Week 2: Bed Bugs!

Sunday Wanderings!

Sunday we took in the cut flower market, while eating fresh bread on the steps of a nearby church. Check out these photos! I tried to be discrete because I don´t think it´s very polite to take pictures without asking, but I couldn´t resist the beautiful colors!

More photos from Sunday Wanderings

1. chicken bus! I have yet to see actual chickens in the chicken busses.


2. La Tortillerilla where we baile and buy fresh corn tortillas!

3. El Parque Centroamerica, The Central Park in Xela



4. Parque Centroamerica



5. City Hall, also right on the Park. Sunday market in the foreground.



6. Innovative green roofing (this one´s for you Kate!)


7. Bryce wanted a picture of this beautiful building. While he was snapping the photo, a woman approached us and explained that the first photograph of Xela was taken of this building, by an Italian photagrapher. Good eye, Bryce!

Las Clases de Español!

We started school on Monday and moved into our not so great home stay. We move into a new home stay tomorrow, but more on that later.

Classes are so great! My teacher´s name is Ana and she is about my age, maybe a little older. She is a great teacher and we get along very well on a personal level too. My Spanish is coming back quickly with her help. Bryce´s teacher´s name is Sheny and they enjoy talking about the history and current events of Guatemala (*see La Violencia below). It´s amazing how well they communicate with each other about such complex topics, considering Bryce is still just learning Spanish.

Isabel is the director of La Paz. Isabel´s sister owns the house where we study so she sometimes comes to visit during the day with her 2 little girls and a 2-year old boy named Diego who Bryce has befriended. The environment at the school is very warm and friendly. Yesterday at school we made rellinitos, a Guatemalan snack that consists of fried plantains and black beans in the middle...mmmm. Today during class we went to an art exhibit downtown, that documents the history of the indigenous population of Guatemala and the violence against them during the civil war (*see La Violencia below). Saturday we are going to the beach as an activity with the school!

After class on Monday we went with our roommate to the Blue Angel where they show 2 films each night for $1.50 each. We watched Frida, about the life of Frida Kahlo. Bryce and I highly recommend it if you´ve never seen it! There are tons of great cafes like this one in Xela and I can´t wait to try them all!


The Home Stay: Pros & Cons

Pro No. 1: The home we moved into on Monday is lovely. The garden is probably the most beautiful home garden I´ve ever seen, except maybe for Bryce´s mom´s garden ;) Here are some pictures of the garden and our colorful room, to prove my point:

• It was a raining, so it´s not as pretty here as it is in real life.
  the door to our room our room for 3 nights only : /
  
• Pro No. 2: We´ve gotten to know our classmate, Gabby, much better. And she is a joy to have around. She´s considering moving with us tomorrow.
  
• Con No. 1: The biggest problem is that the family rents out rooms more as a business than for the cross cultural experience. We don´t eat with the family and they don´t care to chat with us much. Bryce tried to fill up his water bottle in her kitchen and she told us we would have to buy our own water if we wanted more than one glass per meal. She´s warmed up a little since that interaction, but it´s just not the experience we´re looking for.


• Con No. 2: In addition, there is a 60-something expat living in the house who is quite strange. He has a wife and children in Oregon but he has been living in Xela for almost a year. During that time he has made no attempt to learn Spanish. He talks a lot about organic agriculture which is cool I guess, but also makes occasional disparaging remarks about local people and their customs. He accompanied Gabby and her friends to a bar the other night and got drunk and beligerent, and wet his pants before heading home. ewww.


• Con No. 3: There are bed bugs. Apparently it´s a common problem here. You can´t get rid of them easily. Washing sheets doesn´t do it. Bryce suggested putting our sleeping bags in the freezer to kill them, but according to Gabby they survive down to -40 degrees. Heating them works better, but you have to put them in a hot car for 3 days or something like that. We don´t know anyone with a car and It´s not hot here so that method has proved difficult. I´m hoping my couple of bites from the night before were a false alarm, because this morning I had no bites. Bryce hasn´t gotten any bites. Apparently, men don´t get them as often.

Home Stay No. 2: Coming Soon!

So we are moving out tomorrow morning. We´ll be moving in with a family that is supposedly much warmer. The woman´s name is Blanca and we met her brifely this morning. She was very friendly. We will eat meals with the family and practice our Spanish with them. Two Guatemalan students also live with the family so that makes more people to practice with. Tom, one of our other classmates, lives there now and is really happy with the situation. So there will be 3 or 4 gringos in the house once Bryce and I (and maybe Gabby) move in, but we all want to speak Spanish in the house. I think it will be very fun and a good learning experience! Stay tuned....
Tonight we are watching the debate at an apartment right on Central Park!


La Violencia
I knew nothing about Guatemalan history until I decided to travel here 6 months ago. So for those of you like me, here´s a brief explanation. There was a 36-year ¨civil war¨ in Guatemala from 1960-1996. The ¨civil war¨ is now defined as genocide by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations. People refer to this period as ¨la violencia¨ (the violence). The government seized the land of indigenous Mayans, the indigenous people organized and revolted out of desperation, and the government began a campaign to eliminate of the indigenous Mayan population of Guatemala. It´s estimated that 200,000 people were killed during the war. Many of the politicians responsible for the deaths were pardoned and are still involved in Guatemalan politics to this day. Racism against indígenas (indigenous peoples) persists. For example, if an indígena goes to a public hospital, he or she will likely sit in the waiting room and never be seen. For this reason, Primeros Pasos has a policy that if someone comes into the clinic with needs that can only be met at the hospital, a med student from the clinic MUST accompany the patient to the hospital and insist that he/she be seen by a doctor.