Hola de Xela

I was told my flight from Miami was to begin boarding at one forty five p.m. At two ten, I looked at my watch and panicked. I had been absorbed in a book and hadn´t heard the boarding call! Luckily for me, there hadn´t been a boarding call. We began boarding five minutes later.

The flight was short and uneventful. I think I saw the southern tip of Mexico from the plane and that was really neat to see. Guatemala is really a sight to see from the air. It is surrounded by mountains, made up of populated plains dotted with business and neighborhoods separated by deep canyons. It was like nothing I have ever seen. I thoroughly enjoyed our descent.

My flight arrived early and I was soon through customs and waiting outside the tiny airport with my bags. I searched the crowed for a woman with a sign with my name on it to no avail, so decided to park myself in the corner behind the passenger gate, trying my best not to look lost and forlorn. After twenty minutes, I began to think that it might have been smart to have purchased a phone card ahead of time or to have called the woman who was to pick me up from the states before I left and began to wonder how I should go about getting a cab and a room without looking like a complete tourist (i.e. pulling out my Lonely Planet). Luckily for me, just as a plan began to form, I saw a woman walk up to the railing and pull out a sign that said¨, ´´Sharon Brown.¨ I was thrilled. No extra effort required.

Maria introduced herself and her daughter Monica, who proceeded to accompany me to exchange dollars to curtails (7.5 to one USD) and talk to me all about her three brothers, two sisters´-in-law, niece and new born nephew and her desire to study to be a chef. We returned to the car to find Maria in the back seat, remaining there despite my protestations, so I sat in the front next to Monica. Guatemala City, as everywhere I´ve been, reminded me of other places I´ve been, most like Mexico City with touches of Ecuador (trees with their bases painted white, homes behind high walls, thrown in). There were also reminders of Thailand in the form of metal crosswalk bridges. I felt completely safe with Monica driving, but a few times I noticed that we were driving in lanes with arrows going the opposite direction and wondered if we just might be heading into oncoming traffic. Fortunately, it seems those arrows are painted backwards and we arrived at Maria´s son´s house with out altercation.

There was no explanation made to me as the reason for this stop, so I simply followed them in and met Maria´s son, his wife and their beautiful new born baby boy. We were soon joined by Maria´s youngest son. The family chatted for about 30 minutes, with me sitting looking on. A few times, a question was directed at me, but for the most part, I was mute, trying in vain to discover the topic of a an ever changing conversation.

I have to interject an admission of ignorance on my part here. Coming from South Florida where my only knowledge of Guatemalans is of the small, dark men who work cutting people´s lawns, I was surprised to find Maria´s family to be lighter skinned than me and no shorter than most American families. I should have anticipated the diversity of the population given the history of Spanish Conquistadors, but I did not, and hope to be more aware in the future.

After a brief visit, we left Maria´s son´s house and headed for her home, making one stop at a small panaderia for breakfast buns and another at a road side DVD stand for a copy of the newest pirated DVDs. Monica had wanted the latest Jennifer Aniston
movie, but wound up getting ¨40 year-old Virgin¨ instead.

When we arrived at their home, I met Simon, their mini-chiuaua, and was shown to my room (a bed at the end of a hall used as a washroom). Maria asked me if I would mind waiting a while to eat and I said that that would be fine even though I was slightly
hungry. They put in the movie and we proceeded to watch it in English with Spanish subtitles (all of Maria´s family is fluent in both languages). It was somewhat surreal, watching an American movie on DVD in the home of a middle-class Guatemalan family, a night after I had left my home for an adventure in a new culture, but it was a welcome break for the evening.

During the movie, Maria made dinner of some sort of vegetarian omelet on a bun, spread with black bean paste. It was very tasty.

Afterwords, I excused myself to my room and Monica and Maria went back to the airport to pick up another student who would be traveling with me to
the school in Xela the following morning.

I did not sleep well, woken often from disturbing dreams, only to find myself under full attack by the resident bed bugs. I hate bed bugs and repeated this sentiment over and over in my head as I got out the bug spray and sprayed down my sheets hoping to soon fall fast asleep and wake only when the bugs had burrowed back into their mattress home.

I awoke at six thirty, thankfully free of all signs of my late night visitors, and met Sally, a medical student from Kentucky who had arrived the night before. Maria and Monica drove Sally and I to the bus station, where we met Bob and Ross, who were
also going to Xela. We all talked while we waited for the bus and then Sally and I spent the ride on the bus chatting and watching the scenery from the windows. We drove past sprawling farm land bordered by mountains punctuated with the occasional farm house. Cows, pigs, sheep and chickens grazed by the roadside and every so often, an indigenous woman could be seen in the distance, distinguished by her brightly colored garments and the impossibly large bag carried on her back.

We arrived in Xela at twelve thirty and found it to be a relatively small city, its size most likely found in its sprawl, made up of old one story cement buildings and countless shops closed up in observance of the Sunday day of rest. We parted ways
with Bob and Ross and went straight to the school, conveniently located around the corner from the bus stop, to settle in and find something for lunch. We
were greeted by a man who introduced himself and told us that our families would come to meet us and would serve us lunch.

My new ¨mother¨ is Marina and she (now we) lives in a house with 13 other people. Marina, her spouse, her three children and nine grandchildren. And two dogs. We talked as we walked and I found that my past few months of Spanish review had served me well and I was able to carrying on a conversation about her family and our surroundings without missing a beat.

My new house is an interesting set up of rooms surrounding an inner courtyard with cement floor and a wash basin tucked in the corner. My room is big enough to house three students, but at the time only houses me. Among the rooms in the house are a kitchen, dining room, bathroom and, I presume, a whole bunch of bedrooms. I am not quite sure if there is enough room for all of those people in that house with me taking up a room all to myself, but I figure that I am not there to pass judgment and will hopefully contribute needed income. I am a little anxious about sharing a house with fourteen people and being able to get in needed study and down time without coming across as unfriendly, but I have decided that I will try to spend my time at the house being social and visit a local cafe when I need time on my own. I think it will be an interesting experience. I just hope there are no bed bugs!

Tomorrow, we will attend an orientation at eight o´clock in the morning and will then be assigned to a teacher. There are activities scheduled every day of the week - Mondays are movie afternoon, Tuesdays are for stove construction in the local villages, Wednesday are for conferences about Guatemala and the social and political issues it faces, Thursdays are for volunteering at the day care connected with the school and Fridays are all day field trips to surrounding areas. Weekends are reserved for rest or travel. I have already found a restaurant with notices posted for local activities and events that sound like a lot of fun. I am looking forward to getting into a routine and seeing if my dream of finally being able to hablar Espanol will finally be a reality.