Time to Pack

You would think that a five week stay in Guatemala for the purpose of studying Spanish would somehow satisfy my typical travel fetish -- books, books, books, reading and discovering a place through its literature. Unfortunately, the pile of grammar books I accumulated in both schools did nothing to diminish the magnetic force of Antigua´s bookshops. Now, if I can somehow balance the weight of my bags at check-in tomorrow.

I have been reading -- in Spanish -- La Hija del Puma, by Monica Zac. This book was converted to a film with the same title. I am interested to know if this film will be available in the US. The story presents the facts of the massacres of the citizens of the Mayan pueblos in the 1980s, with a fictionalized narrator, a survivor whose family escaped to Chiapas, Mexico. I have my dictionary at hand, but I am very proud to say, I have needed to look up fewer and fewer words as I studied grammar and vocabulary during the day, and read each night. I have more books about the indigenous cultures and politics. I also have a second volume of Spanish short stories, Rigoberta Menchu´s autobiography in Spanish, and a book of idiomatic expressions.

I celebrated today by walking around Antigua and stopping in some favorite places. One of these places is Café Barista, located on Quinta Avenida, at the northwest corner of the square surrounding Parque Central.










Yesterday, I took a lot of shots of two of my quirky points of fascination with this colonial city: the cupolas and the doors of the homes. The only outward personality of any house in a colonial design here in Latin America are the exterior faces: the windows, the doors, and the roofs. Antigua has some strict rules about how buildings and signs can be decorated, so the little distinctions are the most eye-catching, at least to me. Click the link above to see some more of these features.

Listen to the Rain

I´m studying this evening in my guest house room, working on grammar exercises, and anticipating my last day of formal language study. I am also listening to the rain.

Every day, since arriving in Antigua, the rain has arrived earlier in the day and lasted longer into the night. Unlike Xela, the air here is always moist, with more heat arriving earlier each day.

The cloud cover was very thick all day. I am not sure what this would mean for a hike to the summit of Pacaya volcano on Saturday. Besides getting close to the lava flow in the caldera of an active volcano, the appeal for me is to see the highlands and the peaks of the mountains as far away as Atitlan to the west and toward Belize to the northeast.

The rain is off and on very intense and driving and soft and somnolent. The flowers all over town and the green countryside are a beautiful contrast with the dry conditions when I arrived on Holy Friday. Then, because of all of the activity and traffic of Holy Week, the air of Antigua carried grit that you could crunch between your teeth. Considering the passage of almost five weeks, the change is impressive.

Looking forward now to a week in Nicaragua in July, I know to expect this rain every day, all day. I hope to be able to use my Spanish well in Nicaragua.

Many years ago, my parents had a good collection of literature. As a teenager, I read Somerset Maugham´s short stories, including, ´Rain,´set in the South Pacific. As this rain falls on Guatemala, most likely upon all of Central America, this thin strip dividing the Pacific and the Caribbean, I am reminded of that feeling of the short story, of the way rain not only washes but penetrates the surfaces, erodes and reveals ... what? True intentions? Real character?

This particular rain has been falling all day. Now, it is perfect for sleeping. Good night.

On Choosing a School

About choosing a school -- most schools now have some kind of giving-back philosophy or were organized around some kind of ideology for the local environment or the founder´s ideal projects. In Xela, the PLQE program hosts the language school, but it is mostly the fund-raising and consciousness-raising arm of an extensive set of projects reaching out to indigenous groups in the western highlands. PLQE has a number of ex-guerilla on staff, and part of their interest is in continuing to help the Occidental area of the country recover from genocide (I continue to add: US sponsored military genocide).

In Antigua, CSA [Christian Spanish Academy, the oldest and possibly most respected school in the country in some circles] also has outreach options. CSA has a long history of teaching Spanish to missionaries, and has a rather conservative evangelical angle. The reputation is great, and the teachers are very fine. The building is beautiful, formerly a home from the colonial era, decorated with fine art, painted a very clean and snappy white, offset with the ancient timbers and tile floors. The organization is highly organized, well-staffed, and the communication is excellent.

I have shared my life with my teachers in both schools, something that just comes out in conversation, because family life is so important to Guatemalans. Here multiple generations live together. I would go even further out on the limb to say that in Guatemala, if you are not part of a family, you are sort of suspicious. This creates an interesting dynamic around the matter of adoption, which I addressed in another post. In Xela, coming out to my teachers was totally great because diversity is expected and respected, but at CSA, I can´t really tell. Professionalism is important to the school because they have branched out in public relations to corporate, private, and government agencies in their clientele, so diversity is something they seem to be intent upon honoring. I mean, diversity even extending to diverse kinds of family. I always have to mention Rachel and Grace because they are part of the matrix of my life. And, matrix is exactly how family works here. Everybody has to be part of the mother, the hearth, the home. One non-clinical, non-medicalized word for womb is matriz, matrix.

Everyone is different, has different goals in mind in a language school experience. In my opinion, if learning Spanish is the goal, it is easy to become distracted by the politics and ideology of a school. In Xela, at PLQE, the distraction is the very significant emphasis on the ongoing consequences of the 36-year war and the ongoing systematic racism against the indigenous peoples of the mountains and the rural countryside. Tension continues as the dominant ladino culture continues to insist upon assimilation, while indigenous activists insist upon retaining specific cultural identity, synchretistic religious practices, languages, and Mayan spirituality. Sounds familiar...

In CSA, of Antigua, the distraction is the widely spoken English and the cushy touristy nature of Antigua. Antigua is truly a cosmopolitan retreat from the urban strife of the capitol city nearby. Antigua wants to be thought of as the Paris of Central America. Now that I have experienced both (yes, just one weekend and one day of class in Antigua is enough to form this opinion), and if I had the chance to return for more advanced grammar and speaking, I would spend three weeks in Xela and two weeks in Antigua. The budget would be a bit larger in this scenario.

Home stay in Xela, for me, was wonderful and, at the same time, very stressful. Keep in mind, I am an introvert, so it is hard for me to initiate a scary effort to parade my faulty Spanish before a new set of people. My family were great about helping me with conversation. They spoke no English -- nada. Same for my teachers. If I returned, I would probably spend the three weeks in Xela with a family, preferably the same family I had. Other students did not have such a great family, and some spoke up and made a move, but some chose to suffer. Some businesses in town have English speakers, but I think Xela is big enough and isolated enough to offer immersion with very little compromise.

Part of the stress was my microbe-phobia and living in a level of poverty that I am not used to. As I said in another post, this is about me, not about my family. I lived safely and without illness for two weeks in an environment that was a daily assault on my sense of cleanliness and hygienic fastidiousness. I think it was easier when I was younger. I did this before -- 30 years ago. And, I am about to do it again, in Nicaragua. I am glad I am prepared better for that experience. Over time, the daily life with very dear people overcame my internal issues with hygiene. The relationships are the key. In a sqeaky clean house, but without the great relationships, the trade-off would not balance well at all -- for me. The warm affection and genuine enjoyment of each other has to be present, whether the house is nasty or the pinnacle of antibiotic perfection.

I decided not to do home stay in Antigua. I am in a hostál (guest house) at the moment. Hotel Posada La Merced is owned and operated by a very friendly New Zealander. The room is squeaky clean, as is the private bath. The communal kitchen is well equipped and is very clean. The hostál caters to long stays, and now in the off-season, the rates are pretty good. Not as good as Xela, not good enough for me to stay for more than a week. This means if I come back again, I will need to budget differently.

If I could be certain that my family would be as gregarious and patient as my Xela family, I would certainly consider the home stay. However, I have had too many reports of dissatisfaction with home stay related to CSA. It seems that families have come to enjoy the money provided to them for room and board, but they have lost interest in the students over time. In the present economy, this is partly understandable, but someone needs to speak up to the management about the distance families are tending to place between themselves and the students. A nice room in a home is a good start, but if your family brings your meals to you in your room, essentially providing room service, so that you are not included at the table in conversation, this is no good for immersion. With just one week here, with a list of specific goals for my last week, I choose to put the US 125 toward a peaceful guest house, and making my soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch.

I think it is worthwhile to ask a lot of questions of a school before committing to the registration fee and all of the related expenses. Next time -- if I am blessed to return -- I will certainly check out other options. One option that is high on my list of investigation is to go to the Honduras bay islands for Spanish language school with SCUBA certification and snorkeling after class. If this is an option, maybe I could interest others in accompanying me. :-)

Favorite Things

Now that my sojourn in Guatemala is coming to an end, I can reflect upon the pros and cons of my experience. I hope others will take the time to go to a language school. Compared with tuition in a college or university, the value is very good. As I have written in other posts, immersion truly is the way to go, but there are some conditions to consider.

Overall, the cheapest way to learn Spanish is to move into an environment where 24-7 Spanish is spoken without fail, to pay a family to include you in their lives, or at least their meals and to give you a safe place to stay, shower, study. And, you should avoid touristy traps like the people who sell on the street, and restaurants that can blow your budget in one sitting. I heard about these things, of course, not necessarily lived the experiences myself :-)

My best friends for learning can all be purchased in the cities of Xela and Antigua or wherever the school might be located. My favorite things were a notebook - cuaderno, a good pen - lapicera, little white cards - tarjetas, a mechanical pencil and refills, an eraser I call an accountant´s eraser because my accountant friend gave one to me years ago and you can replace them over and over, and a good dictionary - McGraw-Hill VOX latest edition of the compact Spanish and English dictionary (3rd ed. at this writing). In four weeks, I went through one cuaderno and am well into my second, two pens, and as you can see in the photo, the third one is out of ink, six packets of targetas and I will need more to finish out the rest of the past and future tenses and ongoing vocabulary. Tarjetas are for making your own flash cards. I heart tarjetas. I bought three dictionaries along the way, one of which was apparently a very early proof and full of errors, and one that was too compact and abridged. I gave the second one to the PLQ library and threw the first one away.

If these items were helpful to an adult learner, it is a sure bet that they would be good for little gifts for a teacher. In my experience, my teachers loved good pens, rubber bands, tarjetas, different colors of highlighters, notebooks, waterproof folders, mechanical pencils, and erasers. Of course, they could buy these things, but just like in our country, teachers here are woefully underpaid and overworked, and with the money exchange in our favor, these things are cheap. Most of these items are available in any librería in the city. Not all carry tarjetas, so it is better to check with the librerías near a language school. (Librería is a book store, and biblioteca is a library.)

Leaving Xela

Today, I departed Xela and moved to Antigua, to spend my last week in Guatemala. I will have a week of language school and then fly home next Sunday, May 17.

My family in Xela are wonderful, and I will miss them very much. Living with a family is a very deep and rich experience, part of the immersion method that can be very powerful. Not everyone has such a good experience, so if anyone is anticipating this kind of travel and language, I can say with confidence that it pays to insist upon a family that will take your education seriously. If they are in it just for the money, don´t hesitate to ask for another family.

It´s a bit easier to post now that I am staying in a guest house in Antigua, with wireless internet. This is my plug for Hotel Posada La Merced: charming, clean, private bath, wireless internet (yea!), close to the language school, a short walk to Parque Central, quiet, lovely back courtyard, kitchen, cable TV. Being in Antigua is sort of like not being in Guatemala anymore. I think of it as my Guatemalan vacation from Guatemala, from the urban busyness to a small town retreat.

Spanish language schools are one of the biggest sources of tourism for Guatemala. In the city of Xela, there are at least 60 schools. Antigua has many schools, also. If I have the time later on, I would like to work on language skills while also building up a SCUBA record of dives on one of the islands of Honduras, in the Caribbean.

La Familia Garcia Rivera, minus son José, 20














Diego, 13, and Fernando, 6














Abuelo Oscar and José, Don Oscar´s son















Davíd, 1



















Andrea, 9, the only girl of the family, and like another 9 year old I know, loves pink and Disney and fashion











Fernandito, also called Fer; a live wire














Ana, yo, mismo in the family kitchen; the house was built by Abuelo (grandfather) Oscar´s grandparents, and has withstood earthquakes, speaking of which, we had one on May 3, 6.1, lasting several seconds, enough to scare the ¿"/( out of everyone, but Xela had little damage; the epicenter was closer to the Pacific coast








My teacher for this past week, my last in Xela, was Rufina, to my left; others are Carlos, one of the school´s directors and a maestro (teacher), and two of the maestras. Enrollment is pretty light right now, but June will bring dozens of new students, mainly from universities all over the world.

El Día de la Cruz

Parque Central, the central park is the center of what´s happening in Xela. For one thing, the cathedral of this diocese is along the western side of the park. People, churches, groups, protests are frequently held at the park. Today, the first Sunday of the month, is a small artisan market. Guess who forgot to go to the bank yesterday to cash travelers´ checks?

Today is El Día de la Crúz, the Day of the Cross. In the Catholic processions, churches use the actual statues from their altars and sanctuaries. These figures of the Holy Trinity are removed from the cathedral and placed on the anda, a platform that we might call a float in a Mardi Gras or homecoming parade. The member congregations of a “hermandad” or brotherhood-sisterhood societies from a number of parishes in the diocese support the procession and bring their banners to display in the procession.






I do not understand all the intricacies of these societies, but there are many of them. The faithful who earn the privilege, carry the anda on their shoulders like a burial casket. This is especially powerful imagery during Holy Week, when the passion of the Christ is portrayed with quite a lot of drama, with the emphasis on the death of Jesus at the hand of the Romans. This anda portrays the Holy Trinity and angels, all clothed in silver armor.

A man in the procession is holding two poles with U-shaped metal ends. These are to hold the platform when people get tired, when the procession stops for any reason, or to give people on one side a break. The anda is decorated with live plants from the altar of the church.








Two women are holding bowls of incense. The incense is very strong, made of a pine resin formed into a kind of intensely fragrant incense that comes in chunks the size of a charcoal briquette. The procession ended at the cathedral, with a service of worship and adoration.








Yesterday was the day for the youth of Guatemala. From all over the world, member churches of the Mount Sinai hermandad gathered here in Xela. They carried banners from churches all over the world. I think maybe a world-wide youth organization, but I´m not sure. This procession was huge, lasting for many, many blocks through the city.

In Latin America, there is Catholicism and everybody else, who are Evangélicos. Catholicism grows mostly biologically through birth, but Evangélics grow through evangelism. I should also mention that the Mayans actually practice a form of syncretism that blends the ancient pre-conquest cosmology of the Mayans with the worship and practices oriented around the saints of Catholicism.

Home-Stay

I moved in with a family last weekend, and have not been online very much since. My family consists of Mom, Gloria, Dad, José, sons José, 20, Diego, 14, Fernando, 6, and Davíd, 1, daughter Andréa, 9; grandfather, Oscar, 7?, Gloria´s sister Angie, sometimes, and her little girl Shariz, 4. They are all nice and friendly to me, and very jolly and bustling with each other. The homelife is so very typical of any family, like ours, with work, school, childrearing drama, football on the TV, football in the courtyard, football in the street, (substitute basketball for comparison to our house) except that the gender roles are much more traditional, with Gloria bearing 95% of the housework. José the elder has a very playful relationship with the kids, but he is the strict disciplinarian when it is needed.

The house is very old. It is the home of Oscar´s grandparents. In some ways, it shows its age, with outdated electricity and plumbing, except for the electricity in the new addition where my room is. The family chips away at updating for their needs. Houses here are not electrically heated or cooled. At night, temperatures drop to chilly 50s this time of year, but by the time the sun burns the fog away in the morning, around 10, the day warms up to around 80F. Since last week, rain falls every afternoon, sometimes softly as you would find in Cancun, but like last Thursday, it can rain torrentially. Usually, by morning, rain is gone and the day warms up.

Showering is one of the first things that struck me as having changed a great deal in a third world country home since I visited Bolivia many years ago. In Bolivia, water for the shower was heated using an apparatus attached to the pipe just above the shower head. A squeeze bottle or metal can much like an oil can held alcohol fuel that I squeezed into a little trough that encircled the water pipe. A metal heat transferring grid surrounded the pipe and heated the water as it flowed through the pipe inside the apparatus. As long as the fuel lasted, the water was heated pretty well, at least not spring-water cold that comes from the mountains. The missionaries insisted that we use just one serving of alcohol per shower.

Now, the device is much the same, except the alcohol fuel has been replaced by an electrical heating element surrounding the pipe. The water still travels through the device, which makes me sort of nervous, hoping not to die a Thomas Merton death, electrocuted in the bathroom (just kidding, Rachel) The mountain water is still just a bit more on warm side of tepid. These devices are quite common, more common than heated reservoirs of hot water, like the one in my own basement. In the kitchen, the water is cold, and must be heated on the stove. When Cindy and I went to Panajachel for the weekend, we stayed in a hotel that had real hot water, heated in a water heater, just like home. It felt absolutely decadent to steam up the bathroom mirror and stand under the shower until my skin turned red.

The shower is just one way of illustrating how close to the bone the average person in a city like Xela or Guatemala City lives. There are amenities to city living like cafés and restaurants, plenty of stores to buy anything you might need, buses to get you where you need to go, and in the shower, warm water in which to bathe. But, this family, whom I would say are middle class, with cable TV, good food to eat, secure roof over their heads, many people to lighten the load of daily cost of living, are in material terms very poor, living an average life in a third world country, and it is quite a contrast to my life, and I dare say, to the life of anyone who might be reading this.

I do count my blessings, in my own home and lifestyle. Those who know my tendency to fix things will recognize this urge I have to go out to the hardware store and get a working doorknob for the upstairs hallway door, or get one of those on-demand water heaters just now making it to the US, but widely in use in the rest of the world. Instead of a doorknob, a rag has been passed through the hole where the doorknob would go, and the tail of the rag is pressed between the door and the jamb to hold it closed. I have an urge to run out and buy the tiles needed to finish the shower in the bathroom outside in the courtyard, so typical of homes here. My sense of cleanliness is different, and it takes some getting used to. But, that is not my role here. My role is to move into this family, enjoy the bed and the meals they provide, converse with them, learn Spanish, and move on. My discomforts here are not about this family and what they do not have, my discomforts are about my own material obsessions, and what I have been socialized to expect in my daily life. If I started trying to fix things up here, I would never go to class, which is why I am here, and it would take the rest of my life.

The city kicks up a certain constant grit that permeates everything. The safety of the water is a major problem, combined with a horrible sanitation system. I have been very fortunate to encounter just one day of discomfort due to eating in a café off the tourist loop, or outside my home. Gloria has been advised about how to cook for students from other countries, and to provide safe bottled water. A couple of doses of Cipro and Immodium and everything is right again, not unusual at all for a visitor to the country. But, even the citizens have problems with the pollution of the water and the air. Many suffer from chronic illnesses, but people here are not socialized to go to the doctor for treatment, and they conceptualize illness very differently from the way our culture does. For instance, many average people are making light of the swine flu outbreak in Mexico. Flu passes through this country every year, just as it does everywhere. To many people here, this is just another reason to ostracize the poor, to blame the poor for a problem that is inconvenient to the more powerful countries. I have even heard suspicions that the outbreak is a strategy of US drug companies, that the virus was planted in Mexico, in order to use the poor to test new drugs. When you live here for a while and pay the least bit of attention, these kinds of suspicions begin to make sense. After all, the US did sponsor and train soldiers for the murder and disappearances of thousands, perhaps 100,000 indigenous persons in order to suppress a growing independence of thought and autonomy, much as the powers resisted civil rights in our own country for so many generations. Just as many persons of color do not trust organized medicine in our own country because of the history of Tuskeegee Syphilis Study, people here look askance at any kind of externally originated outreach that would touch upon their sense of safety.

Before I lapse into a pathological mindset about the conditions here, I want to be quick to point out that the relationship between our two countries is very close and complicated. It is so close that we could invest a great deal more in fostering a great deal of improvement in the quality of life here, and it is so complicated that no matter what we might try to do, as well-meaning Christians or well-meaning neighbors, corruption in the government at every level will always undermine such efforts. It is not a matter of imposing US values on a different country, it is a matter of hospitality having been abused for so long, and lessons not having been learned from one political administration to the next.

Rather than talk about what might be lacking, I choose to see how people here living in abundance. For the big things, people are able to organize for change, they are free to protest in rallies called “manifestaciónes” a very interesting concept, no?), and they do an incredible job of working with the resources at hand, and to bring about the lively discourse and action that does work.

Families like my Guatemalan family have a lot to teach a wealthy person like me about what really matters in life – love, family (however that is construed by those living it out), education, food, safety, and meaningful work. All of the rest is icing on the cake. My cake is mostly icing, so free it is from insufficiency. On purpose, I do not say “in comparison” because that would be an insult to my Guatemalan family, so abundant are their essentials that I listed above. I am learning a lesson from them that I don´t think was included in the tuition, so I am very grateful.

Yet, there is a reality about life here that we should scrutinize. The deep analysis of life in this and any other country that suffers in a direct way from the meddlesome tactics of a superpower needs to be done in every generation. Many more books and articles are available that tell the story better than I can. Here in our little banana republic, I am humbled by history. I am intentional in calling Guatemala “our” banana republic, because we helped to create this place, especially in the 20th century, with the United Fruit Company, and most heartbreakingly in the 36 year war of the late 20th century, to protect our country´s “interests”. Shame on us, shame on our military. What would it take to make up for all of that sovereign violence, even more heinously rendered and blessed during an evangelical Christian era of our country´s leadership? Shame on us, shame on them, leaving this beautiful country in such a mess. Peace accords were finalized in 2000, but it will take many more generations to realize the benefits.

My room is upstairs in a new addition, down the hall from the rooms of José the younger and a friend of his, Luis, who rents from the family. I´ll get some photos this weekend.

Part of my tuition to PLQ goes to room and board for the family. The school sends a check home with me at mid-week, and Gloria buys groceries and any household items that go to my upkeep. I try to take care of most of my household needs so that they have some money to do things they might enjoy. I don´t know for sure, but I think I saw a new pair of shoes on Fernando yesterday. I buy and use my own soap, shampoo, TP, and laundry detergent. Gloria has a washing machine out on the back patio, but no dryer. She is constantly washing clothes for this household, and has clotheslines in every possible place with exposure to the sun. I keep thinking of things that would make her life a bit easier, but what about the extra cost in electricity? I think I could easily afford a dryer, but like other meddlesome gringo ideas, it might leave the family with a bigger burden in the long run. This is not my role. My role is to pay attention and be a decent boarder.

Time Management

My days here in language school are incredibly busy. Class lasts for five hours, from 8 am – 1 pm, or in other weeks when more students are around, 2-7 pm. Every day, I have lots of homework and memorizing of vocabulary, grammar rules, and verbs. After class, I walk home for lunch, which is the biggest meal of the day, something that takes getting used to. In the afternoon, I study, or go to a presentation at the school, a lecture, a movie, or other activity.

The school sponsors short trips to places of interest, especially to Mayan culture. I have found that it is impossible to get everything done that the school offers. I finally decided that I cannot take the field trips, but I can make the lectures. I go to Pollo Campero mid-afternoon to talk with Rachel and Grace on Skype, as often as possible. We can email at the school, but not Skype. After talking, I go back home and study more, sometimes until midnight.

Some days, I have a lot to do with running errands. Everything takes much longer to do because I have to walk everywhere. This is actually good, because I need the exercise and diversion after the intensity of class. But, it does take longer. And, everything I need cannot be found in one place, very often I have to make several stops in widely distributed places. There are short cuts, like laundry. I can get my clothes laundered, dried, and folded for about 4US dollars. Gloria has offered for me to use her machine, and hang my clothes to dry, but for the cost of the detergent, and the time taken out of the study schedule, I can afford very well to have it done. That is a wealthy person´s choice.

Today is Saturday, a bit more relaxed, and a good day to run some errands. Tomorrow is market day in Parque Central, first Sunday of the month. I am looking forward to that. Taken out of context, Guatemalan styles of weaving, the colors, the intricacy of the weaving, these make no sense. It helps to know that every pueblo of Mayan people has its own patterns and colors of cloth, and styles of dress. Considering that the majority of the population lives in pueblos, and there are thousands of pueblos in the country, there are just as many styles of “traje Guatemalteco.”

Many Mayans living in the city wear the traje of their pueblo of origin on a daily basis, mostly the women. The men tend to dress in Western clothing, suits, or pants and shirts. Market day is great for seeing more colorful cultures come together in one place. This market is far smaller than others, such as San Francisco, Chichicastenango, or Huehuetenango, but I am told the artisanship is very fine. Maybe some lucky relatives will receive some nice gifts at home .

Truth, Lies, and Consequences

I have a confession to make. Only in recent years did I understand that Mayans are still living in the Americas. I thought they died away from the Spanish conquest. Here in Guatemala, and in the former areas of Guatemalan land, Belize, Chiapas, Mexico, and Quintana Roo, Mexico (where Cancun and Cozumel have been built up for Western tourists), Mayan nations are very much alive.

In Guatemala, there are 24 Mayan nations, each with its own unique language. The ladinos and the government powers, along with our own government, tried to wipe them out back in the 80s, but they survived. They are the underclass of society here, the people of color, the former slaves.

I have a lot, a whole world of a lot to learn, don´t I? For instance, our government said that the guerilla of Guatemala´s 36 year armed rebellion were communists. That is a completely constructed lie. The guerilla were mostly indigenous people, Mayans, struggling for civil rights, using the ideology of freedom and democracy. But, because their autonomy and human rights would endanger our government´s control over the capitalist interests of our country, the label of communism was quite convenient for controlling popular sentiment, including Reagan´s defeat of the Democrats, and the long decades of truly evil and covert military tactics.

Anyone recall Iran-Contra, Oliver North, drugs for guns, arms for hostages? El Salvador was the main victim in that scandal, but it is very similar to the story here in Guatemala. A pervasive McCarthyism, built and strengthened with great intentionality, continues this lie to this very day. I think maybe I am not alone in this miseducation about my neighbors in Central America. I am a product of an organized educational system that taught me what it wanted me to know, not necessarily the truth and the whole truth, so help me Tecún Umán.

Immersion is the Best!

On the value of immersion: My friend with whom I traveled for the early time of my stay, Cindy, took her first month of Spanish last summer in Antigua, at Christian Spanish Academy, CSA. She returned to CSA for two weeks before I arrived in Xela. When she joined me here, at the very beginning of my second week, we compared our knowledge and skill with the language. I had two years of Spanish in college, used that learning for a six-week trip to Bolivia soon after, then have spoken very little since. By the end of my second week here in PLQ, I had surpassed everything I learned in college and added more grammatical structure to my writing and speaking. In six weeks of study over the past 7 months, Cindy had surpassed the amount of content and speaking skill that she would have taken in two years of classes in a university or in a very long time of using software like Rosetta Stone.

Immersion is the best way to learn, in this model of intensive classes, home stay, and getting around in a Spanish speaking country. Not everyone has the blessing of taking five weeks away, as I have been able to do. This is a kind of gift of my unemployment, and the hiatus before starting residency in chaplaincy at Clarian. I will have a degree of fluency that will definitely enable me to listen well, to speak fairly well, and to read well. I can build upon this foundation for the rest of my life. Already, I have begun to read novels. When I listen to presentations at the school, I understand at least all of the context and the concept of what is being said, and at least half of the specific words. I worked for two weeks with one of the best grammarians in the school.

When I am with my family, Spanish language flies through the air at a speed that gives me whiplash, and gives me a reality check on the idea of fluency. Everyone is so nice to take time a meals to slow down and talk with me, give me the corrections I need, and help me understand more about the language. Gloria hopes one day to get her degree and teach at PLQ. Having students in her home will be a big help to her, too, because she gets the practice of hearing the kinds of mistakes we make!

I hope my next teacher can help me move along in the fluency of my speaking. With the help of my Guatemalan family and my intensive courses, I have confidence that my use of Spanish in my work will be effective.

[I am posting this because I did encounter some questions and doubts about this experience when I applied for grants. I can now explain with absolute certainty that if one has the time, and wants or needs to learn a language, this is the way to do it.]

Almuerzo, the Biggest Meal of the Day

Gloria prepares all of the family meals, including breakfast, a small portion of something filling, like eggs and rolls, or cereal and bread, or steamed plantain. Supper is a small meal, maybe leftovers from lunch, or a bowl of fruit, some eggs and rolls.

Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Gloria cooks a big meal, usually starting with rice, sometimes adding beans, some kind of meat, and bread. I really miss vegetables. Beans, made from dried beans, are the staple, along with rice, but that is the extent of use of the vegetable family. On special occasions, broccoli or squash might be blended into a soup. But, every family is different. Other students tell me that their families mostly eat soup and rarely have meat. Fruit is used mostly for making a drink with lunch, melon, mangoes, or papaya. And, every family is different in the kinds of meat they crave. I have a commitment to eat what is placed before me. That means I have eaten breaded and fried liver along with rice and beans, and breaded and fried churrascos, which I think is a kind of flank steak, a cheap cut of meat that has to be cut into small strips, sort of like what we would get in a serving of fajitas, but not as good. Gloria has also made pan-sauteed chicken, an amazing treat, along with rice and beans. Fortunately, I love rice and beans, so at lunch, I am always very happy to eat a good portion.

Last night, the family had chicken from Pollo Campero, but due to a little bout of stomach distress, I went to bed early. I think I missed a chance to sample the rón in a Cuba Libre after supper.

I think I mentioned Pollo Campero before, it is a business that began in Guatemala. They have stores all over the country. Pollo Campero is the KFC of Guatemala, and citizens are very proud of it. Recently, Pollo Campero expanded to other countries, including the US. I would not be at all surprised to see a Pollo Campero in Indianapolis someday soon. I have heard of Guatemalan families bringing Pollo Campero with them on trips to visit relatives in the US. KFC or Popeye´s cannot hold a candle to Pollo Campero. Here in Xela, they have free wifi! I can go in the afternoon after lunch and have a video conversation with Rachel and Grace. It´s a bit of a hike from the neighborhood, but well worth it.

Today, I am going to order pizza from Domino´s, just down the street. This is a treat for the kids and a break for Gloria. She works very hard, running the household and cooking all of the meals. Selfishly, I can hardly imagine cooking in her kitchen, and during the week I have no time to cook, clean up, and study. So, ordering pizza is good for my conscience (not including my nutritional conscience) and good for Gloria – I hope. She said the kids would be thrilled. I know I am. For today´s lunch, no fried liver.