Mayan Women Restore Ancient Ruins: A Powerful Journey

In the municipality of Santa Elena, Yucatan, women from the small village of San Simon have taken on the task of restoring the past of the Mayans.

Sebastiana Cauich, a petite woman with brown skin and a face etched with the lines of time, was one of these women. Standing next to a towering tree in the main park of San Simon, she seemed small in comparison. The village is over 100 kilometers from the city of Merida, a journey of about an hour and a half by car. It's a place where the Mayan language is still spoken and the past is very much alive.

Sebastiana doesn't speak Spanish, but her friends proudly introduced her as one of the "first restorers of Uxmal". With a shy smile, she shared that she first entered the Uxmal archaeological zone over 30 years ago. Her job was to prune plants from the stones and uncover the Mayan ruins. Wendi, one of the younger members of the group, helped translate her story. "The first job I did was cleaning the stones, that's where the bats were. We removed heaps of garbage and weeded. It was pure jungle and I was young", she remembered, laughing.

Now, Sebastiana is working on the restoration of Uxmal under the Archaeological Zones Improvement Program (PROMEZA), a part of the Maya Train project.

Nancy Ceh, one of the youngest women in the group, lives near the Uxmal archaeological zone but had never visited the Mayan ruins. She thought they were only for foreigners. "My grandmothers told me about it. They said it was beautiful. They worked there before, and one told me that one day I would see it. I thought it was only for gringos", she confessed.

Like Sebastiana, Nancy was tasked with washing and marking the ceramics they found, and occasionally, weeding the land. The involvement of these Mayan women in the restoration project is thanks to PROMEZA, allowing them to reconnect with their past.

Wendi Caamal also had never visited Uxmal. She had to leave San Simon to find work, taking care of three children in the municipality of Ticul. She returned home when she was given the opportunity to work on the restoration of the Mayan ruins.