So the lecture yesterday was a little boring. It was more about the religious beliefs of the Mayans than about their culture, which sounds like it might be interesting but it really wasn´t. It was hard to understand because it was all in Spanish, which is becoming the story of my life here hahah. They had another student translate, but the speaker would forget that he had to stop talking to let the student translate so there would large gaps of time where I didn´t understand much. One thing I did find interesting was that the Mayans beleive that people were created out of different types of corn. Theres five different types of corn apparently and each different kind represents a different race and different aspects of the spirit and the body. The speaker also said that the predictions about the end of the world based on the Mayan calendar are inaccuarate and ignorant. He said people who aren´t Mayan try to take the calendar and understand it and they don´t really know what they´re talking about.
After taking notes in class today for what seemed like forever, my teacher and I just sat and talked for a while. We ended up talking about movies and I told her about netflix. She had never heard of it and she was reallly jealous haha. She also asked me how close I lived to a grocery store and I told her it was about a 10-15 minute drive and she seemed shocked. She thought that was so far away. They just walk everywhere here so there´s stores and places a lot closer to their houses.
I´ve been feeling a lot better the past few days and I also figured out how to get hot water in the shower, so its been pretty awesome :)
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
El fin de semana y la segunda semana
So since this is the beginning of a new week, I get a new teacher. At first, I really wished I had requested to stay with my teacher from last week, Norma, because my new teacher, also named Norma, is a little bit harder to understand and she goes through material a little bit quicker, but after my first full day with her, I think she'll be a good teacher too. It'll just take a little bit of time to readjust again. She also gave me more homework!
This weekend it rained a lot! After lunch on Saturday it was pouring so hard that I didn't want to leave the house. So instead, I hung out with Analy (my "sister"). She's eleven so we sewed some clothes for her Barbies and then she tried to teach me how to dance and then we went to the tienda to buy snacks and made strawberry and banana smoothies and watched a movie.
On Sunday I went out to eat with some friends and then afterwards we decided we wanted to go see a movie. We had to take a microbus, which is basically just a big van, to the area of the city with the mall. It was such a commerical area with a Walmart and a Taco Bell and the mall and everything. It was so different from every other part of Guatemala that I've seen. We were hoping that the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, because sometimes the movies here are like that, but we had no such luck. If we had gone earlier, we could've seen ¿Que Paso Ayer? 2 (The Hangover 2) in English, but we were too late for that. So I watched Piratas del Caribe and I didn't understand the majority of it, but it was still fun. It was weird because after we bought our tickets we had to wait in line outside of the theater until just before the movie started. Then they let us all in while the previews were playing and we had to find our seats in the dark. Then, half way through the movie, it just stopped. We thought that the electricity went out because we could hear that it was raining from inside the theater. But, then we realized that it was just an intermission haha.
This week for activities, there's a lecture on the Mayan culture and worldview, another movie, salsa dancing lessons, another hike up a different mountain to see Laguna de Chicobal and a trip to the beach. I think I'm going to skip the salsa dancing lesson haha.
This weekend it rained a lot! After lunch on Saturday it was pouring so hard that I didn't want to leave the house. So instead, I hung out with Analy (my "sister"). She's eleven so we sewed some clothes for her Barbies and then she tried to teach me how to dance and then we went to the tienda to buy snacks and made strawberry and banana smoothies and watched a movie.
On Sunday I went out to eat with some friends and then afterwards we decided we wanted to go see a movie. We had to take a microbus, which is basically just a big van, to the area of the city with the mall. It was such a commerical area with a Walmart and a Taco Bell and the mall and everything. It was so different from every other part of Guatemala that I've seen. We were hoping that the movie was in English with Spanish subtitles, because sometimes the movies here are like that, but we had no such luck. If we had gone earlier, we could've seen ¿Que Paso Ayer? 2 (The Hangover 2) in English, but we were too late for that. So I watched Piratas del Caribe and I didn't understand the majority of it, but it was still fun. It was weird because after we bought our tickets we had to wait in line outside of the theater until just before the movie started. Then they let us all in while the previews were playing and we had to find our seats in the dark. Then, half way through the movie, it just stopped. We thought that the electricity went out because we could hear that it was raining from inside the theater. But, then we realized that it was just an intermission haha.
This week for activities, there's a lecture on the Mayan culture and worldview, another movie, salsa dancing lessons, another hike up a different mountain to see Laguna de Chicobal and a trip to the beach. I think I'm going to skip the salsa dancing lesson haha.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
First week done!
Yesterday during my Spanish class, I went to the big market in San Francisco that happens every Friday. I went with another student and our two teachers and we had to take a chicken bus! Chicken buses are old school buses from the US and they use them down here as public transportation. They make a lot of stops on the way picking up tons of people. There´s also some people that come on and off the bus selling things or trying to get money. One man came on and passed out these little cards and on the back they said ¨I can´t hear, I can´t speak. I sell these for 1Q to support myself.¨ 1Q is like twelve cents. It was so sad to see! Also, my teacher was telling me that usually theres like three people to a seat and then some standing up and that theres often chickens and pigs on the racks above your head. Thankfully, the buses we went on were not that busy.
The market was huge! There were tons of animals and clothes and meats and vegetables. There were so many cute little baby pigs and there was a man forcing one of the pigs mouths open and making him squeal so loudly. My teacher said they do that to check the color of their mouths or something to see if they´re healthy or not before someone buys it. Its so sad to think that they´re all just going to be eaten. I like bacon and everything, but cute little baby pigs! I wanted to buy them all and set them free :) There was also an area where they were selling all these animals parts. I don´t really know what a person would do with cow heads and chicken feet but it was definitely interesting to see. While we wandered around the market we went into a Catholic church thats about 300 yrs old I think. It had beautiful domed ceilings that used to have murals painted on them but they were mostly worn off. My teacher said that it took 100 yrs to build and they put animal bones in the walls to reinforce them and make them stronger! After the market we walked to a nearby Mayan holy place. It was on the side of a mountain and the view was amazing. People go there daily to see the preistess and make sacrifices to their Mayan gods for health, money, etc. They sacrfice things like candles and insense usually but sometimes they´ll sacrifice chicken blood too I guess. They have to pay the preistess there in order to sacrifice their stuff and she communicates with the gods for them or something. It was kind of interesting to see but also sad to see that these people think that these ¨gods¨ are actually going to help them and bless them and make their lives better.
Because I was at the market all during my class, I got out of taking my weekly test :) But I actually kind of wanted to take it because I wanted to see how much I had learned. I´m still only learning the present tense but its new stuff because we´re going a lot more in depth then I ever did in high school. Sometimes I feel like shes teaching me too many words and I´ll never remember them all. And for a lot of the words I already know other words that mean the same thing, so why do I need to learn more? But I guess if I want to be able to understand other peoples Spanish then it´s important. I feel like I can understand a lot more Spanish now then before but I don´t know if my speaking has really gotten any better. I can´t believe my first week here is already over!
Last night all of the students and teachers had dinner together at the school. Each student had to bring a dish to pass. I just made a salad. But, it was probably the best meal I´ve had since getting here because it was a lot of American foods. We had garlic bread, pasta, fruit salad and lots of other stuff. I love the fruit here, but my host family never eats any fruit! The food they serve isn´t bad, its just really different. I´ve been feeling a little sick-ish the past few days. Probably because my body is adjusting to all these changes-the food, the climate, the walking everywhere, etc. I hope it doesn´t end up being anything worse then that. The other student that lives in the same house as me is a med student and he keeps trying to convince me that I have some kind of parasite haha. But, every time I´ve come here before I´ve felt the same way so I´m sure I´ll be fine. At the dinner, the five students that were ¨graduating¨ from Miguel Angel Asturias gave speeches and one sang a really funny song that he wrote in Spanish. It was a good time hanging out with everyone and eating good food.
This morning I went on a hike up a mountain with the school. The mountain is called Baul, which in Spanish means trunk or chest. I guess the story is that there was a family that had a lot of money and either they didn´t want it to get stolen or the money they had they got by stealing it (there are still holes in my understanding of Spanish haha), anyways they hid it in a chest and buried it in the mountain supposedly. So it was about a 30 min hike to the top and there was a park up there. There was a tall Mayan monument and one of the students with us climbed to the top. He´s crazy. There was also a bunch of long cement slides that a bunch of the guys went down on. I didn´t try it cause I didn´t want to hurt my butt haha. The hike down was much easier, which I appreciated.
I don´t really have much planned for the rest of the weekend, except that I´m going to go out to lunch tomorrow with some of my friends from school. I kind of just want to relax and rest so that I don´t get any sicker and so that I´ll be refreshed for another week here.
The market was huge! There were tons of animals and clothes and meats and vegetables. There were so many cute little baby pigs and there was a man forcing one of the pigs mouths open and making him squeal so loudly. My teacher said they do that to check the color of their mouths or something to see if they´re healthy or not before someone buys it. Its so sad to think that they´re all just going to be eaten. I like bacon and everything, but cute little baby pigs! I wanted to buy them all and set them free :) There was also an area where they were selling all these animals parts. I don´t really know what a person would do with cow heads and chicken feet but it was definitely interesting to see. While we wandered around the market we went into a Catholic church thats about 300 yrs old I think. It had beautiful domed ceilings that used to have murals painted on them but they were mostly worn off. My teacher said that it took 100 yrs to build and they put animal bones in the walls to reinforce them and make them stronger! After the market we walked to a nearby Mayan holy place. It was on the side of a mountain and the view was amazing. People go there daily to see the preistess and make sacrifices to their Mayan gods for health, money, etc. They sacrfice things like candles and insense usually but sometimes they´ll sacrifice chicken blood too I guess. They have to pay the preistess there in order to sacrifice their stuff and she communicates with the gods for them or something. It was kind of interesting to see but also sad to see that these people think that these ¨gods¨ are actually going to help them and bless them and make their lives better.
Because I was at the market all during my class, I got out of taking my weekly test :) But I actually kind of wanted to take it because I wanted to see how much I had learned. I´m still only learning the present tense but its new stuff because we´re going a lot more in depth then I ever did in high school. Sometimes I feel like shes teaching me too many words and I´ll never remember them all. And for a lot of the words I already know other words that mean the same thing, so why do I need to learn more? But I guess if I want to be able to understand other peoples Spanish then it´s important. I feel like I can understand a lot more Spanish now then before but I don´t know if my speaking has really gotten any better. I can´t believe my first week here is already over!
Last night all of the students and teachers had dinner together at the school. Each student had to bring a dish to pass. I just made a salad. But, it was probably the best meal I´ve had since getting here because it was a lot of American foods. We had garlic bread, pasta, fruit salad and lots of other stuff. I love the fruit here, but my host family never eats any fruit! The food they serve isn´t bad, its just really different. I´ve been feeling a little sick-ish the past few days. Probably because my body is adjusting to all these changes-the food, the climate, the walking everywhere, etc. I hope it doesn´t end up being anything worse then that. The other student that lives in the same house as me is a med student and he keeps trying to convince me that I have some kind of parasite haha. But, every time I´ve come here before I´ve felt the same way so I´m sure I´ll be fine. At the dinner, the five students that were ¨graduating¨ from Miguel Angel Asturias gave speeches and one sang a really funny song that he wrote in Spanish. It was a good time hanging out with everyone and eating good food.
This morning I went on a hike up a mountain with the school. The mountain is called Baul, which in Spanish means trunk or chest. I guess the story is that there was a family that had a lot of money and either they didn´t want it to get stolen or the money they had they got by stealing it (there are still holes in my understanding of Spanish haha), anyways they hid it in a chest and buried it in the mountain supposedly. So it was about a 30 min hike to the top and there was a park up there. There was a tall Mayan monument and one of the students with us climbed to the top. He´s crazy. There was also a bunch of long cement slides that a bunch of the guys went down on. I didn´t try it cause I didn´t want to hurt my butt haha. The hike down was much easier, which I appreciated.
I don´t really have much planned for the rest of the weekend, except that I´m going to go out to lunch tomorrow with some of my friends from school. I kind of just want to relax and rest so that I don´t get any sicker and so that I´ll be refreshed for another week here.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
An Interesting Tradition :)
So before I left for Guatemala, my nephew Ryan asked me to figure out what the kids here do when they lose their teeth. So after explaining to my teacher in my broken Spanish what kids in the states believe, she told me that when kids here lose a tooth they throw it on the roof of their houses and sing this little song and they believe that a mouse will come and take their old tooth away and give them their new tooth. :)
Muchas Actividades
So last night I asked my host mom if she needed help with dinner and she had me make guacamole. I was so excited to eat it because I love guacamole and I was thinking we'd eat it with tortillas or tortilla chips but then she spread it on tortillas, put a hot dog on top, then tomatoes, onions, ketchup, and mayonnaise! I was thinking that there was no way that it was going to taste good. But surprisingly, it did! And today I finally had something other than scrambled eggs for breakfast! I never enjoyed a pancake so much hahah :)
The chocolate factory was pretty cool. They put sooo much sugar in with the cocoa beans though! It was like 3 parts sugar and one part chocolate. It's different than like hershey's chocolate though because they don't make it to eat. They make bars of it and then they'll put in it hot water or milk to make hot chocolate. Its more common for them to drink it then to eat it, so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't just buy a regular bar of chocolate. But then afterwards, one of the other students told us about a chocolateria (chocolate store) near the school so a bunch of us went there. I bought a chocolate covered mango and it was super good.
Yesterday we went to Fuentes Georginas which are the hot springs in a town that's next to Xela. The water is naturally heated because it passes by volcanoes. There were three different pools and the first one was so hot that nobody could even get in it! The other two were just like really big hot tubs. It's a lot colder there because of the altitude so it feels really nice to be in the hot water. It was so foggy there though so I couldn't see the view which sucks cause I'm sure it would've been amazing since we were so high up.
Tomorrow during my class, my teacher is going to take me to a really big market that's here every Friday. Every Friday night at the school, all of the students come for dinner and everyone is supposed to cook something or bring something to eat. Hopefully I'll find something there to bring! She said there's usually lots of animals at this market, like cows, turkeys, ducks, etc. It should be pretty interesting!
The chocolate factory was pretty cool. They put sooo much sugar in with the cocoa beans though! It was like 3 parts sugar and one part chocolate. It's different than like hershey's chocolate though because they don't make it to eat. They make bars of it and then they'll put in it hot water or milk to make hot chocolate. Its more common for them to drink it then to eat it, so I was a little disappointed that I couldn't just buy a regular bar of chocolate. But then afterwards, one of the other students told us about a chocolateria (chocolate store) near the school so a bunch of us went there. I bought a chocolate covered mango and it was super good.
Yesterday we went to Fuentes Georginas which are the hot springs in a town that's next to Xela. The water is naturally heated because it passes by volcanoes. There were three different pools and the first one was so hot that nobody could even get in it! The other two were just like really big hot tubs. It's a lot colder there because of the altitude so it feels really nice to be in the hot water. It was so foggy there though so I couldn't see the view which sucks cause I'm sure it would've been amazing since we were so high up.
Tomorrow during my class, my teacher is going to take me to a really big market that's here every Friday. Every Friday night at the school, all of the students come for dinner and everyone is supposed to cook something or bring something to eat. Hopefully I'll find something there to bring! She said there's usually lots of animals at this market, like cows, turkeys, ducks, etc. It should be pretty interesting!
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
El Segundo Dia
I slept much better last night. I didn’t notice the roosters so much because I was so sleepy but I realized that the reason I heard a dog barking all night long was because my host family keeps their puppy outside in an area kind of like an enclosed patio and my room is right next to the patio. The puppy barks a lot during the night, but she’s so cute! It makes me miss Casey less :)
Today during my lesson a bunch of the teachers took their students to the cemetery. In Guatemala, it’s not common for people to be buried in the ground so most of the graves are above ground in mausoleums. They are very colorful and there are lots of interesting designs and statues. The families of the people buried in the cemetery have to pay a small fee every year to keep the body there and if they don’t pay, they remove the body! While we walked around, we stopped at a few different graves and heard stories and legends about the people buried there. It was pretty interesting, not at all what I was expecting when my teacher asked me if I wanted to go to the cemetery. Later today, we’re all going to una fabrica de chocolate (chocolate factory). I’m pretty excited about it because they’re going to show us how they make the chocolate and then we can taste it and buy some. Que delicioso!
Here's a picture from the cafe I went to yesterday. I tried to add more, but the internet isn't that great so it was taking too long. I'll try again later.
Monday, May 23, 2011
First Day!
I got into Guatemala City yesterday morning and then had to wait three hours at the bus station for the four hour bus ride to Xela. I was expecting one of those old school buses but it was actually pretty nice. More like a greyhound bus. It had air conditioning and TVs and all for only 75 Q (about $10). I got into Xela after dark and then took a taxi to the school with another American that I met on the bus ride. I got to meet my host family and then had dinner and went to bed.
I didnt sleep very well with all the dogs barking and the roosters cawing and the fireworks at 5:30 in the morning so I've been kind of exhausted all day. Its felt like such an long day and its not even 7 PM yet. Hopefully that means I'll sleep really well tonight. After waking up at 5:30 am I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and black beans with this drink that is made of hot water, chunks of pineapple, cinnamon, and other floating chunks that I couldn't understand the word for. It was okay. There's another student staying with the same host family as me and he's been here for a week so he showed me the way to the school. I got to meet all of the other students (there's about ten others) and then had my first spanish lesson. I had to take a test to see where I'm at and then we got started. I'm doing a lot of review to start out with because I don't remember everything I've learned and I need to get that down good before I can learn new stuff. We did articulos for like an hour straight, which got pretty boring. Articulos are basically just different ways to say a and the but in Spanish it's a little bit more complicated than that.
For the second half of my lesson we walked around the city for a little while. My teacher helped me change over my money and get my phone set up and then I was pretty much done for the day. After lunch I went back to school to meet a friend and we walked around the city and ended up at a cafe where you can sit on the roof that over looks el parque central. Then we came back to school to watch 127 hours which, by the way, is pretty disgusting. Over all, it was a good first day. Tomorrow we're going to a chocolate factory and the day after that to the hot springs. Sounds like its going to be a fun week :)
I didnt sleep very well with all the dogs barking and the roosters cawing and the fireworks at 5:30 in the morning so I've been kind of exhausted all day. Its felt like such an long day and its not even 7 PM yet. Hopefully that means I'll sleep really well tonight. After waking up at 5:30 am I had a breakfast of scrambled eggs and black beans with this drink that is made of hot water, chunks of pineapple, cinnamon, and other floating chunks that I couldn't understand the word for. It was okay. There's another student staying with the same host family as me and he's been here for a week so he showed me the way to the school. I got to meet all of the other students (there's about ten others) and then had my first spanish lesson. I had to take a test to see where I'm at and then we got started. I'm doing a lot of review to start out with because I don't remember everything I've learned and I need to get that down good before I can learn new stuff. We did articulos for like an hour straight, which got pretty boring. Articulos are basically just different ways to say a and the but in Spanish it's a little bit more complicated than that.
For the second half of my lesson we walked around the city for a little while. My teacher helped me change over my money and get my phone set up and then I was pretty much done for the day. After lunch I went back to school to meet a friend and we walked around the city and ended up at a cafe where you can sit on the roof that over looks el parque central. Then we came back to school to watch 127 hours which, by the way, is pretty disgusting. Over all, it was a good first day. Tomorrow we're going to a chocolate factory and the day after that to the hot springs. Sounds like its going to be a fun week :)
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Today is the day!
Today is the day that I am leaving for Guatemala! This afternoon I'll be flying out to Atlanta where I'll spend the night so that I can fly to Guatemala tomorrow morning and take a bus to Xela before it starts to get dark out. I'll be able to meet my host family and settle into my room before classes start Monday morning. I still have a few things to do today before I leave, but already I'm starting to get excited! I know the first week or so will be hard since I'll still be figuring everything out and I won't be able to communicate very well, but I'm praying that I get a great host family and that I can adjust quickly. I'm gonna try to keep everyone updated on how and what I'm doing on this blog so that I don't have to email a million people all about the same things, so keep checking back :)
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Leaving soon!
I leave for Guatemala in eleven days! That is so crazy to me- I thought this day would never come! I am finally all done with this semester and my last day of work is next Wednesday, so I'm starting to freak out realizing that I'm going to leave home pretty soon. Most of me is extremely excited to jump on a plane and go back to Guatemala, but the rest of me is really nervous and kind of scared. I've never flown by myself or navigated my way through a foreign country on my own, so those are two things that I'm getting nervous about. But I know that this is exactly where God wants me to be this summer and the safest place to be is in the will of God.
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