Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Well I am into my third week here in Xela and it really is beginning to feel quite like home. So what am I up to? Monday to Friday is school, from 8 in the morning until 1pm with a 30 minute break. This is hard work and by the last hour I am starting to flag. I changed teachers after the first week and have a very pleasant, well educated and informed young woman in her 30s. The danger is that it is easy just to talk (not that easy, but less effort) and forget about the grammar. You really have to set your own agenda and then stick to it as the school does not have a set syllabus. I´m learning a lot about the country, culture, politics etc but not sure if my Spanish is improving greatly. Perhaps I will see the differnece once I get home.
Most afternoons the school offers activities, some of which are interesting. It is still quite strange for me not to have ¨stuff to do¨apart from my homework of course but I think I´m getting better and just hanging out which is what an awful lot of people here seem to spend much time doing. Although Xela is the second biggest city in Guatemala the central area where I live and go to school is not that large and every day as I wander round or sit in one of the many cafes I will see someone I know either from school or one of Jos´s many friends here so it is all feeling quite familiar.
For the first 2 weeks in school I palled up with 2 American women who were even older than me. Together our combined ages were probably greater than those of all the rest of the students put together - mostly young Americans. Anyway we got on famously and I am meeting up with them again this weekend to do some travelling. They are from the west coast, well travelled and educated with a great sense of humour for Americans
In the meantime I have been out to some of the nearer outlying areas from Xela with Jos. The first weekend we went to Tacana, a town near the Mexican border, where her boyfriend Fernando had a meeting. While he was busy we wandered around the market, patently the ONLY gringas in town so a source of great interest and amusement. This past Sunday we went to a village called San Andres Xacul, famous for a crazy yellow church. Apologies for not updating photos but have left my memory stick at home and will try to do so in the next day or so. The trip included a chicken bus and a micro which is a mini bus into which they pack an unfeasible number of people. However when you are paying 10p for the trip you can´t be too fussy. Though I have to confess that when I go to meet my American friends at Lake Atitlan this weekend I will be splashing out $15 on a private shuttle for teh 3 hour trip. Chicken buses are for the young, poor and foolish.
Climate is something of a current topic of conversation here. The rainy season is supposed to be over but last week we had 4 days of constant and torrential rain - possibly related to hurricanes elsewhere in the Caribbean. This was not fun, in fact ¨muy deprisivo¨as the roads turn into rivers, the pavements are almost impassable if you carry an umbrella and my room in family house is not somewhere to spend too many hours. It is also cold as we are at quite an altitude -over 2000 metres. Result being that I decided to treat myself on Saturday night to one of the best hotels in town with hot water in the shower and cable TV! (Didn´t tell the family where I was going and hoped I wouldn´t be spotted). The family are pleasant and the food is fine but it is a small house and they have a huge number of relatives who pass through almost daily. The TV is usually tuned to either football (for the sons) or US crap TV so I don´t feel I am learning much more Spanish by living there. However it is close to school, Jos´s house, the internet cafe and the salsa school so could be worse and at least I don´t have to shop or cook.
Talking of which it is almost time for my dinner and I have the subjunctive to do battle with for my homework so that is all for now.
Love
Linda
- comments