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We have successfully completed five days in Spanish School- it´s been intense! Monday to Friday, we had one to one lessons from 8am-1pm (with a half hour break).
We´re in Xela which took us four and a half hours to get to from Antigua last Sunday. We had our first Chicken bus experience and I´m pleased to report that there were chickens on the bus (in a box in the overhead rack). Who knows what the poor things thought of the many people, the loud noise of the bus and the music blaring out! We made it to our first stop where we had to change but unfortunately were not dropped where we thought we would be so had to wander round trying to speak Spanish to various people to find where the next bus went from. Fortunately we eventually found a nice man who spoke some English and we were pointed in the right direction. A little scary as this town is not mentioned in our Lonely Planet book. Then we went on two more buses to get here. Most of the journey was spent three to a seat meant for two so pretty squashed but good value as it cost us just under 7GBP together for the experience compared to the tourist bus which would have been 32GBP together. However some of the savings have been blown on Simon's very expensive contact lens solution which is probably one of the few things here more expensive than England.
We´ve been staying with a Guatemalan family whilst we´ve been here which has been a great experience, however quite difficult due to having to speak Spanish at every meal. The house mother, Shenny, seems to be running some sort of stray dog rescue operation from her house and there are a couple of quite unkempt animals wandering around, recuperating from their life in the streets. However she has only rescued a very small amount compared to the massive amount of stray dogs around who all look very sad when they're out in the rain. She also has some of her own dogs and a couple of cats. I think there´s six dogs in total. My favourite is Napoleon who is the most disgusting looking, but so cute. He´s got tufty, patchy fur, a dodgy back leg and has purple patches on him. There are various other foreign students staying there as well. Shenny has been so patient with our lack of Spanish skills and has also cooked us three meals a day which is excellent! Tomorrow she is taking us up a nearby volcano (no dogs- they get traumatised leaving the house due to their previous lives!) On Monday, Shenny took us on a walk up a big hill where we had lovely views of Xela. It´s been a great way of finding out more about Guatemala and it´s people. And we've finally discovered how to have a hot shower (minimal pressure so just a trickle comes out)!
My (Katy) teacher was Juan who speaks a bit of English but not much so we´ve been working everything out very slowly in Spanish and most of the time I´ve understood. It´s amazing how much we´ve managed to cover in a week although I´m now quite confused about all the different tenses because I've learnt so many and all the word endings are pretty similar. It takes me about a minute to form a decent sentence in my head. Today we played scrabble which I was useless at! I´ve enjoyed it though and feel like our trip will be a bit easier with my new knowledge.
My (Simon) teacher was called Jorge who speaks absolutely no English so it´s been very difficult. We´ve had some low moments but in the end we got on well and he said that the week went quickly with me. My listening and reading has certainly improved but my speaking still needs a lot of work.
There are some other solo travellers at the school but also quite a lot of American students who are getting credits towards their degrees. In the afternoon, the school puts on different activities for whoever wants to get involved. On Tuesday, just the two of us went with Simon´s teacher on a chicken bus to a natural sauna nearby. Wednesday we learnt to cook a local dish called Pepian with the mother of one of the staff at the school. It was chicken with a sauce made out of toasted seeds, toasted bread and a few other things. We had it with vegetable rice- very yummy! Thursday, Simon played football which was difficult at the increased altitude (2300m) and he has sustained some minor injuries, but enjoyed it. Tonight we have a meal with all the other students and some teachers.
The weather has been pretty similar to being in Bristol: lots of rain and a bit cold. We wrote the first part of this blog when we had decided to go to an internet cafe whilst we waited for the massive rivers in the street to go down. Drainage is terrible and there was a torrential downpour after we left the house. Maybe wearing flip flops (Katy) was not the best idea today!
Before we left, we were really looking forward to all the lovely exotic fruits that they have here, however in general, Guatemalans aren't big fans of fruit, or vegetables come to that (they're into their fried food) so there isn't that much availability apart from tiny stalls in the street selling fruit already cut up which we're not sure if we can trust yet. It seems they ship most of it abroad. Today we tried to locate a ripe avocado which we didn't manage.
Our next stop is in a town on Lago de Atitlan. We'll stay in San Marco de Laguna. We're planning to get the chicken bus again, but our destination after that is quite far so we think we'll splash out on a tourist shuttle rather than having to change bus 10 times.
Katy
- comments
Andy Clarke Sounds very exciting! I'm sure your language skills will pick up quickly now - they will need to! Your postal votes arrived in Cambridge the day after you left. I put you both down for UKIP, I hope that's ok (just kidding). Love from Dad and Cathy
Kathy Disappointed there is no mention on the blog of Monday's activity at Spanish school;-) But I'm sure you guys will have many more salsa opportunities over the next few months!!