Jake, Tori and I arrived last Wednesday morning after taking a red-eye from LAX to Ft. Lauderdale. It was a pretty sleepless night, but I was thrilled to be back. We grabbed a shuttle with four other Americans who were on our flight, and a little later we were walking the streets of Antigua trying to figure out where we were going to stay. We got connected with a couple people who rent out rooms to students in town for language school. It was a great transition into speaking Spanish again...the other students would go back and forth between English and Spanish, and our hosts were used to working with students so they'd speak relatively slow. We got some restaurant recomendations and hit the streets again. That afternoon and the next day we walked around a lot...I showed Jake and Tori some of my favorite spots from past trips, we hiked to the cross overlooking the city, and Jake bought either food or a souvenir at seemingly every corner :)
Friday morning we crammed into a shuttle with twelve other people and made our way to San Pedro on the edge of Lake Atitlan. It was supposed to be a relatively short trip, two maybe three hours, but stretched into a five-hour ride. It didn't seem that long since everyone started sharing cool stories about where they were from or had been or were going. The two Austrian guys had been in San Pedro before, so several of us stayed at a hostel together and bounced around to all the places they recommended. We participated in a trivia night and our competitive sides really came out. In the morning, Jake, Tori and I decided we'd head across the lake like originally planned to stay at a hotel that Tori's friend's uncle apparently owns. A half hour boat ride brought us to Panajachel, and we crammed into a tuk-tuk to go the rest of the way to San Antonio Pobolo. The Hotel Teraza was gorgeous, so we chilled on the patio overlooking the lake. I loved watching the clouds roll over the distant mountains. Tori and I explored the town a bit and got to watch some of the artesans as they wove intricate patterns into fabric or crafted ceramic dishes and knick-knacks. We learned about how long it take to make various pieces, the specific blue that indicates it was made in San Antonio, and just chatted with vendors. Very few gringos were there so it was a great opportunity to just observe life in a quiet lakeside village.
Sunday morning we hitched a ride in a pick-up back to Panajachel then took three chicken buses whipping around mountain curves and flying down straight-aways until we reached Xela. A taxi brought us through town to our school where we met up with our separate host families. I'm staying a few blocks from the school with a family that has been hosting students for the last 15 years. I got settled into my room, walked to the supermarket with my host mom, and relaxed before classes got going.
This first week is a bit different than the rest will be. We have one on one tutoring every afternoon 2-6 and that will stay the same the whole time, but mornings vary day to day. We've got cultural competency class Monday, Tuesday and Thursday mornings. In these sessions we've covered the history of Pop Wuj, the need for this type of class, aspects of Western culture that conflict with Guatemalan culture, the history of Spain and their conquest of Latin America, history of Mayan culture, and more. I've heard a lot of the info before in my Spanish and Community Development classes at Covenant, but it was intriguing hearing it all from the perspective of a Guatemalan anthropologist. Wednesday morning we had the option of free time or helping build a stove as part of their community development project, so several of us ended up traveling to a rural town to help construct a stove for a family. This project got started because the community realized a need for better cooking practices...they use open fires which are inefficient and lead to the inhalation of lots of toxic smoke causing kids and women to have severe respiratory problems (they said the leading causes of death in kids here are respiratory problems then malnutrition). Families contribute some of the supplies and Pop Wuj helps cover the rest to construct a cinder block stove with metal cooktop and chimney. I was glad to be a part of it this week since we should be working in clinic on Wednesdays from here on out.
My afternoon tutor is Luis. He keeps lessons interesting by only focusing on a certain subject for a half hour or so. We bounce from conversations about home to medical terms, from daily activities to grammar, adverbs to expressions I should know, etc. He was telling me he was immediately impressed by my accent and my openness about my faith. My favorite part of the week so far was talking about my church, Emmaus...he had never heard the story before so I pulled out my Bible and read it to him. We used the text for vocab words, talked about prayer, what it means to have a personal relationship with God, and more. Hopefully we can do something like that frequently. I also loved talking about types of nerves, gait changes, numbness, effects of nutrition the brachial plexus, and other stuff I learned in neurology this year. It's a bit overwhelming at times...for example, we've covered ten different verb tenses in two days and have more to come. But I love it! I thrive on challenges and one-on-one settings like this. It's shaping up to be a fantastic summer :)
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