8: San Andreas - Guatemala

Days 29-36 (11th-18th Nov): Our First week at Spanish School and the Homestay

Written 20/11/12

 

Hello week 5! The week of school and super amounts of Spanish! Although not quite what we expected it has been a really great week and we have learnt so much, not only language-wise but about real Guatemalan life :)

The sunday started with a cold shower and a skype home, as we won't have any internet for the whole week we are in the village =O Also found out about the earthquake further down in Guatemala and the trouble that has caused. We have heard trucks going round with megaphones asking people to donate to the releif effort. We were planning on going to some of the affected villages too, but seeing as they are still having aftershocks and there is a warning on the volcano there, we might have to change the plan!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We got a lancha (type of small boat) across the lake with a old and toothless man named Cush, and got taken to meet the family we were staying with straight away. The matriarch of the family was called Martha, and she was about 60, small and very wrinkley hehe! There are 7 people that live in the house; some of her children and then their children, and the rest of her family in the surrounding houses. It seemed a very close knit family with someone always popping over, meals all being shared and cooked for around 15, and about 10 different children in the house at one time. It was quite lovely actually and a really nice way to live. They were very friendly and welcoming, although the first day was hard as we could barely speak any spanish and we were trying to talk to everyone! The house was on about 4 floors of windy staircases and terraces, and our room, although concrete and with no windows, did us just fine. We were stuffed with 3 HUGE meals a day, some examples of which were pancakes, rice pudding, fired bananas for breakfast, chicken stews, all kinds of eggs, casseroles for lunch and a lot of rice and beans for dinner. We also had deep fried cauliflour and sometimes... even Liam got full!!!! =O We realised we were staying with a relitivly well off

 family as the only other non-guatlemalan in the village was one other student (Elise), and she had no TV, and some of her walls were cardboard. Having said that, it really is a different way of life. There is no hot water. Ever. For half the day there was not even any running water full stop, and we had to use buckets to flush toliets and wash. Most of the food is cooked outside where the is a constant fire alite and people wash their clothes in the street. There is no focus on material things, but the children are so happy to just play and there is always someone in the lake.
The women do everything, men will not even look at any type of housework, and when Liam did the washing-up, they looked at him like he was crazy! The children are beautiful and always playing, a few nights we went out and played stuck in the mud with them in the street, coloured in books and taught them tic-tac-toe lol. The village itself is on a massive, very steep slope so our calves got a good workout, but from everywhere there was a gorgeous view of the lake and moutains. Everyone is friendly and stops to talk. It is a really lovely place. Its funny because there are things like pigs just wandering freely around the streets! The only negitive is the noise. There is no regard for noise boundries at 
all, people blare TVs and music so the whole street can hear, people bellow in the streets, dogs bark constantly and firecrackers explode whether its 10pm or 4am, but its a small price to pay lol.

The school, although not always the best organised of places, turned out to be really good. Everyday we had 4 hours of lesson starting at 8am ! =O The teachers ONLY SPEAK SPANISH so you have no choice but to get stuck in, and we had a teacher each too, so it was really one to one. We learnt verbs and tenses as well as useful vocabulary and it was good but really hard! Everyday we thought our brains would explode by the end. It was mostly taught using a lot of mimes, and slow repetion until we worked out what was going on lol. I also leant I know nothing about gramitical English as we were learning reflecive verbs and imperfect past tense verbs and I didnt know what that meant in english let alone spanish! But each day we remembered more and by the end of the week, although far from fluent, we could hold a broken conversation :) Definately enough for traveling though which was the main objective :D

Some of the afternoons we went out to explore the surrounding area with Elise and the teachers. One, we went to visit an old woman and her family who made herbal medicines and cosmetics from plants in her garden and learnt a lot about traditions, and another we went got a lancha over the lake to visit a NGO wildlife sanctury. We saw a 3 legged ocelot, crocodiles, avaries full of birds and a very chatty parrot. On the way back that day we stopped and had a swim in the lake, it was so pretty and the lake was really calm so reflected everything! One afternoon we spent with Martha and the family

 learning to cook a few things. We practiced making tortillas (which ended up bobbily and not round) and empanadas which are really tastey... tho im not even sure you can get the ingrediants at home. It was rele fun actually. All the food is quite simple really, but cooked for ages and is so flavory! They also use a lot of margarine... :S lol. The rest of the time we were either studying or down by the docks or eating lol. At the house they have a pet parraket which is kwl too, tho it did keep trying to bite Liam haha.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At the weekend we went to Santa Elana, the nearby town and it was horrible, so dirty and crowed and loud, we ran back to San Andres pretty quickly! Tho we did have our first ride in a Tuk-Tuk :) The bus there was pretty funny as there were only about 10 seats and we counted 21 people on it in the end, we had an old lady pile her shopping on us, and were pretty much sat ontop of eachother, good way to get to know the local haha!

So it has been a really great week and so much more has happened but I can't write it all. It has been great to stay in one place for some time and to be able to communicate is going to help so much. Although not the main purpose of us comming here, just leanring about normal life here has turned out to be the best thing. At the end of the week we found out there is the big annual village fiesta on Wednesday about an old folk tale, so we have decided to stay until then, don't want to miss that!