observaciones!

well well well! so here is a far too detailed and run-on-sentence-laden telling of my experiences and observations thus far. to sum up though, (and this is no shocker) i am very aware of how little i know about the world outside of new england in practical terms. i can tell you academic sociological/historical ¨stuff¨about the world, and for example a bunch about guatemala, but the academic material is dry and devoid of meaning to me without lived reality. i am here because ways i want to be of and in the world rather than just studying or thinking about it and my reactions hypothetically. por eso, i can say quite confidently that i feel affirmed thus far in my reasons and feelings about taking this trip. i´m learning so much about myself and the world in ways that i knew i couldn´t at home in providence. so, bear with me because i may make rather crude observations at times that are simply attempts and realizations on my part to process difference. (also, bear with my grammar - i am trying to write these as quickly as possible!)

so, here goes!

i am here at last! and by here, i mean in xela instead of guatemala city and instead of antigua. after arriving in shock and sweating lots (literally and figuratively) about carrying my bag around, i jumped on a shuttle bus to antigua that was supposed to drop me off on a busline to xela. however, the bus stop was a little flower bed by the side of a road at a gas station on a busy street, where a young girl and her father were eating ice cream. the bus driver asked them about the bus and they said something to the effect of, oh it just came. i think that another one will be here in another hour. well, i didn´t feel so siked about waiting for a bus by myself in the middle of a place i didn´t know for a bus that may or may not come and that i may or may not be able to flag down. so, i continued on to antigua and stayed in a cheap hostel with a girl from montreal i had met on the plane.

well, all i have to say about antigua is roosters and tourists abound! i know it´s one of ¨those¨ places that are supposed to be amazing, but i didn´t particularly enjoy it. it could have been that i was in the wrong city with no real way to contact people in xela or the fact that i was tired and cranky, but the entire city seemed too small and touristy for my liking.

so, por la mañana on thursday, i got on a shuttle ¨to¨ xela, thinking that this shuttle to xela would be like those advertised around, stopping off in (i think the name is..?) chimicastenango, where you switch buses for xela. antigua is about 1 hour west of guate city, and xela is about 4 hours west-northwest of guatemala city. anyways, instead of going in the right direction, the bus went back to guatemala city, where i was handed off to a taxi after the airport, who took me to the bus station i was originally planning on going to when i arrived on wednesday. hah! well, i arrived 5 minutes after the 11am bus had arrived, and even though there was a 12; 30 bus advertised, i was told no! the next bus was not until 2;30. so i waited. and waited. and ate a lot of snacks.

finally, i get on the bus (this was a first class pullman bus called galgos. galgos = greyhound) and we head off...after a half hour wait on the bus. so, at this point i´m happy to be on the road a bit cranky about waiting, but happy nonetheless...except that we run into the same terrible construction outside of guatemala city that leaves you sitting for a half hour at a time in one place. now, in case you don´t know the geography of guatemala it´s extremely mountainous/hilly, and the area where i´m living is called the altiplano - and it´s the western highlands/ mountains of the country. xela is in a sort of basin/valley in the middle of mountains and with an active volcano next door.

but, back to the bus. this bus, as most vehicles i´ve seen here, was a manual shift bus, and, to well, stopping & starting on the giant hills of guatemala in traffic was...err...humorous to say the least. now, passengers change frequently on the bus, as there are two men working for the bus station (aside from the driver) whose jobs are explicitly to hang halfway out the bus door as it travels anywhere between 5-30 mph and yell XELA XELA XELA. and if someone responds, the bus screeches to a halt and picks them up. also, any time the bus stops at random to pick up a hopeful passenger along the side of the road or it is blocked in traffic, vendors jump onto the bus to peddle their food or wares and stay on for the ride until the next convenient moment to hop off.

so, i´m on this pullman bus, and i have my head nearly out the window, and it´s flying around these hairpin curves at a terrifyingly rapid pace..except..again for the frequent traffic jams from the road construction. so we continue onward and the bus driver continues to struggle with this extremely old bus, that, from what i can gather, requires all of your upper body strength to shift into first gear. not only does it require all of the driver´s (and sometimes the assistants´help), but it shakes the entire bus and makes the most terrible grinding sound i´ve ever heard. every time we shift to first gear. or rather, every time there is an attempt to shift, for he stalls out numerous times (it´s a wonder to me how little he managed to stall out), and each time, the assistants kind of run outside with a wrench or something and do i don´t know what to the bus, and the bus driver starts going and the two men sprint after the bus to catch up and jump in as it plugs along. ¡que humoroso! so, we´re moving along and it´s getting dark and i´m starting to feel extremely nervous because the 4 hour bus ride has clearly turned into a 5.5 hour bus ride in which i am arriving at night, by myself, without a real clear idea if there will be someone to meet me, because i thought i would be arriving on the 11am bus to xela (that would be there approximately at 3pm). instead, it´s 8;30pm and i´m going CRAP. i have a broken bag (the hip belt, ie the most important part of a backpacking pack, ripped off in transit from the taxi drivers haphazard handing of my bag to me) and it´s dark and i´m by myself without a clue who or where my family is!

but, never fear, it all worked out. there was a note left for me on the door of the school (i took a taxi to it, which again reaffirmed my poor bargaining skills. i know i´m being ripped off but i have not yet developed either the confidence-gumption-language skills to change it). the note told me to call someone who would call my host family, and they came to the school, helped me carry my bags to their house (which is a less than 5 minute walk from the school). and finally, i was there!

i am writing an extremely large amount right now, so i will save the descriptions of the people in my family for later. but i will run through their names now - blanca (la madre-mom), jorge (padre), alejandra (daughter of college age), mindi (daughter of college age), y jorge (son of college age or older as well). then, there are the two girls who stay at the house. and finally me, and another student from another school named bonner (i don´t actually know how to spell his name, but it´s pronounced bahn-er) who replaced a girl liz. apparently, more than one student staying at a house is not allowed in the world of homestays, and thus my mother asked me por un favor - to say, when asked, that there weren´t any other students in the house with me. i still haven´t decided how i feel about that, because bonner´s spanish, although he´s been studying since january, is far worse than mine, and he likes to hang around and speak english with me - which is the exact opposite of what i want.

so anyways, i am extremely happy to be here and excited and confused and challenged in a number of different ways! i started my schooling on friday with mi maestra, angelica. and i will write about her and my lessons later. but, to provide a brief synposis (in contrast to the tone of the rest of this entry!), i have been pleasantly surprised by how much spanish i retained in the recesses of my brain that was just waiting for the right moment to jump back out and resurface to the accessible parts of my brain! i am actually using different verb tenses of my own accord (although i screw them up frequently, and often substitute by default the present tense for the appropriate one).

but overall, i´ve been happy and excited for the opportunity to use my spanish - and my biggest concern now is to try and find ways to speak with other spanish-speakers, not foreigners, in my every day life. on monday i will hopefully will begin looking for a place to volunteer. so anyways, hasta luego readers!