| Mar 8, 2006 - Back to School
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 | | The lounge at our school, Centro Maya | | Most of the Rodriguez family, our hosts | | Candy and Jesus |
| Now I remember why I was glad to be finished with school - it is a lot of work! We are getting settled into a routine, I think. Classes run from 8 to 1 Monday - Friday. After class we walk back to the casa of our host family for lunch, then walk back to school for afternoon activities. So far, we are underwhelmed with the afternoon activities, but the lessons have been pretty good. Being immersed as a novice is very tiring. Every day we actually have to pay attention to what people are saying. Then we formulate responses that make us sound like 5 year olds: Sun...hot. We go now. Strawberry, apple, banana. Maybe by the end of the week we will be able to talk like 7 year olds, putting together complex phrases like: I walk now, or I like chicken. It is a very humbling experience.
Our host family is very nice and displays patience that few people possess. How many people could tolerate two middle aged (but young looking) men living in their home and butchering their native tongue? Their casa is basic by our standards but I think they are reasonably well off by Guatemalan standards. Both parents work, two of their three children are attending private schools, and a nephew from the country is living with them while finishing school. (That makes 8 people sharing one bathroom, for those of you counting at home.)
The house does not have heat and it gets quite chilly at night here. I generally do not look forward to the morning routine of walking through the cold rooms to the cold bathroom to take a shower with tepid water. I guess it helps us wake up. The walk to school takes about 20 minutes. Along the way, we cross a number of dusty roads and cars/busses throwing out choking fumes. This town is overrun with wild dogs. They mostly keep their distance from people, but we have been told to avoid them anyway, as they may bite. In fact, I think part of the reason that we were told to avoid walking certain routes at night had as much to do with the dogs as any risk from people. We are about a 30 minute walk from the city center, further than we would have preferred, but it certainly helps us immerse fully in local life. The walk is a bit too long to do every day, so we mostly stay away from the city center and the other foreign students who congregate there. Our routine varies little - wake about 6:15, breakfast at 7, school from 8-1, lunch at 1:30, back to school from 2:30 to 4:30, meander back to the casa by 6, chat with our family, eat dinner around 8, go to bed around 10, rinse, and repeat. And, yes, this is really how we choose to spend our vacations. |
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