La Escuela

I’ve found my Achilles heel for this mission to learn Spanish in Guatemala: Americans. We ruin everything! I’ll get to it. On Monday mornings at eight, the teachers at the school hold a short meeting for students describing the activities for the week. There were about 12 students (not all of students in the school showed for the meeting) and 8 staff members there. I’m prettty sure I’m the oldest student at the school, but I’m used to hanging with the young folks, so no worries. First, we went around the room and introduced ourselves—just our name and where we’re from. “Soy de Los Angeles, y en ingles me llamo Joe, pero aqui me llamo Pepe.” This brought some chuckles and then a chorus of “Pepe! Pepe! Pepe!” I’m sure I was beet red. But everyone remembers my name now. Then they told us the schedule in Spanish. All Spanish, all the time. However, they were gracious enough to translate it for us ignoramuses. In addition to the four and a half hours of individual instruction each day, optional activities for the week include:

• Monday evening: A Guatemalan movie in the TV room. 
• Tuesday evening: A conference about Guatemalan politics in the TV room. 
• Wednesday morning/afternoon: The Stove Project. This is one of the big weekly projects for the school. Basically, they travel to the mountain villages and help build brick stoves with a chimney for the indigenous people who often have unhealthy and costly (more wood) open pit fires. 
• Thursday afternoon: Another weekly event is a trip to a daycare, where we can help los niños with reading and math (!) or whatever. It’s also a good opportunity to work with an age group that shares my Spanish vocabulary skills. After the daycare is a dinner at the school prepared by students. 
• Friday all day: A trip to the beach, about two hours away via one of the famed ‘Chicken Buses.’

Later on, when Isabel, the secretary, asked which activities I wanted to attend, I said “yes” to them all. I’m here to participate! Besides, I can only sit around drinking so much cerveza.

After that meeting, three other newbie Americans and I had our own little orientation. This is where I started to smell trouble, because, well, it’s a lot easier to get to know someone in English! And there are some very cool people here to hang out with, but it’s counterproductive to the mission if we keep speaking English with each other. One of them, my new bff Annie de LA too (lo siento for so quickly bumping all of my other bffs!), and I noted this problem and decided that we can only give ourselves a few days to speak English with each other. I fear that’s going to be easier said than done.


I then met my maestra, Lily. Like everyone in this country, she’s very sweet. (There must be something in the water.) She’s also very smart and patient with me, though we spent a lot of time just chit-chatting about our lives and I was pretty happy with my conversational skills. The teaching style here is a mixture of simply conversing about various topics, along with some book work, depending upon one’s skill level. The main things I need to work on are my vocabulary and my verb conjugation. If only we could always speak in the present tense, I’d be a star. Anyhow, I meet with Lily every morning from 8 until 1 pm, with a half-hour break. There are about 10 other students spread out around the school meeting with their teachers at the same time, with two or three pairs in different rooms. We’re not restricted to the rooms, we can go out and walk around together also. This whole process repeats itself with a different set of students (and some different teachers) from 2 in the afternoon until 7 pm. At the end of each week, we can decide if we want to keep our teacher or get a different one. I definitely like Lily, so I think I’ll stick with her for a few weeks at least, then give someone else a try just to change things up.


I was super tired that afternoon, so I took a nap...in my new bed! Maria de Xela (who I love and to whom I will soon dedicate a whole post) knew that I didn’t like the bed and insisted that I switch to a different room. Now I have a double bed that is much more comfy, plus there’s an electrical outlet in my room. Movin’ on up! After dinner Monday night, I walked the few blocks back to the school and watched Men With Guns with a few other gringos. Of course, we all spoke English with each other. The movie, in Spanish with English subtitles, is Guatemalan and gives some history of the country. Muy interesante.


I have a million other observations to report and some pictures to share soon, but there’s cerveza to be had. ¡Hasta luego, amigos!