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Published: August 8th 2012
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Happy 4th of July! I hope this finds you well. For Independence Day, I've decided to exercise my patriotic duty to be independent and go to another country and learn the language and culture here.
I arrived here yesterday and met the family that I am staying with here in Xela (aka Quelzeltenango). Xela is bigger and not as pretty as Antigua, but it has its charms in what you might experience in daily Guatlmalan life. The streets here are narrow and it´s like a maze to get around. It rains hard every day at least for a while and the warmest it gets here is as low as it gets in Austin right now. About half the women are traditionally dressed in Mayan skirts and beautiflully embroidered tops.
The school is interesting. For about $120 per week, I enrolled in
Celas Maya which has a pretty good reputation. I heard about it before I got to Guatemala. All classes are one-on-one with a teacher five hours a day. Forget whatever I told you about knowing a lot of Spanish. I know nothing! The whole point in being here is to throw myself into the language and boy did I! I
Dulce Sueños
This was on the pillow of my room at Ilse's house realize how lazy I am when it comes to learning the language. My teacher doesn't speak English and I'm getting along, but this is a lot harder than I thought. I tried to speak English with another student at break time and she told me in Spanish that even though could speak English, she wouldn't because she isn't here to practice her English. It's good. I need a challenge.
The school set me up in a Guatemalan home for my time here. The house that I'm staying in is a typical Guatemalan home. It is very simple, but comfortable. While they have everything they need, I realize that even though I feel poor, I have so much more than they do. I am going really enjoy my wonderously comfortable bed and very hot showers when I get home. The showers here are usually tepid with a dangerous looking electrical attachment on the showerhead that is supposed to heat the water, but doesn't really do much except scare me.
The family is very nice. There is a divorced woman, Ilse, who is about my age with three kids. The teenager lives with her grandfather because Ilse is having difficulty with her and there is very little room at the house. The two other children are four and five years old. The children are very sweet. My family is very accommodating although she isn´t sure about my veganism. She isn't sure what to cook for me and she thinks I'm going to die of anemia or lack of protein. They eat a lot of chicken. I'm sure I'll do fine...
The house that I'm staying in is a typical Guatemalan home. It is very simple, but comfortable. While they have everything they need, I realize that even though I feel poor, I have so much more than they do.
I am going really enjoy my wonderously comfortable bed and very hot showers when I get home. The showers here are usually tepid with a dangerous looking electrical attachment on the showerhead that is supposed to heat the water, but doesn't really do much except scare me.
There are plenty of activities scheduled by the school and I'll try to send pictures
when I go some place special. Tonight is a movie....Like Water for Chocolate with English subtitles. Not much to write about that. I'll tell you more soon.
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