Aug 31 Friday Copovic Glass Field Trip
Early this morning we were scheduled to go to a re-cycled glass factory. This factory is a cooperative. We took a chicken bus with both Patty and Juan. There was no glass being blown today. They had one melting oven cranked up and red hot inside. Several men were cleaning and testing some pitchers that were headed for Italy. One man was sorting and cleaning a mountain of white class. He was using a rake to sift through the class and later it was put into a fame with a screen on it to shake out small pieces of glass and dirt. There were huge piles of colored glass waiting for the same treatment. In the shop there was a large selection of items to buy. don and I wanted to bring Hortensia a gift and finally selected a frosted pitcher with moon and stars on it. Fo us we chose a heavy, solid blue rendering of the Virgin Mary. That was our choice because not only was it beautiful it was solid and therefore not fragile so that it would transport fairly safely. None of us were in a great hurry to get back to class. We went to a tienda and bought a snack and made our way to the bus stop for the return trip.
Since I had missed class on Friday Patty and I made plans to go to a museum of typical clothing. I wanted an easy as well as interesting day and Patty needed to make up the time so that she would be paid for the teaching time. The lecture that Don and I had attended on the Naulies came in handy and I was delighted. It was nice to be able to follow the Spanish lecture of the docent as we made our way through each room. We met Patty at her college, Landiver, at 4 pm and we spent 2 hours looking at "Ropa tipica" in the museum. All of the tops and the skirts have designs in them that tie in with the earth, sun, moon and the Mayan calendar. Patty and I will have to work in the rest of the hours that I missed. She will keep my feet to the fire till all hours have been made up.
