With the support of the CLACLS Summer Travel Fellowship, I visited the northern Alta/Baja Verapaz region of Guatemala. While my larger doctoral research is based in the eastern Caribbean coastal city of Puerto Barrios and the surrounding Q’eqchi’ Maya communities, this trip was key for my doctoral project as this area is the territory historically narrated as the origin of the Q’eqchi’. The goal of this visit was to better understand these north-east internal migratory patterns, specifically how this movement maps onto the banana industry of Puerto Barrios. Traditional accounts of the Caribbean banana industry largely excludes the participation of the Maya and during this trip I wanted to understand: 1) if, when and/or how the Q’eqchi’ of Alta/Baja Verapaz are connected to the east, and 2) how they talk about the coastal Q’eqchi’ in relationship to their communities. Specifically, I spent two weeks residing in urban center San Pedro Carchá and visiting the nearby cities of Cobán and San Juan Chamelco. From these larger cities, I made daily trips to more rural Q’eqchi’ communities, including Chisec, Chaimal, and Tactic. The relationships and conversations from this trip advanced by broader research first, by strengthening my basic Q’eqchi’ skills, as many individuals in these communities are monolingual Maya speakers. Secondly, I also accessed several non-inventoried archives, including the Coban municipal library/archives and Centro Ak’kutan, from which I gathered key historical information. Finally, this trip allowed me to make build critical networks with Q’eqchi’ leaders and organizations, including the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), Women in Agroecology Leadership for Conservation (WALC), and ‘Union Femenil’ of the Q’eqchi’ Mennonite Church. These relationships led to personal invitations to small meetings and households where I observed the inner workings of local women-led groups and converse one-onone regarding migration. For example, several community members offered tours of their farmsteads where, surprisingly, many grew bananas despite the non-tropical climate. After pointing them out, they mentioned their eastern migration to work on banana plantations. This preliminary finding, as well the evident familiarity of this community with Caribbean Q’eqchi’ (ex. sending their greetings to their ‘brothers and sisters’ on the coast) confirmed this linkage as important, despite its absent from mainstream literature. Furthermore, many Q’eqchi’ leaders mentioned sending community mission teams to the ‘difficult populations’ of the Caribbean, drawing a stark line of difference between the north and the east, despite the previous use of close kinship terms. This experience puts me in a good position for my broader research project, as it expands my network beyond just my specific field site. Having knowledge of the Alta/Baja Verapaz region, knowing specific people there, and bringing messages from these communities back to my field site also opened new doors in Puerto Barrios. After this trip, I briefly passed through Puerto Barrios before returning to New York and found that mentioning my new familiarity with the north led to very productive conversations with the Q’eqchi’ community members, who were excited to share family ties and the important landmarks they remembered from the North. Finally, this experience provided me a basis to compare Q’eqchi’ women organizing strategies, giving me better sense of where to look and how to talk this topic in my field site.