Imagine that... another great week

I just finished up my time at the Mountain School and now I am studying in Xela for one week until I start to travel. Very sad to leave the school and all the wonderful people, but I am intent upon returning!

I thought I´d take the opportunity to share some humorous/memorable moments of the past two weeks.


* Kite flying is a major past time in the villages that I lived by. One of the most endearing sites was a little boy flying a kite made of half of a plastic bag of chips and a tattered piece of string.


* Guatemala, as you all probably know, is earthquake central. Last week at the school I was studying in my room when we had a pretty sizeable tremor for a couple seconds. Very exciting for a Michigan girl!


* My friend Joel and I went down to the nearest town to buy some food for cooking and check email. You can either get to the town by riding in the back of a pickup (my prefered way of travel!) or a camioneta, a chicken bus. Needless to say, these get very full. Joel and I rode part of the way to Colomba with me standing on the lowest step into the bus, Joel on the next step up, and my arms practically hugging his legs over the potholes. The door was open and about three more people were hanging out the side! Normal here, not so normal back home. We tried to continue with our conversation, but I was laughing too hard.


* The more you learn Spanish, the greater chances for an embarrasing misunderstanding. Instead of missing the whole boat in a conversation, you think you get part of it when you really don´t. Last week I was looking for some raisins at the market to make rice pudding. I was all excited to use a new verb tense that would make me sound more polite. I mean to ask a vender where the pasas (raisins) were, but instead I said this:

"Descuple, a donde yo podria encontrar los payasos?

Which means,

"Excuse me, where might I be able to find the clowns?

Apparently there were not any clowns in Colomba that day because we sure didn´t get any directions out of her.

Yesterday we went on a tour of some Mayan ruins. Our tour was in Spanish, and many of the statues were idols for "fertilidad," and I joked with Joel (whose Spanish is much better than mine) that I was going to get pregnant just walking around. Fortunately, he informed me, the idols were for SOIL fertility and unless I was planning on growing some corn, I was going to be alright. Those little details make all the difference...


* Mayans have a traditional sauna, called a chuj. The school fired up their chuh for the first time in many years and Joel, Falin and I enjoyed it immensly, although I think I am going to smell like a fire for a week.


More to come, I´m sure! I will have more regular access to email this week, so I´m looking forward to hearing from you all!

Also... I think I´m near/passing the half-way point! Crazy how time flies!