Palenque's Greatest Story Teller

My sweetheart David came to Palenque to take me home after the accident, but before we left, we spent some time reminiscing with Don Moises Morales. In case you don't know him, I should give you some background. David and Linda Schele met Moises Morales 39 years ago during their very first visit to Palenque. Gillette Griffin (1991) writes that Moises was “that very special man who had shared the magic of Palenque with thousands of pilgrims over the years. Moises took the Scheles and their party for a walk deep into the jungle. He showed them the beautiful cascades that splash down into stone basins under the dense jungle canopy, and revealed to them the presence of ruined walls and buildings everywhere.” Another well-known Palenque scholar, Merle Green Robertson identifies Don Moises Morales as "the greatest 'storyteller' in all Palenque.

The picture above was taken just after David and I finished having lunch at El Panchan http://elpanchan.com/alojamiento_eng.htm. It's a very fine restaurant that sits adjacent to the ancient site of Palenque, but is within the Morales family compound. You can see that my cast is gone and is replaced by a brace, since the broken wrist isn't healed yet.

La Mujer Bionica

My daughter's boyfriend, Richard, gave me kudos for sharing a picture of my cyborg arm with the family (the device is actually called an external fixation device), so I decided that I should blog it too.

As you can see here, the scabs on my face are gone and the redmarks are slowly disappearing. Doña Mary is cleaning my wrist in this picture.

Now, I want you to meet two people who are very important in my life right now. This is a picture of Doña Mary and her granddaughter, Elsa. They prepare my food, help me with my bath, do my laundry AND on top of that, they are helping me improve my conversational Spanish. Here you see them all dressed up and ready for the annual Palenque Feria. In case you may be wondering about the carved monument to the right, it represents K'inich Akul Mo' Nab' (one of the kings of Palenque) -- a beautiful carving that Alfonso has placed in his front yard.


And now, because of all the prayers and assistance that I have gotten from friends and family -- ESPECIALLY THE HELP I GOT FOM KIKE MORALES (Alfonso's Brother), I am finally able to turn my attention back to exploring and documenting the excavation history of the Group of the Cross (from the 1700's to the 2000's). The above is a photo of a very unassuming file cabinet that contains lots of awesome history about the Group of the Cross Project (1997 - 2001) and Alfonso has given me access to it, as well as to so many other documents in his library. To learn more about the "Group of the Cross Project" go to: http://www.mesoweb.com/palenque/current_dig.html.