Well, I’m on day three of my adventures already. I can’t say that time has flown, because it’s been interesting and difficult figuring my way around a town that speaks very little English. Time seems to creep by when you are just staring blankly at a person, wondering what they were saying. And I speak extremely little Spanish so far… Really, I thought I had picked up a little bit more from listening to Liz and stuff, but no. Oh no. It truly is a foreign language. More on my “pronunication problems” later.
Yesterday, Tina and I tracked down the church, which was just a couple of blocks from our house. The buildings here are very low–it’s rare to have a building besides a cathedral that’s more than a story high–and all interconnected. The only way to tell that one building has ended is by the different color of paint, and the LDS chapel was no different–we almost walked right past it. Church was interesting. Tina was able to pick out enough to have an idea about what the lessons were about, but I was pretty clueless. I understood “familia” and “Cristo” and not much else. But the people were warm and friendly and gave us some tips on how to survive and where to go for things, which was desperately needed.
We spent much of the afternoon walking around the city, trying to figure out where things were and (in my case) trying to figure out how to use my VISA in the ATM. I looked online and learned that I need to call and get a PIN setup (which I can do collect, if I can ever find a phone), but luckily I did bring cash with me, so I am able to survive. Sometimes I do wish I was a little more sauvy on the ways of the money world. Most people would have known that you had to call in…
Right now, we are in the middle of Lent, which is a huge (grande… ooh, be impressed) thing down here. Antigua has some of the oldest churches in Guatemala, so every week, people make big processions down from Guatemala City to the cathedral La Mercier (which is about four blocks from my house). We passed them walking when we drove in Saturday night… pitch-black-dark and just a throng of people in the middle of the road, everybody just honks and puts on blinkers to warn the other drivers. The drivers here are quite terrifying, they don’t care who’s trying to cross the street, but I’m getting used to it.
Anyway, the procession arrived in Antigua and walked down the streets to the cathedral. They had massive figurines of Christ and the Virgin Mary that they carried. The men and many little boys, all dressed in purple, carried Christ and the women (I think they were in white) carried Mary. several priests walked in front waving incense, which instantly gave me a migraine, and they had a band too. A lot of noise, a lot of people, a lot of excitement, and every week is supposed to get bigger. We’ll be in Tikel next weekend and Lake Atilan the week after, so we might miss most of the excitement.
Started classes today in the afternoon. My school opens up into a garden where we have classes in the sunshine, which is very nice. In the shade with the breeze, it is very comfortable, although the streets can get very hot, they are very narrow and trap the heat and dust. But the nights are really cool. No bugs, really, besides the big moths that seem determined to haunt me wherever I go. No mosiquitos, so i shouldn’t get Malaria. Hope, hope.
I have two private teachers, one who focuses more on the conversational aspect and the other on the grammatical. Today I learned how to introduce myself (Me llamo Julia (pronounced who-le-a… I keep introducing myself as Julio, since that’s what all of my friends have called me), and tell where I’m from (Yo soy de Estados Unidos, vivo en Salt Lake City), how many siblings I have (tengo dos hermanas), that I’m a medical student (soy estudiente de medicina) etc. But I was able to follow dinner conversation a little easier tonight. Not much, but I feel like I know at least ten fold more than I did when I arrived. But my pronounciation… Yeah, I think I’m driving my teachers nuts. I keep adding in additional syllables and sounds and they give me the funniest looks. They’ll be begging for raises by the end of these three weeks.
I have about five pages of notes that I took and at least two hours of homework to do tonight. For the most part it’s good, although I feel pathetically slow at picking up on pronounciation. I feel pretty stupid right now when I can{t remember what they had said to me just minutes before. But I hope to make lots of progress. It’s going to be hard work, that’s for sure. Medical school I think will be a piece of cake, compared to this.
Tomorrow, we visit a hospital in a nearby town, San Jose in the mornings. We’ll be visiting a different clinic/hospital every day this week and by the three week, we’ll make a decision on where we want to be placed and work there. Hopefully we can be of some assistance, although our Spanish is so sparce.
My host family is great! Very nice and pleasant. The father knows English and eats dinner with us and teaches us new phrases. Tonight was the first time that I felt like I understood a couple of phrases. There are two other students staying there, a mother and daughter. They’ve been here a week and started out knowing more Spanish, so they seem really knowledgeable. I’m rather envious. I have my own room, a large room that looks like it was supposed to host two people who’d share a bed, because it is by far the biggest. Tina is rather jealous and visits frequently. Once we got here and the stress of flying and being constantly late was over (long story, tell you when I get home, suffice to say that she would fit in well down here when her concepts on time and lateness… her late arrivals to class for tests is just the way she is, I guess. And it drove me nuts), she’s been a fun companion.
Haven’t gotten cat-called yet, (darn) like we thought we would, but we did have a guy meow at us tonight. Still trying to figure out what he could have possibly meant by that. No boyfriends to bring home yet, although our tour guide Emilio was pretty cute. Hmmm.
The people are nice, but mostly just leave us alone. It really is a pleasant city. Tomorrow, I’m hopíng to track down some postcards and get them mailed off and I’m looking forward to going to the market and finding cool Guatemala stuff to bring back.
Funniest thing yet (besides the meowing guy, which still sends me into hysterics): Tina “The roosters here are broken!” after they started crowing at around 11 at night for no apparent reason.
Well, I’ve written a novel now, and I’d better go. I’ll post more soon.
