1200 am - Monday 22nd May - I walk out of Guatemala City airport tired, grubby after a 15 hour flight and apprehensive. The plane was delayed - so will the driver who was supposed to pick me up still be waiting for me? I've heard bad things about Guatemala City, especially about the dangers of arriving late at night and don't really want my first experience of Latin America to be being robbed of all my belongings. Paranoid? Possibly. One tip for anyone reading this who is thinking of coming to Latin America - don't read the British Foreign Office travel advice! It will only scare the hell out of you. I needn't have worried though, my driver was there with a placard with my name on it - in the pouring rain. It's just like being back in England...only a bit warmer.
0800 - Monday 22nd May. I'm up already, very tired of course, and at the language school which is to be my base in Antigua for the next three weeks - the Casa de Lengua. After a very short oral test I'm put in the intermediate group. I seem to have blagged it with the few
PanaderiaPati and Luis's house - the bakery faces onto the street
words of Spanish I taught myself back in England - not quite sure how I managed it. Four hours of Spanish later and my head is ready to explode. Still I feel like I'm at the same level as the girl whose class I invaded. So maybe they weren't so wrong after all. The teachers at the school are great - extremely patient and always cheerful - faced with such stupidity sometimes I don't know how they do it.
At lunch I return to mi casa and meet the rest of the family - I met Luis, the father, late last night and Patricia, the mother, this morning. Over lunch I also meet Denis (10) and Oliver (4). (Pictures to come.) The family are lovely, Pati is the best at talking to me and the other student in the house (a dutch girl called Mele). She's cheerful, talks very simply and slowly and and has the patience of a saint - always smiling as we struggle to form sentances in pid-gen Spanish. I also meet Spot, their very sweet dog who I stroke, until I see the fleas jumping off him. After that, I avoid him.
The family
run a bakery, so unlike many of the other students at the school, who complain that they're not being fed enough or that the food is bad, or boring - frijoles (beans) with rice is very common here - the food I've had has been conistently good and varied, and as you know, I like my food, so I feel lucky to have no complaints.
My life here has already settled into a bit of a routine in the first week. 0730 breakfast, 0800 - 1200 Spanish school, 1300 eat lunch at home, 1400-1800 - technically free, but the school puts on a variety of activities. There's normally a Spanish movie to watch, or salsa to learn, or a museum to visit. 1800-1900 has become my homework hour. 1900 eat dinner. It sounds like a military operation I know, but it's been fun so far. In the evening I either collapse into bed early or more normally go out with some other students from the school. Every night in Antigua there seems to be a "ladies nights" at various bars where, if you're lucky enough to be female, you can buy a rum and coke or a vodka and
orange for 3 quetzales (the equivalent of 24p!) I can get drunk for less that two pounds - I bet you're jealous now!
So, a bit about Antigua...It's a beautiful colonial city which is set out in a grid formation, much like many north American cities, making it pretty easy to navigate your way around (despite the fact that there are few road signs). It's ringed by three beautiful but imposing volcanoes. The streets are all cobbled (and pot-holed and uneven and very bumpy). It's grand buildings - like the Cathedral de San Jose all have a sort of faded grandeur. The other buildings are generally dilapidated but charming.
There's a pretty cosmopolitan mix of people here. Angtigua is full of "gringos" (white, and by comparison, extremely rich westerners) who all come here to learn Spanish. There are also plenty of middle class Guatemalans - Antigua is a relatively expensive place in which to live compared to the rest of the country. But as in the rest of Guatemala, there are also plenty of people who are not so lucky; women with babies tied to their backs selling trinkets on the streets, grubby children insisting they shine your shoes as you walk by, or many, young and old, who are simply begging. Despite that, the people of Antigua have been nothing but completely charming and friendly since I've arrived.
And one more thing that I must mention - "chicken buses", known more simply as camionetas in Spanish. These are old American school buses (you know, the big yellow ones you see in movies) that should have been sent to the scrap heap 10 years previously, are now obviously illegal in America due to the thick fog of black smoke they emit every few seconds, but which somehow end up here on the streets of Guatemala. They're called chicken buses because they're normally jam packed with Guatemalans, chickens, small animals and anything else that could possibly be squashed into them. They generally belch their way down the street and you can hear them coming a mile off. I've not had to venture onto one just yet but I'm sure I will - just for the experience if nothing else. The main route out of Antigua via the chicken bus goes from just outside mi casa - and they start very early in the morning.......
Guatemala's Flag
Map of Guatemala