I should say a bit about my family and our house here. The house is up on this hill about 15 minutes away from the spanish school and maybe 10 from central park and the cathedral and whatnot. It's a cinderblock house with concrete-looking walls. The water for the shower is heated in a tube-thing just before it comes out of the shower head. They have a fun bathroom because they were kinda artsy with fitting different broken tiles together. There is one vehicle (kinda like a Honda CR-V) and a motorcycle with a picture of Ché on the gas tank. He's a hero here instead of a villain as he is in the US. I can put up a post of pictures and descriptions soon. I have some incredible pictures already. Thanks to my brother who helped me to use a camera properly! (he probably won't ever read this)
I live with Lily and Rony, who are grandma and grandpa. they have a son and a daughter, Ricardo and Gloria, 30 and something like 25-29 years respectively. Gloria is married and lives in a house connected to my house. Ricardo has a girlfriend apparently, in another city. He is a bit awkward and sings U2 songs at the top of his lungs in the evenings when it's not blasting out of his speakers. He's the only one in the family who knows a lot of english. I don't know if he works or if he is in school or neither. Gloria has three children. Mario is nine. Sophia is seven, and Emile is less than a year old (I can't tell and don't remember what they told me. sorry) Mario and Sophia are fun to play around with except that much of the time Mario is too cool to talk to me. He's got his friends.
My weekdays have some structure, and the weekends don't, gladly! My week day starts at 7:15 am, breakfast at 7:30, 15 minute walk to school, class from 8 to 10:30, a 30 minute break, class from 11 to 1, and I walk back up the hill to my house to eat lunch between 1:30 and 2pm. This is where things can vary. My spanish school schedules activities every day of the week. some are in the afternoon and some are in the evening. Depending on if I want to go to a particular activity or not, I could also go to the discoteca (it's a bar, in US terms, but here "the bar" is the strip club...) to practice salsa. I have a friend there and a group of us like to go when we can to work on our moves. Also there is a internet café at the school with wi-fi, so a lot of people talk on skype or do whatever else they do. I check email and facebook... Not many people I know are ever on skype (*hint, hint*). I'm in the same time zone as Minnesota, btw. Anyway, there are a number of things to do, including 2-3 hours of spanish homework every night (and it's hard to skip homework like in previous spanish classes when it was so easy since you'll kinda stand out since you're the only student of the teacher...). Anyway, my dinner is at 7:30 or so every night. After that, I usually start my homework, try to finish by 10pm and listen to my audiobook (Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne) or journal. I'm so tired by then that it's easy to fall fast asleep.
I should mention something about how I eat here. First, yes my insides are still getting used to it. Now that that's out of the way, I found it interesting to see that they eat a big lunch here and smaller breakfast and dinner. i feel like it's almost the opposite in the US sometimes. My family barely ever eats dinner. For a lot of the meals, I'm the only one at the table. I'm so grateful that i have a lot of variety for food. I have had things like spaghetti, chicken soup, and pancakes, but also things like beans, rice, potatoes, fried slices of cheese, mosh(watery oatmeal, only it tastes better than it sounds), and a lot of fresh fruit. I've also eaten out at an Indian restaurant (THE best), a Mediterranean restaurant, another "worldly" restaurant, and my favorite the "Blue Angel." The Blue Angel is a coffee house/restaurant. It has pretty much the cheapest prices for anything substantial in Xela (except for the street vendors...I can't wait...). It's like 15 quetzales for a sandwich and chips, which is almost exactly 2 US dollars. There's things like macaroni or soup for about the same. Tea is like 5 Quetzales, about 75 cents.
So things are pretty cheap here. I bought a quality pair of dancing shoes for about $35. My phone was about the same. I took out 1,000 quetzales from the ATM here and wasn't too sure what that was in US dollars, so I looked online. It was like $130 plus $5 fee. It's weird spending Quetzales because I still cannot think of them as different than US dollars. I guess this makes me want to not spend as much, but this feeling mixes with the feeling I get when I translate quetzales to dollars that makes me want to spend more since it's cheap here. It's weird to keep 200 of any currency in my pocket, but in reality, it's less than $30
On Monday, this guy tried to take my money when I was walking up to this busy street. He called it a tax. I could tell he was a bit out of it and understood that he was drunk when I smelled his breath. I wasn't really sure what I should do. I kinda felt like walking back down the block and going around, and it was just then that I saw a police truck drive by. I kinda waved them over, and I told the guy that the police are here and pointed to them. Then I just walked by him and the police went and talked to the guy. It's funny because there wasn't really a lot of tension because he was pretty drunk. He was just standing there with his hand held out, and I said "Sí?" like I didn't think he was serious.
If you're wondering about my safety, I don't have too amazing of a sense of it, but my host sister says my walk home is pretty safe because there are all these strip clubs on the street that I take to get to my house. It's safe because they apparently have guards and the police drive up and down the street all the time. In all honesty, I've never seen the strip clubs or "bars" as they call them, but I do see the police all the time. When i walk home around midnight or so, the streets are deserted, so that feels a bit less safe, but I've been fine so far. I think I have a healthy amount of confidence in this area. There are a huge number of spanish schools in Xela, so the locals are used to seeing foreigners. Thus I'm not like the one person to mug since they've never seen my kind before. I mean, I obviously stand out for a number of reasons other than my good looks, but I think there are enough other whiter people around that I'm kind of just "one of those." It's nice to fit into a bit of a group here. So yes, I'm safe, in my opinion.
A couple of highlights of my trip have been the soccer game on monday with friends of my host-brother-in-law, our first big night out on friday at La Rumba, trying to practice and learn salsa almost every day as my way to relax, getting blisters ripped open because of it, my spanish teacher laughing at me when I say things wrong, a natural hot spring called Las Fuentes Georginas, and being in contact with the people I have been able to talk with.
This friday after classes, we're going as a big group to Antigua, which is one of the big if not the biggest tourist spot in the country. I'm excited to go, and spend some time with the whole group together. One of the least amazing parts of this semester is that we don't live close to everyone else like we did up at CSBSJU. It will be important to bond a bit with the group and talk about how things are going. I really value hearing what the other people are experiencing.
There is so much to say. I hope I can express as many things as possible in future posts. I'll try to keep you entertained. This one kinda had to be boring since it's been more than a week. I'll post pictures in the next post. (I think I already said that...)
Like I said in an earlier post, all these big questions and reflections are kinda gone. There are no expectations or dreams of epic proportions. I'm here living the life. In all honesty, there are many times where I think I don't want to know spanish, and I want to be more comfortable and to be somewhere where people speak english. I can't say it goes away quickly or easily, but it's not overbearing. Also, listening to Shane Claiborne and having a poster of Mother Teresa are making me think about trying to "Come and see" their communities. There are also people I'm reminded of daily whom I miss a lot and wish I could be closer with. It's funny how the distance and knowledge of future trips can do that to any kind of relationship. I still have this overwhelming love for all of you people, especially those whom I'm closest to. I continually struggle to express this in its fullness.
I love you. Take care! I've only heard from a handful of people, there are more whom I'd really like to talk with :) Until next time...
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