Viernes

So today I had my weekly test and I was really happy because I did well! It wasn’t perfect, but close to it :) So now I know present tense, both past tenses and both future tenses. I don’t know if my brain can handle any more tenses or irregular verbs! I really just want to focus on speaking next week because I’m still not confident in my speaking. It’s so much easier to think things through when you’re writing them down or reading them, but when you speak, it speeds things up a lot and you don’t have as much time to think about how to say things the right way. 

This was Tim’s last week. Most of the people that were here when I first got here are already gone. It’s kind of weird getting new people and losing friends every week. This week we had 22 students, which means the number of students basically doubled in one week. Some students study in the afternoons so I haven’t even really met them. Too many new names and faces for me to keep up with.

Today I talked to Edna (the director of the school) about volunteering next week. Before I came, I was looking forward to maybe observing at the hospital or doing something at one of the clinics, but now that I only have one week left (I can’t believe it!) I just decided that I would rather do something with kids. She said she would look into some stuff and let me know. I also requested to stay with Joaquin again for next week. He helped me learn so much this week and I did so good on my test, so why mess with something that’s working well? 

Today we walked to the University of San Carlos during class. Joaquin had been telling me about it and he used to go there. He asked me if I wanted to go see it, so I was like well I really don’t want to sit in this classroom for another 5 hours so why not. We went with Tim and his teacher Rony too. It was basically a normal college campus, but not as nice. It’s also known for being a really politically aware and liberal school, so there’s a bunch of controversial murals all over the walls of the school. A lot of them are quotes that have a slight communist theme to them. There were murals of some guy that helped Fidel Castro and then was killed by Americans. Apparently, the Guatemalans like him and they like communist ideas. Another strange thing about this school is that it’s autonomous and it’s unconstitutional for the police to enter onto the school grounds! So the students drink and smoke and can pretty much do whatever they want. Oh and since it’s a public university they only pay Q250 a year! That’s $32! How ridiculous is that! They have to take a bunch of exams to get in and apparently they’re pretty difficult. The school is also really hard I guess because Joaquin and Rony were saying that only a few people graduate each year. The student’s grades were posted out in the halls and the majority of them were failing! Someone had a 3%! How does that even happen? Also, they were telling us how easy it is for the students to cheat on their tests. A lot of them will sneak in cheat sheets or even write their notes right on the desk before the test. They don’t have strict rules about cheating there, so the worst that happens is you get caught and you get a zero on the test. I certainly wouldn’t want a doctor that graduated from that school to be taking care of me! 

After class today, a few of us had planned to go to Zona 3 and walk around the mall and get some Taco Bell. We got a little turned around and never actually found the Taco Bell which was pretty disappointing. Tim and I did find a gift for our family though, so the trip was somewhat productive. But then we decided to take a microbus on the way back and I lost my cell phone on it! I had it in my pocket and it must have fallen out without me realizing. It was my Guatemalan phone so it wasn’t terribly expensive, but still. Ugh.