UH-MAY, Mexico — Amid a worldwide frenzy of advertisers and New Agers preparing for a Maya apocalypse, the Maya themselves seem not worried at all.
Mexico’s 800,000 Maya are not the secretive, apocalypse-obsessed race they’ve been made out to be.
They tell rhyming off-color jokes at dances, and pull chairs out onto the sidewalk in the evening to chat and enjoy the relative cool after a hot day.
When asked about the end next week of a major cycle in the 5,125-year Mayan Long Count calendar, a period known as the 13th Baktun, many respond with a healthy dose of homespun Maya philosophy.
“We don’t know if the world is going to end,” said Liborio Yeh Kinil, a 62-year-old who can usually be found sitting on a chair outside his small grocery store.