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Published: September 29th 2006
The colours of Antigua
Allegedly the people have only a limited number of colours they are allowed to paint their houses. We think a lot of people broke the rules..... or it could just be a load of rubbish!After almost two months of getting away with speaking 'Spanglish'and having spent a month of that time in Belize where they speak English and so not getting any practise, we decided it was time to sort ourselves out so that we could get through the rest of our trip being able to be a bit more communicative!
Our solution was to enroll for a weeks intense Spanish lessons, studying 5 hours a day with each of us having a private tutor. In addition to the lessons we also decided to stay with a Guatemalan family for the week rather than in a hotel so that we would be forced to practise our spanish out of school as well; we even had to speak spanish to each other when we eating dinner with the family in the evening.
Our new family was made up of the mum, Marta, her two grown up daughters, Andrea and Fabiola, and a very spoiled soppy dog called Pupi! There was also another spanish student from America called Joshua. Everyone was very friendly and the family was slightly "loco" (crazy) too - by their own admission! Our first night in our new home after dinner Antigua's Churches
This was one of the more colourful churches, which we walked past everyday on our way into town. the girls put on some music and got everyone up dancing in their tiny living room space. One afternoon Marta also gave us a delightful demonstration of Pupi's musical talents: the dog was coaxed up on to his peforming chair whilst Marta got down on one knee and started howling at him?! Pupi responded with his own version of a song - all very bizarre and entertaining! Other than his occasional performances or mealtimes, Pupi spent the rest of time asleep on the sofa much like Archie really.
As well as cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for us everyday, Marta and Andrea worked hard all day cooking and selling a variety of street food from outside their front door. Tortillas being the staple of latin american diet were constantly being cooked and I had a go a making one myself. You get a ball of dough and slap it about a bit in your hands pulling it into a flat little pancake shape but it is actually surprisingly hard! My attempt ended up looking a bit odd-shaped and was probably not suitable for sale!Andrea also had a machine for making crushed ice by hand (not electric) which was very
Antigua's Churches 2
Antigua was hit by a big earthquake (not whilst we were there) and a lot of the old buildings were damaged cool and she made very tasty slush puppy like drinks which we had as a dessert one afternoon after lunch!
The other daughter, Fabiola, was a sociology university student. She was studying for Statistics exam whilst we were there and actually seemed to be enjoying it?! We helped her with her revision by encouraging her to drink a few beers to ease the boredom and help her focus!
Speaking spanish with the family generally happended around the dinner table in the evening, although it was very hard work because they all spoke so quickly. I don't think Kev or I really understood a word that Andrea said as her fast chat was interpersed with mumbled words and giggles. Fabiola was the easiest to understand as she chilled the pace a bit and explained things when we looked confused. Joshua came in as the interpreter from time to time as he had grown up in Guatemala as a kid and already spoke 'street spanish' as he called it but was here to learn the 'proper grammatical stuff'.
Our days at school were pretty much the same so we will not bore you with the details of what we learnt, Antigua's Cathedral
Just like a church, but a bit bigger! which was basically hardcore spanish grammar mixed with a variety of conversation topics. One on one for 5 hours this was pretty intensive and tiring so we were pretty grateful when our the coffee break came around and we could refuel our energy by visiting the taco lady who stopped conveniently outside the school at this time. My teacher was called Julio and he was a little bit crazy like me so we got on well and spent a lot of the lesson taking the mic out of each other. He had written his practice exercises to reflect himself, or men in general, in a positive light so that I would have to say phrases in spanish such as 'women always talk too much'or 'my spanish teacher is great´ - he fancied himself as bit of a joker! He mixed his grammar training together with telling me jokes and riddles in spanish for a bit of light entertainment when it looked like I was falling asleep.My teacher was called Anna, she seemed to be a bit stricter than Tasha's teacher but after the first couple of days of hardcore grammar we just ended up sitting and chatting in Spanish to
The view to Volcano Agua
This was the main street running through Antigua with the clock tower/arch and Volcano Agua in the background. practise what I'd learnt, which was really nice. Its quite surprising what you tell someone when it suits the context of the lesson, everything from what you did at school and what everyone in your family does and where they live to random stuff like when I fell down the stairs and cracked my head open!
All in all I think we both hugely improved our understanding of Latin american spanish grammar a lot during our week of lessons and we also noticed that we were having much longer conversations with people. So rather than just asking the price of something in the artesan market we would actually be able to ask for different colours or sizes, or explain what we were looking for and why.
Our spanish lessons started early and finished at lunchtime, so we had the rest of the afternoon and evening to amuse ourselves. Internet was so cheap in Antigua that we spent most afternoons online catching up with our emails and blogs, which unsurprisingly we had fallen behind with again. We discovered the delights of phoning home cheaply with Skype, so be warned we may be calling you soon! We obviously also had The Family
Andrea, Pupi, Fabiola, Marta and a friend of the family who's name escapes us! spanish revision to do and found that it was much more enjoyable studying with a beer, so one afternoon we went to a rooftop bar with a view of one of the volcanos and had a leisurely study session accompanied by a litre of Gallo(thats Rooster in English - I leant all the important stuff)
(the local brew) as the sun set behind us. Antigua also seemed to do very good cakes, which we sampled more than once, as a reward for our hardwork (Connie I can recommend a particular cafe if you are interested in visiting!).
Halfway through the week we decided we deserved a night out and had spied a bar that was offering dirt cheap mojitos (my favourite cocktail) on Wednesday nights, so we headed straight there after dinner, with Joshua and a friend from his spanish school in tow. Unsurprisingly for the price, the mojitos were not particularly strong so after a few we headed on to another bar where as luck would have it the Buena Vista Social Club were doing a gig, and for free! The band had already started when we arrived but the tiny dancefloor was already jammed packed with Our fellow student
Joshua, the morning after the night before!! Breakfast came round pretty quickly after a night of salsa-ing!! salsa-ing bodies, so we dived right in. Kev has got the basic salsa step down now so we had a little dance until the compact space and heat required more beer. There were a few of really good couples on the dancefloor who had cleared a space and audience with their twists and turns. I tried to convince Kev that once he had learnt a few basic turns he would be just as good but I am not sure he believed me!
The band's music varied from mellow jazzy sounds to upbeat salsa tunes and the guys in the band all looked rather old, but they could still get the crowd moving with their music. In the break and after the gig they also came out to mingle and chat with the crowd which was really nice. We realised we had actually spoken to one of the guys in the street a couple of days previously. We wanted to go see them play again in another bar on the friday night but as it happended there was a huge storm and powercut so the concert did not look like it would go ahead. It was not the first powercut
The rooftop bar
The view from one of the few 2 story buildings (thats not a church) in Antigua. we had had in Antigua, so it was no surprise!
Guatemala is well-known for it´s beautiful textiles which you can buy all over Central America, so we decided it would be rude not to make a purchase from the artesan market. We had already seen something we quite liked on a previous visit but trawled around the whole market again just incase there was something better but ended up buying the napkin and placemat tableware set we had seen on our first visit. We are acquiring a nice collection of things from around the world but at present do not have a house to put them in - slight problem! We also wanted to buy a bag to carry our new hammock in, but most stalls seem to stock the same items and the only bags were either too big or too small and you could unfortunately not just buy lengths of fabric. We ended up buying a tortilla wrap or big placemat or some kind which I later fashioned into a nice drawn string bag for our hammock putting my sewing kit to good use.
We had been offered a second weeks study in Antigua but
Kev on the roof
Kev doing his homework and enjoying the view over a beer in the rooftop bar. decided we needed a change of scenery - a week in one place is such a long time!!
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Lisa
non-member comment
Am very Jealous!
Hey guys, just been enjoying your latest adventures. Wish I was there! Job is going well, am getting to know cobham oxshott + claygate as have patients all over- most of them huge posh houses with swimming pools or out in the sticks in an old farm house- is quite interesting! We've now ordered some skype thingys so should be all set up with that by next week! Talk to you soon, take care, love lots xxxxxxx