A beer only costs ten cheeses

---

---

iHola!

I´ve been in San Pedro, Guatemala for a week now, learning Spanish for 5 hours a day, then going home for meals and chit chat with my Guatemala family (and Swedish-Iranian ´brother´), so it seems the right time to send a few notes on learning espanol.

1. In Mexico, of course, the currency is the peso. The Q on Guatemalan price tags does not stand for queso. Queso means cheese.
2. Be prepared for your first day of class - brush up on enough vocab to fill five hours with conversation about politics, economics, immigration, emigration, discrimination, and others ics and isms.
3. If you are eavesdropping and don´t understand a world that your new Guatemalan family is saying, don´t be too disheartened about your progress with the spanish language - they are probably speaking Tzutujil. It may take you three days to realise this.
4. Karaoke is a great way to learn Spanish. You´ll finally learn the words to La Bamba, but still won´t know what 'bamba´means.
5. Get out and practice by putting yourself in every day situations. You´ll find that you can easily communicate ´I would like to buy some nail polish, nail polish remover and some cream to reduce the burning pain in my forearm from the stinging nettle I jumped into to avoid being swiped by a tuk tuk´, but may look at the shopkeeper blankly when she asks ´¿and would you like soap with that?´.

I´ve got at least another week here. Monday is Guatemalan independence day, so after experiencing trying to travel on Zanzibar Revolution day, I´m glad I´ll be sticking around in one place. After that its back to Belize or on to El Salvador, probably.

xx
G

---

Comments

[anonymous]

Sounds like lots of fun Gina! Keep the entertaining updates coming.

[Jessica]

Photos
And where are all the amazing pictures of this very cool sounding journey??

[David van der Zpouwe]

Translation
Could you please provide the appropriate translation for "egg shelf." Gracias amigo