la lluvia. mucha mucha lluvia.

I am so, so sick of the rain and the cold. It won't stop raining! We actually saw a very little bit of the sun this morning, which was exciting. I know it's rainy season, but I believe in the typical rainy season, it's more like last week or the week before. It's sunny in the morning, but it might rain at some p,oint in the afternoon or night or both. But when it's not raining, it's sunny. Now it's just pouring, day and night. I haven't seen rainstorms like this – outside of hurricanes in Florida – since I lived in Alabama and it would rain for a week straight, really heavy like this.

And I dread showers. The shower is decently hot, but not hot enough to make up for the fact that the bathroom is effectively outside and thus 50ish degrees. I've been taking showers in the evenings right before dinner and after salsa, which is fine except for the cold. I then crawl under the covers and have no interest in moving again. I haven't been out at night in days, because it's been raining and I don't want to get out from under the covers! Last night, I got under the covers while finishing my homework, and fell asleep with the light on, my jeans on, and my contacts in. on the bright side, I didn't get cold during the night. But I felt really bad because electricity is very expensive in this country.

Anyway, I haven't been up to much that's very interesting. Our activities keep getting canceled due to rain. Yesterday, my big accomplishment was mailing my friend's phone charger to him in Guatemala city. I went to the post office, where it turned out they don't sell boxes OR envelopes. So then I visited a couple of stores looking for an appropriate container, but apparently the concept of a 'padded envelope' doesn't exist in Guatemala. Finally I just bought two envelopes, and wrapped it twice. When I brought it back to the post office, the lady was somewhat confused that a gringa was sending something to guatemala city. “A guatemala?” she asked. To make her feel better, I also sent two post cards to the states. Anyway, hopefully it will get there okay.

Yesterday we also visited a women's domestic violence shelter. It's actually the only one in the entire country, and until a few years ago, it was the only one in all of Central America. Right now, there are about 35 or 36 people living there. The government doesn't give them any money, but they do send women their way. A lot of the “women” are actually just girls, some as young as 11 or 12. A lot of the really young ones were impregnated by their fathers. Abortion is illegal here. Technically, there is an exception for rape (or maybe just incest? I'm not sure), but apparently the process takes too long to be of any practical significance. Anyway, we bought them a bunch of fruit (which they don't get much of), and we hung out with some of the kids for a while. We sang them some kids' songs in English, and we even attempted (badly) to sing 'head and shoulders' en espanol, but we didn't do so well. It also doesn't rhyme in Spanish. The girls sang us a song, including the Barney song in Spanish.

Today we were supposed to go to Baul, which is a little park above Xela that's supposed to be cool. Unfortunately, the roads to get there are bad, so we can't go. I had wanted to leave Xela this weekend, but all of the teachers keep saying not to, that it's too dangerous, and that the roads are in too bad shape. So I guess I'm stuck in the city for another weekend, which only gives me like 2 or 3 more weekends to travel around the country! Argh. The rain is seriously starting to frustrate me. It's supposed to rain less in October, but it's almost October and so far it hasn't slowed down.

futbol and bolsas

I am so sore from playing futbol yesterday. I felt fine last night, but today . . . ugh. At least it was a lot of fun. My friend Sarah was sitting on the sidelines watching, and she later described this scene . . .

We were playing on a small field with artificial turf and a roof (nice, since it was raining, per usual), located in the middle of nowhere. The guy who drove us out there was the fattest Guatemalan I have seen, and he hung out on the bleachers on the other side of the fence with his tummy hanging out, laughing and laughing at everything that happened in the game. At one point, some cops dropped by and watched the game for awhile, too. Then, near the end of the game, a woman in traditional Mayan garb walked by (between the bleachers and the actual field) with like 3 cows. Not to mention that pigs and roosters were the background noise to the entire game!

Anyway, it was fun. Some of the boys (and one of the girls) were really good. I mostly just kicked wildly and tried to stay out of the way of the players on my team who were actually good. (We kicked the other team's ass.)

The boys threatened not to shower before our hippie-themed-party at school that night (so as to be fully in character), but thankfully they did. Hippie night was not as lame as I imagined, and the "adult" pinata that we got for the birthday kids was a blast. The rest of the night was fairly short lived. Went to the dance club, and then went to the after party, but apparently someone didn't pay off the right people, as the policia shut down the after party really early.

As a side note, everything in this country exists in bag-form. It's really weird. I guess the plastic to make bags is cheaper than the plastic to make bottles (or, at least, less), so stuff is in bags. For example, you can get bottled water . . . in bags. Some of the normal American brands, like Hellman's mayonaise, for example, also come in bags. Oh, and hotels have little ketchup-like packets of shampoo instead of bottles, which actually makes way more sense size-wise.

esta semana

Okay, it's been forever since I wrote. I've been really busy.

On Tuesday, I went to my first salsa lesson with two of the Canadian girls. We ended up going ahead and buying 5 lessons (it's cheaper that way . . . about $3 per lesson). After our lesson, I ended up hanging out with our teacher for awhile and talking. He doesn't speak that much English, so it's a good incentive to speak in Spanish. (He teaches salsa and teaches at the school. Several of the teachers at the school don't speak much English – or any). I guess I spent the rest of the night studying on Tuesday because my teacher made me learn something like 100 irregular verbs on Monday and Tuesday and write almost 200 sentences!

On Wednesday, it was the birthday of three students and one of the teachers, so we had a big party. I was out really late – like 1:30 or something. It was so much fun, though. Let's see...the weirdest thing that happened during that night was that this older dude (Guatemalan) came up to me and told me 'I am leaving, but you are so beautiful.' (In English). That in and of itself isn't that weird, but later in the evening this girl walks up to me and starts speaking to me in Spanish. I asked her to slow down, and she slowed down to the point of, I think, making fun of me, and then took me over to meet the same guy – who, as it turned out, was her brother. Maybe it's just me, but attempting to pick up girls for your brother seems somewhat strange to me.

Yesterday, in the afternoon, we made chocolate. In the morning, we toasted the peeled the cacao (?) beans (?). Who knew you had to peel chocolate? Then, in the afternoon, we went to this place to grind the beans and mix it with azucar and then powder it. I don't have any pictures from that because they didn't allow pictures. Except, a cat started meowing, and I asked the girl, 'gato?' (This place is attached to these people's house, as many businesses are in Xela). Anyway, the girl (I say girl, but she's older than me) says 'si,' and hands me a gato! I was like, uh, okay. I mean, I like cats, so it was fine, and it was a sweet cat. But then she's like, 'stay there' and she wants to take a picture of me and the cat. Go figure. Then she asked me to put down the cat and pretend like I was grinding chocolate so that she could take a picture of that. Of course, none of this was for my camera. I think maybe it was for their advertising or something? Who knows—the whole interaction was bizarre.

Anyway, all I can say about making chocolate (at least that part of it) is that is very, very far from sanitary. They don't clean the machines. Just put more and more chocolate in it. Not to mention she had me touching the machine after touching the cat. And they use their hands to actually mix the chocolate and sugar (although they do wash their hands before mixing it, thank goodness).

After that, we returned to school where we made chocolate bars (some people made shapes, like hearts or letters) and also made a chocolate drink, to which we added ice cream and kahlua. (You'd be thrilled, Mom). I don't love the chocolate—I think maybe we burned some of it in the morning, which is very easy to do, apparently. It's okay. Martin (the kid in mi casa) likes it, though.

I also had my second salsa lesson yesterday, which was even more difficult. Plus, Luis had me dancing with a guy who was literally about 4 feet tall and about 12 years old. He was a good dancer, but it's really hard when I'm doing spins and stuff. Guys in Guatemala are so short. Till (the German guy) is like 5'10” or so, and I was teasing him that in Guatemala, he's ridiculously tall. My teacher is about my height, and she is really, really tall for a woman in Guatemala. I'd say most women don't clear 5 feet. Sarah, the German girl, is probably 5'9” or 5'10” with long, long blond hair and blue eyes—so of course the Guatemalan men are just completely fascinated with her.

Anyway, tonight's the graduation party, and SEVEN students are leaving. I think that leaves 9 students next week, plus we're getting two new ones. I'm really sad about all the students that are leaving, though. They're my faves. At least Sarah will still be in Xela – just not at school anymore.

nada

I've been really busy the last couple of days, so I haven't had time to write. I apologize if I haven't been very good at answering emails, either.

Anyway, not much has happened lately, although I did got to my first salsa lesson yesterday. That was fun, but difficult. I need to get some salsa music so I can practice. I just wish I were a better dancer. I can remember the steps, but then if I try to move my hips, too, I forget the steps!

My favorite thing I learned yesterday (no, seriously, i laughed at this for a long time) is that the kids' television show 'Dora the Explorer' is called 'Dora la Exploradora' en espanol. Seriously, made my day.

Anyway, more later. I need to get home to shower and do my homework before dinner and before a birthday party for several of the students.

casa nueva

I was really lucky with rain my first week. It didn't rain much, and when it did, it was pretty short and I could just stay inside. The last two days it's rained a lot. Today it's been raining on and off for the last 4 hours (mostly on for the last 2). I'm sort of stuck in my room. Even to get to the rest of the house, I must go out in the rain. I don't know what I'd do anyway. The activity today is yoga class, and it's apparently really hard so I'm not so interested.

Anyway, I love my new house! I moved into my friend's casa yesterday, since he left Saturday. It's really, really nice. The parents are so nice. They took me up to my room and showed me around, and it went much smoother than last week. I guess I understand a lot more than even a week ago, because I was able to have an entire conversation with them, too. They're really good about correcting my spanish, which is very helpful. There are like 4 kids, I think, ranging in age from 10 to 26. The 26-yr-old is married with a small child. She's 3, I think. She's really cute. I just met her and she decided she liked me. So she held my hand and we walked around and then she had me pick her up. I can understand maybe half of what she says. It's sad when a 3-yr old can speak better than you!

The new house is so nice. The bathroom is tiled, and there's a real tub with really pretty tile. No more cement! The water pressure is even a little bit better. The mother of the new house is such a good cook. I think she's incapable of cooking anything bad. This morning we had amazing pancakes, and for lunch we had something that resembled risotto with sausages.

There is another student in the house, too. Lillian. She's from Hong Kong and this is her first week at school. She speaks zero spanish, so I've actually (strangely) been translating a bit for her. The fact that she is Chinese is basically amazing to Guatemalans. They do things like ask to take pictures with her. They say and do all kinds of things that would be really offensive in America, but it's just because they don't know any Chinese people, I guess. (For example, my family here did the universal 'pull the corner of your eyes down' to indicate that someone is Asian. They also don't really know the difference between Chinese and Japonese.)

I really miss my two amigos that left Saturday, as I was enjoying being able to just follow them around. Now, Lillian asks me where to go, and I'm like, 'No se!'. Having to make decisions sucks. I did head over to one of the mercados yesterday, though, and picked up two new sweaters and two new blouses. Yay.

Remember the story about how I couldn't say my teacher's name correctly? Well, when I was mispronouncing it, the guys though I was saying 'Gloria.' So, today, they kept calling my teacher Gloria all morning but wouldn't tell her why. Apparently, on break, she called one of her friends (who had also been out with us – not sure how she knew he'd know), and asked him why everyone was calling her Gloria. She was quite amused, and when I introduced myself as 'Sydney,' she said 'No, no, Gloria!' I've already picked up two nicknames. Great. (The other is 'Yuppie', which is a somewhat longer story. Only one teacher calls me that. I call him 'Preppy.')

In point of fact, my name is incredibly difficult for Guatemalans to say. First of all, the “ih” sound doesn't exist, so, the closest they can even get is “Seed-nee.” Which is fine. Much like in the US, the kid who loves in this house keeps saying “Seen-dee.” The kid, who is 10, is awesome. He actually is pretty good about figuring out what I'm trying to say and correcting my Spanish. He also likes to trick me a lot. Apparently they only have school in the morning, so this afternoon I asked him if he was done. And he said, 'yes.' Then I said, 'so, school is only in the mornings?' And he said, 'no, it continues in the afternoon.' Which is a lie. He just likes to confuse me. Of course, that interaction took place in Spanish, so it was even more confusing.

I have to write a gazillion more sentences today. I kind of hate writing the sentences because I hate making up stuff to say. Plus, some of the verbs are really weird. Like, one just means to scrub dishes, so there's not many ways to use that verb. Writing sentences is helpful, but a lot of time the sentences end up being incredibly simplistic because I can't think of anything else to say. And then it's less helpful, because it's forming the complicated sentences that is very hard. With complicated sentences, the words go in strange orders.

My accomplishment of the day is making friends with the dog that lives on the roof of the house. He's a big ole dog; not sure what kind. He barks loudly and is a bit scary at first, and they told me not to touch him for the first day. As of today, he likes me. Oh, hirs name is Roofo, since he lives on the roof. I feel pretty bad for Roofo, as he just hangs out on the roof all day and is very bored. I try to say hi to him when I walk by on the way to my room. (He can come down a lower part of the roof, which is even with the stairs I walk up to my room. Although he's on the roof, he's actually below me.) Guatemalans love dogs, and they love keeping them on the roof. Sometimes all the roof dogs in the neighborhood start up and it's pretty crazy.

aprendendo espanol

I have a lot of anxiety about learning spanish, so if I seem somewhat touchy about that subject sometimes, that's why. I'm scared that 6 weeks will pass and I still won't be able to understand a word anyone says. As it is, I can understand someone if they speak in simple words, slowly, directly at me. If they speak quickly, but still at me, I can understand more than half if I know the context. I tend to get most confused when people change topics. On the other hand, when two people are talking to each other, I can't understand a single thing.

Anyway, everyone keeps telling me that my Spanish is improving rapidly because I can string entire sentences together sometimes. And that's true, but (a) I can't understand as much as I can say and (b) my pronunciation, while improving, is bad enough that sometimes people can't understand me even when I get the words right. At the bar last night, three of the maestros had a good 15 minute laugh at the fact that I couldn't pronounce my maestra's name. Her name is Claudia, and as I now know, it sounds like cloud-e-uh. I kept saying clod-e-uh, which was far enough from cloud-e-uh that they didn't know who I was talking about. (In fact, one of the teachers had had this conversation with me earlier, and he brought it up at the bar to make fun of me some more. It's okay, though, since being made fun of makes things stick in your mind real good.)

My anxiety is mostly about being able to understand, even though everyone else seems to think that oral comprehension is so much easier than speaking. I just seem to struggle in particular with comprehension. I'm trying to get used to Vs that sound like Bs and LLs that sound like Js, because those two tend to trip me up a lot.

That said, the fact that I can't roll my Rs is also driving me batty. Even more so, because I'm almost positive I was able to do it 10 years ago when I was taking Spanish in college. Of course, this is a problem in Spanish, since the trilled R is the only difference between words like 'caro' (expensive) and 'carro' (car) or 'pero' (but) and 'perro' (dog). All the teachers say I should practice with a pencil between my teeth, which I've done, but it doesn't really seem to be helping. Last night, one of the teachers suggested that I play a drinking game wherein I try to say the word 'carro' and every time I can't say it, I take a drink. I pointed out that this would end up with me passed out on the floor, and he conceded that this was 'a risk.' Yup, these are the individuals responsible for my Spanish education!

yo necesito aprender bailar salsa

It seems that I am going to have to learn to salsa dance, as it is practically a requirement of spending time in Xela.

On Friday nights, the school hosts a little party for all the students, and particularly in recognition of those students whose last day it is. Last night that was actually just my two friends, who were only here for a week.

Anyway, we had to make hot dogs in groups (yeah, I really don't understand that either). After food, there was music and dancing. One of the teachers is also a salsa instructor, and he was dancing up a storm. At 11, when we must vacate the school, a group of students and teachers (including myself) headed out to a bar/dance club. Hanging out with the teachers is a lot of fun. For the most part, they're around my age, and many of them are university students. One was studying to be a psychologist, another is a semester away from having a degree in mechanical engineering.

At first, I only danced when they played American music, but the salsa dance instructor convinced me to dance to a latin american song. i warned him I was a terrible dancer, but he didn't believe me until after he danced with me for a song! Right after we danced, it was time to go, as bars can legally only stay open until 1, apparently. So we headed to the "after party," which was a dance club like thing about a block away. Apparently that just means they paid off the police to stay open later. This place was crazy. It used to be a movie theater, and now the space between the seats and the screen is a big cement dance floor. Meanwhile, they projected random (mostly American rap) music videos (sans sound) on the screen. Some people were just sitting in the seats drinking cerveza and watching people dance. I danced with two guys (both salsa instructors, but we didn't dance salsa). Then, Luis, who is the teacher who is almost a mechanical engineer and not a salsa instructor, tried to show me the basic salsa steps. He was actually pretty patient, so I sorta/kinda got the most incredibly basic steps down.

It was a lot of fun, but I think maybe I'll try taking some lessons. I'm scared to take lessons because it's so difficult for me to learn steps (coordination, bah!), but I think it might be better than having to sit out salsa dancing all the time.

Today I am feeling very proud of myself for successfully completing two transactions without much confusion. First, I got my hair cut! Yay. The salon, which had been closed yesterday, was open today. Apparently some things are the same everywhere -- the two guys in the salon were flamingly gay. Then, I bought Q200 more minutes for my cell phone, as calling America apparently zaps them pretty quickly (although not as quickly as you might imagine).

Now I am in the internet cafe and am about to do some homework, as I am hoping to go hiking with the canadians tomorrow.

bicicleta

My ass hurts like you wouldn't believe.

Next time a Guatemalan tells you that you're going to take a leisurely ride around town on a bicycle, do NOT believe him. The activity after school today was a bicycle tour. It was supposed to be easy, for beginners with no experience with bicycles. About 3 minutes in, I knew we were in trouble. We started off with zig-zagging through traffic on poorly paved roads. (Yes, Mom, I was wearing a helmet). I was freaking out about that—we went on sidewalks, and back on the road, and in between cars, etc. Then we got out of town and rode (in the rain, of course) up and down these muddy hills. Around the second hill, I remembered that I'm not yet adjusted to the high altitude of Xela. (Oops). I couldn't breathe, but then it was flat for a long while, and I was doing much better. That said, riding over these terribly bumpy dirt roads (or occasionally “paved” with stones) is very hard on the rear end. After about an hour and a half of this “easy” ride, I had to stop for a moment as I was out of breath. So the whole group stopped. At that point, one of the guides offered to take me back. I asked how much further it was, and they said it was about 5 kilometers, or 45 minutes. Except he also said 'mas dificil.' That did it—I headed back with one of my friends and one of the guides. (There were only 5 students on the tour, and I was the only girl. All the Canadians, which is like half the students, wussed out.) Anyway, we headed back, and I was pretty sure that everyone else was going to regret their decision to carry on, as most of them were pretty tired, too.

I got home, covered in mud and in a lot of pain. Took a shower and nap.

Sure enough, after I'd been home more than an hour (and it was like half an hour back one we turned back), my friend called me to say that I was very smart and he wished he hadn't continued on. He said they had just gotten back and it was incredibly hard—up and down these narrow muddy paths.

I think we actually rode past some nice scenery and vistas, but, honestly, I was so busy concentrating intently on the road so as not to fall that I barely saw the scenery. Although, I did notice all the vacas. Of course. I'll try to get photos from my friend who did take photos.

And I'm sort of reconsidering my desire to buy a bike for getting around Brooklyn.

invierno

So, as it turns out, it's winter here in Guatemala. Also known as the rainy season. I knew that before I came, but I didn't really understand. Before I left, I looked up the weather in guatemala, and it showed highs in the 70s and lows in the 50s. And then I looked at another site, which said that on average it reaches the 90s and the lows are in the 60s. The first one was probably about right, but the second one was definitely wrong,or maybe for Guatemala City. Anyway, I didn't really pack well. Basically, whenever you're in the shade or it's cloudy, you're cold, and whenever you're in the sun, it's pretty hot. Thus, you are effectively dressed wrong no matter what. I brought with me one jacket, one sweatshirt, and one sweater. This means I'm wearing either the jacket or the sweatshirt every day. Yo necessito comprar unos sueteres.

Of course, as you may have heard, this year the rainy season has been particularly bad. It's apparently been the rainiest season in about 70 years, and that means lots of landslides. The highway from, Antigua to Xela is mostly very nice; 2 lanes in each direction and nicely paved. Plus, the pueblos along the way all have a bridge over the highway, so you don't have to slow down in the pueblos. But, right now, the road is in terrible shape from all the landslides. They had done a good job of clearing it up enough that traffic could pass, though. In many places, only one side of the highway is passable, and the other side has piles of mud, often 10 or even 20 feet high. In one place, in the mountains, half the road was simply gone. Like, the earth underneath the road had collapsed, and the road went with it. It's really bad for the country, as it will take them very long to fix all of the damage.

15 septiembre

Today I have no class because it's the Guatemalan independence day. That's good, as it's finally given me a chance to catch up on writing about my travels. Plus, I need to do my homework. Since I have no class, my teacher thought it would be fun to tell me to write 2 sentences for every -ar verb we went over yesterday, which was probably around 50. Maybe even more.

My teacher is extremely amused by my troubles pronouncing several words, mostly those that either involve a lot of As or RRs (which I can't do). She likes to laugh at me a lot, which is fine with me.

Yesterday, the afternoon activity was a trip to a nearby pueblo where they make pretty much all of the skirts (faltas) for the indigenous Mayan people. We got to see the process, which is crazy. It takes months to prepare the skirt, starting from cleaning the cotton and ending with the weaving of the actual skirt. We watched a couple parts of the process, including a man who showed us his wooden loom, operated by pedals. The same guy also sells this liquor made from fruit, so we tried some of that. I bought a bottle for Q20, which is like $2.50. It was probably half a liter or so. I'm not sure if I'll want to drink it all--it's pretty damn sweet.

After that, I went out with two guys from the school. Last night was the night of all the huge independence parties. The whole park was jam-packed with hundreds and hundreds of people, and there were all these people marching through the streets. Some were bands, with horns and drums; others were more military-like. And girls with batons. And many other really random things. They kept parading, even after midnight.

We started the night at a restaurant called 'El Arabe,' which had about 3 vaguely Arabic-seeming dishes. We ordered a platter of meat, which is something we don't get a ton of in our houses (and one of the guys doesn't get at all, because the other student in his house is vegetarian). And several liters of beer.

Beer in guatemala is interesting. Basically all there is Gallo beer. It's one huge monopoly. Gallo itself is sort of like budweiser, although slightly better. Then there's Cabro, which is slightly darker, and Molta, which is the dark Gallo beer. That's pretty much your choices. Every now and then you'll find a place that has Heinekin or Corona, but I'd rather the Molta to those. A liter of one of those beers is around Q35, or slightly more than $4. It's about 3 beers-worth.

Anyway, a bit after 9, the band started playing, and the place got really crowded. The band was great. They must have been singing Guatemalan pop songs, because the whole restaurant was singing along with them. The restaurant was full of young-ish people (as a rule, people in Guatemala look WAY younger than their age), dressed in American styles. You had the American thug look, the American Jersey Shore look, and the American prep look. The girls mostly just wore very tight skinny jeans with either 6-inch heels or boots (it's the middle of winter) and blouses.

Since I thought (some of) the band was cute, my friend made me take a picture with them after they went on break. (I don't have this photo yet as, on advice of everyone, I did not take my camera or any credit cards or really anything but Q200 and my Guatemalan cell phone with me).

At one point, everyone in the restaurant got up and just started salsa dancing. Talk about amazing dancers. I was mesmerized by the guys' hips.

After that, we watched some of the parade. The marching bands are 100% gender segregated. The girls only play these things that look sort of like xylophones standing upright. The trumpet players were pretty bad (or maybe tired), but the drummers were awesome (particularly the bass drum players, who did this cool spinny thing with their mallets, exactly in sync).

Then it was another bar and lots of Spanglish. One of the guys is a masterspanglish speaker, at least after a few cervezas. I can't remember his best sentence, but i personally enjoyed 'I can't believe you're va-ing there!' They both understand a lot, and speak quite a bit. They claimed my Spanish was better after even one day. Probably mostly from having slightly more confidence and relaxing.

We ended the night by buying cervezas from a guy with a portable cooler in the middle of the parque centro. At that point, we realized we had also run out of money, which was probably a good thing.

Oh, and fireworks. There were lots and lots of fireworks.

Anyway, I got to sleep in today. And have now been in this internet cafe for hours, trying to set up this blog and upload photos. The latter has been less successful, but I'll keep you updated.

And I still have like 100 sentences left to write.

13 septiembre

13 septiembre

Okay, end of first day of classes and meeting people. Am a bit disappointed that I am the only one traveling alone this week. Or at least, beginning this week. I did meet two guys traveling together who speak better Spanish than me. We hung out tonight.

My "familia" is very nice, but somewhat intimidating. There are six of them. Grandmother and grandfather. Two daughters. And one grand child. The other daughter is pregnant, although grandmother (Irma) explained that there is no espozo (husband). My first night she asked me if I was catolica. I probably should have lied and said yes,but instead I said no and then had to answer that I had no religion. I tried to save myself by explaining that mi madre y mis abuelos son catolicas, but in retrospect that probably just made things worse. As two of my friends from school joked, I speak spanish so poorly that I probably also told them that god is the devil or something.

Oh well, they're nice to me anyway.

The house is strange. Like nothing I've ever seen before. It's half outside, As in, the hallway is outside, and then you use individual entrances to go inside different rooms. So, I must go "outside" to go to the bathroom.

Indeed, the bathroom is my biggest complaint. The floors of both bathrooms are cement, and quite cold. So far I have learned that washing my hair every day is a bad thing. You switch on a switch to get hot water. There are only two choices of temperature: freezing and scalding. So you often end up turning it on and off when it gets too hot. I'm pretty sure this is going to end with me electrocuting myself. In addition, and not surprisingly, the water pressure is terrible, and it is so hard to wash my long hair. I think I'm going to try to get it cut shorter.

School starts at 8 am every day, which is incredibly early. I keep trying to remind myself that it's 10 my time, so it's okay.

My teacher is interesting. Very pretty and very nice, if somewhat frustrated by me. She got married at 16, and now has a 14 yr old, so she's probably 30 or 31, but she looks much younger. She was asking me about my brothers, and whether they were married, and exclaimed that they got married so young! I said, you got married at 16! she said, 'I was pregnant.' So that pretty much ended that!

Day 1

Day 1 in guatamela.

So far so good. Although there's already been some moments of panic.

When I got to san salvador, I was confused because the captain said it was 1:15 and my ipod said 3:15. I had thought Guatemala (and San Salvador) was in Central time. Plus, we were a half hour late, and I wasn't sure if I was going to have time to go through immigration before my flight to guatemala left.

I shouldn't have worried. El salvador appears to be an absolutely beautiful country -- at least from the air. There was nothing anywhere near the airport. Just green and more green. And then suddenly an airport with one runway. We landed and there's a big sign on top of the airport that says EL SALVADOR, with the letters decorated like their flag.

I was all ready to head to immigration or whatnot (and was surprised they never gave me an immigration form on the plane), but I literally just got off at gate 7 and walked over to gate 14, as if I were connecting domestically. Go figure.

Entertainingly, gate 16 was a flight to new york. Accordingly, it had its own security screening checkpoint to comply with TSA regulations. They didn't actually have x-ray machines or anything; they just went through everyone's bags and apparently (judging from the full trash cans) threw everyone's liquids away.

I waited at the gate for awhile, where I saw not a single other english-speaking person, and we finally boarded. And took off from the same runway that I had previously landed on an hour earlier.

In guatemala I had to go through immigration and customs, but there was literally no line, so that wasn't hard. I did start to freak out though when almost everyone's bags had come out on the thingy and mine hadn't. I hadn't wanted to check my bag, but they said I had to. I think it was probably okay to carry on in most planes, but whatever. Anyway, I was really nervous about TACA airlines losing my bag, and thus the panic when 75% of my flight had collected their bags and left. And we're talking about a lot of bags. Apparently these people travel with no less than 2 MASSIVE suitcases.

As a side note, I shouldn't have worried about flying TACA. It was way nicer than most american airlines. Both flights were on what appeared to be brand new Embraer E190s, complete with individual on-demand entertainment systems and a USB port (?). And they even served a meal. Although it was not exactly very good.

Anyway, like the hotel had promised, there was someone waiting for me outside the airport exit with a sign with my name. I told him 'hola!' and he took me to a van. He asked if I spoke spanish, and I said 'un poquito.' He said he spoke un poquito of english. I think his english was much better than my spanish. I told him I was from new york and was comiing to learn spanish. When he found out I was stayiing in antigua only for one day, he asked why, and I tried to explain the best I could that I didn't think i'd be able to get a bus to xela the same day I flew in, and I was worried about my safety in guatemala city. I used the word 'seguridad', which hopefully is sorta what I meant.

The hotel is gorgeous. Antigua is kind of odd. Its all these narrow streets with tall stone walls. But once you get inside those walls, it's all gorgeous gardens and benches, etc. the internal part of the hotel is like that.

I managed to ask the guy at the front desk where an ATM was and how to catch a bus to xela. He gave me a map, and I set off for the ATM. I got completely lost at one point and was like omg, i've already failed at living in this country. I couldn't figure out where I was because the streets are barely labeled, when they are they each have mutliple names, and I got "2a. Calle" confused with "2 Avenida." Eventually I figured out what i'd done wrong and made it to the central park (very cute) and the busy part of the city. Which included ATMs. And a place that sold SIM cards. So I bought a "Movistar" sim card.

Then I saw a shop advertising "tourist shuttles." It was 25 to xela, and the guy convinced me I didnt want to try to change buses to take chicken bus to xela. He's probably right. Plus, I am very short on small change, and you can't use a 100Q note for a chicken bus.

Then I had dinner by myself and even managed to walk all the way back to my hotel with no problems despite losing my map.