Some believe Friday is doomsday on the Mayan calendar; the Mayans don’t

 At least the ones living in the city of Merida, Mexico, don’t. Neither does anyone in the Mayan village of Yaxuna. They know the calendar their ancestors left them is about to absolve a key phase — the end of an era and the heralding of a new one — but they don’t think we’re all gonna die,according to CNN.

“It’s an era. We are lucky to see how it ends,” said wood carver Santos Esteban in Yaxuna, a sleepy village of fewer than 700 Mayans, located in a territory that once belonged to the ancient kingdom founded around 2000 B.C.

He feels it is a momentous occasion and is looking forward to the start of the new age. He is not afraid.

“Lots of people say it’s the end of the world, but we don’t believe that,” he said.

People in his village will keep living much as they have, preferring hand-built, palm-thatch huts to concrete buildings and baking tortillas on an open flame.

For those less optimistic than the Mayans, an “official” website in the United States has collected links to all the doomsday articles and videos Internet users can consume.

December212012.com also offers tips on survival and advertisements for the needed gear — from gas masks to first aid kits and hand-crank radios. Comments are welcome on its Facebook page, which has more than 14,000 likes, and website owner “John” from near Louisville, Kentucky, sends out tweets under the handle @December212012.

On the doomsday Facebook page — in between gloomy superstitious links and user comments — John has confessed that he does not really believe the world will end on Friday but thinks that a new era could dawn that may include some improvements for the world. That new era, however, might require a good bit of destruction as well.

“PLEASE PEOPLE. . . I’m begging you. Do not overreact or make any rash decisions regarding Dec 21st. Anyone who knows anything about the 2012 prophecies, including myself, does not believes that the world is going to end,” the Facebook page says.

“I taught about economic collapse and how it actually looks on the ground,” he said. “People want to act like it can’t happen or doesn’t happen, and it happens around the world. There are places on fire right now.”

In true survivalist manner, Croft also teaches his family how to subsist on alternative sources of nourishment, such as algae, roasted mice and live earthworms.

The ancient people measured time in cycles called “baktuns” of 394 years each, and the winter solstice coming Friday marks the end of the 13th baktun. Some who study the clendar say the date for the end of the period is not Friday, but Sunday.

The Mayan calendar is based on the position of the heavenly bodies — the sun, the moon and the stars — and was meant to tell the Mayan people about agricultural and economic trends, said archeologist Alfredo Barrera.

NASA is also weighing in on the matter, with a post on its website declaring that the world will not end on Friday.

“It will be another winter solstice,” NASA said. “The claims behind the end of the world quickly unravel when pinned down to the 2012 timeline.”

If it’s Saturday, and no major calamity has occurred, then relax and go celebrate the beginning of the 14th baktun with the Mayans.

Compiled by:Maysa Wassouf