three weeks in: week one.

Blogging...evidentally not my strong point. So, here we are. I offer you three installations to attempt to recount my experiences so far! They´re cut and pasted from emails sent during these weeks. Enjoy!

Week One-

We are doing very well here in Guatemala. Our host family is absolutely awesome. They spend a lot of time talking with us every day, and they´ve got a lot of good insights about culture, what to do in town, etc..., which is awesome. The school pays for pretty much all our time. In the morning, we have one on one instruction from 8 til 1. They provide unlimited tea and coffee and a snack break around ten. On friday, I learned 45 new vocab words, so I think it´s going to be a great experience. Then, we can take advantage of daily trips, cultural events, dance lessons and movies which take place in the afternoon. Our family provides three meals a day, which have been excellent. They´re not totally vegetarian, but mostly they´ve been great. Their daughter (17 years old and in medical school - smart one!!) is also vegetarian, so they have an easy time cooking for us. Their son is 14 and is already studying toward his profession, as well. He wants to be an electrical engineer. Our family hosts around 15 students per year. They come from all around the world, and we´ve met people here from all over - Germany, Japan, Israel, Canada, among others. Some stay for months, so they basically have someone here all the time...they have some pretty crazy stories. I guess a lot of families in these language school cities build extra space onto their homes so they can take visitors all the time. I imagine it´s pretty lucrative. Anyway, I think they like us a lot because we´re pretty boring. We spend most of our free time, when not exploring the city, reading our books, at this point.

Brian - my cousin Cari´s boyfriend - is staying at a hostel for backpackers called Casa Argentina, and it has a trekking agency on the first floor. He´s met all kinds of interesting people, including some crazy botanists from U Texas. He´s a great person to travel with - his spanish is awesome, plus he´s just fun.

Saturday, on Brian´s suggestion, we headed into the mountains to a hot spring called Fuentes Georginas. It was basically just a big natural hot spring, all outdoors, with a bunch of pools. We swam, sat on the rocks, ate lunch... had a very relaxing afternoon. We left here around 10 and returned around 4. Very fun. It was absolutely beautiful. This is a pretty incredible country. There are indigenous people everywhere, and the aesthetic is just beautiful. I guess the indigenous groups have a lot of problems with health, infant mortality and lack of education, but the culture here appears to be very rich and affirming of the livlihood of the indigenous. Many of them, though they spend most of their week in Xela, barely speak spanish. Very interesting. Also, the scenery is amazing. Xela is surrounded on all sides by volcanos and mountains which just seem to shoot out of the ground. It looks like rainforest, with greenery blanketing everything. Since it´s so fertile, people farm right on these STEEP hills. I can´t imagine - not terraced, or anything. But, very beautiful. We saw a lot of that on the way to the Fuentes.

Well, I guess that´s all! It´s been pretty exciting already!! Also, I think the most important item I have with me is my down coat!!!! It´s really, really cold here, especially at night. It got down to around 30 degrees the other night, and we don´t have heat in our part of the house. Oy.