of both events.

Saunders

Students planning to attend this summer’s trip were required to attend the conference this weekend. They will attend about 16 lectures in four days.

“This is really their training to make sure they’re equipped to go into the field,” Mr. Saunders said. “The archeology they’ll be doing is real. You only get one chance to dig something up before you tear it up.”

Mr. Saunders said the Maya at the Playa Conference started out slow and then built up its reputation. But the Maya at the Lago is benefitting from that and attracted more than 100 participants.

FEAST IS A FAVORITE

The Mayan feast like the one served Friday evening is always one of the big hits of the Florida conference, Saunders said. Patricio Balona, who grew up in a Maya village in Belize, prepared the meal with the help of the chef and staff at the Hilton Garden Inn in Mooresville where the dinner was held.

Balona, a journalist who works in Daytona, described the meal before it was served and talked about his mother’s and grandmother’s storytelling over food.

Jesse Barber

Proceeds from tickets sold to the Contemporary Maya Feast will help fund Davidson Day student research this summer at the Belize campus extension.

Davidson Day student Jesse Barber said the conference has been an interesting way to prepare for the trip to Belize.

“It’s long, but it’s very informative and it’s really interesting,” said Jesse, who wanted to join the trip because it combines his two loves – science and travel.

To learn more about the conference, visit www.mayaatthelago.com.