unfettered

WEEK 1
Weather
I arrived in Antigua, Guatemala on June 6, at the beginning of the rainy season, which usually affords bright and sunny morning with rain beginning in the late afternoon or evening. My first 5 days in the country found all of Guatemala under some sort of tropical depression, with nothing but rain, day and night. Walking home from class one afternoon, I saw a pack of 6 or 7 dogs lined up in single file on the narrow sidewalk under an awning, seeking cover from a downpour. It was really cute. They looked like cars that had just pulled off the road to wait out a heavy rainstorm.


Gym
I joined a gym this week and the best part (aside from it being 5 minutes from the school) is that they have a nice locker room with good showers – good water pressure and plenty of hot water. I rented a permanent locker so I can keep all my toiletries there and get ready at the gym every morning. Equally as important, they have decent equipment and even have spin class everyday. I hear there is a Pilates class on Tuesdays, which I will try to check out if my class schedule permits. There’s something so comforting for me about being at the gym. I immediately felt like I had all my bearings again.

Housing
At first I was a little taken aback by the housing accommodations, which I am assured is a typical middle-class Antiguan homes. I suppose that means most homes in Antigua are in various states of disrepair with sagging roofs and cracked windows covered with tape. The kitchen/dining room is in the front and there are 6 private bedrooms on each side of an open patio (it sounds nicer than it is) and 2 bathrooms at the end. Since the entire center of the place is open air that means it rains outside the bedroom doors and you have to wear flip-flops all the time. The first night I stayed in a different room while they were making up the one that I am currently in, which was vacated the day I arrived. The first room had orange walls and was decorated with those plastic bubble wall hangings often found in children’s rooms featuring Mickey, Tigger and the Tasmanian Devil. That room would have given me nightmares.


Now my room is “nicer” and the walls are a neutral shade with the only wall adornments those free calendars you get from banks. But now there is only one since I took the liberty of throwing away the ones that had expired. Fortunately the one remaining was the best of all, featuring an image of a woman lovingly gazing upon and caressing her pregnant belly. That one didn’t actually come from a bank, but rather from a local brand of bottled water.








Roomates
When I first arrived, there were 2 other students living in this house, Zach and Ben, both undergrads at the University of FL at Gainsville. They are wholesome, thoughtful boys, who choose not to go out to bars or out gallivanting around the town, but rather get up early and stay home in the evenings to study, read the bible and reflect in silent prayer. Okay, that was one of the first things I learned about them, but they are actually not freakish in any way. They are good-natured, open-minded and have a real curiosity about the world. They are also big on service with their motivation for learning Spanish to eventually get involved in outreach programs in Latin American countries.

Food
There is not a whole lot of nutritional value in a lot of things served at meals, which mostly consists of white bread, white rice, potatoes and other stuff I would not choose to eat. We were actually served fried hot dogs and I am not even kidding. It was at that time I decided that 4 days was enough time required for me to experience authentic home-cooked Guatemalan food. There is a great little coffee bar/sandwich place next door to the school where I can get grilled vegetable sandwiches and coffee with soymilk. I figure that I am making enough of an effort on this immersion thing by not having packed a box of Splenda. I also found the supermercado in town where I was delighted to find my favorite organic cereal brand, Optimum Slim. Yay!

Class
The first two days of class consisted of my teacher taking me shopping for things I needed such as a new pillow, bedspread and rug (so my feet don’t have to touch the cold floor.) The bedspread originally in the room had this rainbow pattern and fringe and I felt like I was sleeping under a threadbare gay flag. I was able to get most things on my shopping list including a citronella candle to combat the immense mosquito population, who all love me by the way. I really hate bugs and wanted to take more drastic measures, but everyone looked at me like I had gone overboard at the suggestion of equipping the bedrooms with mosquito netting. I thought it was a good idea and might be a nice decorating touch to go with the pregnant lady calendar. But, I couldn’t find any mosquito netting around here, I wouldn’t know how to hang it if I did find it and I learned that if you just keep your door and windows closed, bugs will mostly stay out of your room. That has been true for the most part so I suppose I’ll live. My mosquito bite count hovers around 10, but most of those are one my feet and calves from walking around (outside) in the rain. I specify ‘outside’ since technically it rains inside, too.

My teacher’s name is Eluvia and she is very sweet and patient with my presently non-existent Spanish skills. The first day of class she was wearing corduroy Winnie the Pooh overalls. The second day she wore denim overalls with some other cartoon character on them. Based on the decorations of my first bedroom and my teacher’s fashion choices, I have concluded that Guatemalans really love Disney. I later found out that my teacher is about 4 months pregnant, so that explains the overalls part (but not the cartoons.) My Spanish lessons are rather slow going since the first thing that comes out of my mouth is French. People look at your funny when you say “merci” and “au revoir” in Spanish school.



WEEK 2

Weather
The weather has improved markedly in the past few days. The days have been beautiful and bright and perfect for walking around Antigua. The rain starts in the evenings and continues for hours. I kind of like it since it provides that white noise that I like and am without since I don’t have a fan in my room. The past 2 nights it has rained so hard I thought the roof would cave in, which probably wouldn’t require much more than a heavy rain. I worried about changing my clothes to go to bed for fear that I would need to make a run for it in the middle of the night to escape the house falling down around me. I kept thinking of those Noah images from my Children’s Bible Adventures book that I had when I was little (or more recently, footage of floods in India.)

Roomates
We got 2 new roommates this week, Jim and Noortje. Jim is from Calgary, retired, in his 50’s and wants to improve his Spanish to use on his frequent trips to Mexico. He and his wife own a house in a mountain area not too far from Guadalajara, which he has kindly offered to me for my use upon request. His wife’s mom is sick, so she stayed behind to look after her. Jim is originally from Scotland, but came to Canada in the late 60’s on his honeymoon and they decided to stay. He is friendly, has a good sense of humor and is a good storyteller. Noortje is from Holland, along with half the students at my school. She is studying communication and will be taking over the school secretary job for the summer in order to earn her final credits toward her bachelor’s degree. Oh, and she came from Holland with her own mosquito netting! I feel vindicated. It wasn’t such a crazy idea and that lucky girl is practically mosquito bite free.

Food
They don’t have a problem with us keeping our own milk or yogurt in the refrigerator. Often after the housekeeper feeds us and leaves for the evening, we make sure the coast is clear and then we all get out cereal bowls and supplement our home-cooked Guatemalan meals with some real nutrition in the granola and yogurt that we have all separately purchased. We found a great local place where they make their own yogurt and granola that is really good, which is fortunate since it’s often what we eat for dinner (after dinner, that is.) I wonder how so many Guatemalans are so pudgy because it doesn’t seem that they eat very much at all. I suppose if your calories mostly come from sugar and white flour, then pudge is the result. They certainly do believe in sugar around here.

Class
I have learned tons of verbs and I finally had to break down and make flashcards to keep them all straight. I am getting a little better about separating the French and the Spanish, but I’m still pretty confused all the time. Next week I start to learn tenses other than the present, so I have to commit everything to memory this weekend or else I’m going to start falling behind. I felt somewhat encouraged when the school secretary (who is from Holland, btw) told me that she heard I was learning at a very quick pace. I was not aware of that because I pretty much feel retarded, but maybe it’s not as bad as I think it is.

posted by Angie @ 3:57 PM