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Published: October 11th 2006
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Had a couple
Jules2, Me, Nina, Steve and Jules1 Well the last 2 weeks have been pretty mad. Much drinking and dancing. It's been great but I'm starting to think that the big nights or the hangovers in the morning have been impacting on my ability to learn Spanish. I've made a great little group of friends from all over which I've been having a ball with. The only problem was that we basically ended up in a bar every night. But the salsa clubs were great. Basically you would walk in and guys would ask you to dance. And the best part was that most of them didn't try anything they genuinely just wanted to dance. It was a lot of fun but difficult because Guatemalian men in general are really short & I mean maybe my shoulder height short, so some of the spins were a bit messy. But I enjoyed it anyway.
My last couple of days of school were interesting. On the Thursday we had a small fiesta as part of the lead up to Guatemala Indepedence Day. This involved us breaking into our own small groups of nationalities and making food which is traditional to our country. Now what is traditional food of Australia
and what's more how do you get ingredients in Guatemala. Well after much deliberation we decided to go for the trusty potato cake with beer batter. It was messy work and if the teachers didn't think beforehand that I consumed to much alcohol, added beer to a recipe seemed to confirm it for them. Mind you Jules drank the spare can that wasn't used. After this they had a small beauty type contest for the female teachers to work out who would be entered into the Miss Independence Day pagent. It was a bit of a giggle, all in Spanish, I had no idea what they were talking about. Then came the best part, the Salsa competition. The male teachers had to pick partners from the students. So I ended up dancing with Antonio who, apparently, is the best traditional salsa dancer in the school. So the music started and they started spinning us and throwing us around. It was really fast and quite funny. I had no idea what I was doing. But I had a laugh. Not sure who won in the end cause we were all exhausted and laughing to much. But a lot of fun. On
my last day which was the Friday the school gives out certificates to the students leaving in a presentation infront of the whole school. This is cool but unfortunately you have to make a speech on accepting the certificate. A speech in Spanish. So I had spent the night prior writing this speech, going through it with friends then going through it again with my family in the morning just to get the grammer correct. Now I have no problems with public speaking if you haven't noticed but this is different. I didn't want to accidently pronounce things wrong and say that I was an egg plant or a zebra so I had to be careful. But it all worked out fine and I managed to teach the teachers a new word. 'Cheeky'. This word doesn't translate directly so it took a bit of explaining and quite a few of the male teachers quite like it. So in the end it was all good and I said goodbye to school. Kind of sad but that's life.
Over the last 2 weeks I also did some volunteer work with a small school for orphan children between the ages of 2
and 6. They were sooo cute and funny. Not one teacher spoke any English and really to be honest my Spanish is still pretty rubbish. But I did manage to teach them some games. One of those hand slappy games I played as a little girl, and some card games - snap and fish which in Spanish became pescado. They seemed pretty happy with that. It was funny however, when they wanted to explain things to me. The children thought that if they held my face and yelled at me I would understand them. You know it could of been a whole new way of learning Spanish if it worked. But I had a really good time with the children and I would reccomend doing volunteer work to anyone. It is a great way to get to know the culture of a town or country. I wasn't quite getting the cultural experience in the bars.
My last weekend in Guatemala I spent 4 nights in San Pedro La Laguna which is a small town on the banks of Lago de Atitlan with some friends. It's a pretty chilled out place. Lots of bohemian types there trying to avoid reality.
But the lake itself is really pretty. It used to be a volcano which imploded and it is surrounded by 3 volcanos and mountains. Pretty much took it easy while there. It is a confusing place to get around. Only a couple of roads and a few dirt walking tracks in a maze of buildings and houses. First night in we went to a club which was having a full moon party. It was a pretty mad night but good fun. But it made the next day exceptionally lazy for all. While in San Pedro I decided to have a go at kayaking across the lake with a friend. hmmm, let me say kayaking isn't one of my strong points but I did manage to do it. The annoying thing was that we decided to go to a small beach to enjoy the sun but when we got there the clouds quickly rushed over bringing with it a thunderstorm. Not the best weather to be sunbathing in. So off we went into the only shelter and restaurant. It had the feel of one of those places in horror movies. You know the ones where you and your friends break down
in the middle of no where and you need somewhere to stay and then it all goes down hill from there. Anyway just so you know, I survived and I'm safe. I know you were all worried for awhile.
Anyway my time in Guatemala is now up and I'm staying in Bogota for another couple of days with a friend. Hopefully my Spanish will be up for the challenge. No more speaking English for me for a week.
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