Dias uno y dos

Monday began with an orientation in Spanish then translated into English about the activities for the week. On Monday there would be a movie, "El Norte" about a family´s experience getting from Guatemala to the US and all of the trials that come with the journey. On Tuesday, there would be an opportunity to help with the stove building project or to help build a school in a village destroyed by Hurricane Stan (and consequently moved). On Wednesday, there would be a conference about the current socio-political situation in Guateala. Thursday was the day to volunteer at the day care run by the school; and Friday there would be a student dinner.

My teacher is a Genetic Engineer in his forties, who teaches at the school during the day and at the University at night. We talked a while to enable him to determine my level of Spanish ability, me talking about my life in the states and him talking about his life and the situation in Guatemala (a topic he feels very strongly about and likes to talk about although it obviously upsets him). That aftenoon, I returned to my family`s house for almuerzo, spent the afternoon wandering around Xela, buying some books at a local book store (seemingly run by Americans) and then returning to school for the movie.

When I retuned to the school, I found that the gate at the door had been locked and there was no one around to let me in. After a few minutes of wondering what to do, I was able to get someone´s attention and have them come over to buzz me in. Unfortunately, the lock had apparently ceased to function and I was unable to enter and everyone inside was unable to exit. After another few minutes of discussing the situation, it was determined that 1) the lock was indeed not functioning, 2) this had happened numerous times in the previous week and 3) no one knew what to do to remedy the situation. One student was able to locate the number of one of the staff, none of whom was present, and contact him on his cell phone to appraise him of the situation. Just as he was hanging up, another student walked up behind me wanting to get in and when I told her about the lock, replied, "Oh, yeah, this happens all the time, you just need a fork." One of those locked inside heard this and went to get a fork with which we were able to pry open the lock. Twenty minutes after I arived, I was able to join the others watching the movie.

The movie was interesting and although I can´t say that it was a great movie in and of itself, it did have some interesting scenes and shed a little more light on the plight of the people of Guatemala.

Tuesday, I woke up to a breakfast of taquitos, jalapenos and salsa, something I thoroughly enjoyed and prepared for a day in the dirt, helping to clear the land for the school in the mountain village. When I arrived at the school, I was disappointed to find out that we would not be going to the village that day, but would be going the following day. Since my teacher heads the stove project, I had the choice of either going to help build the stove in a local child care center, or staying and studying with another teacher. As much as I wanted to help build the stoves, I also wanted to go to the village the following day, and knew that there was another trip that I wanted to participate in on Friday and did not want to miss so many days of class; so I decided to stay and study with another teacher, even though it meant more or less starting all over again.

I really enjoyed my lesson that day, even though I had not come prepared with either a notebook or a pen, and felt that I learned a lot. I was a little disappointed to find that I like this teachers methods of teaching better than my own, who I would be returning to on Thursday after the trip to the mountain village the following day.