The beginning in Antigua

Antigua Blog  

Saturday 12

            My four month long immersion adventure in Guatemala began today with a direct flight from Atlanta to Guatemala City. On the flight, I talked with the women on my left and right. They were both nurses from Nashville, accompanied by many more on the same flight. They were on their way to Antigua as well, planning to participate in a week long mission trip to help at a local hospital. Many of the other passengers appeared to be native Guatemalans returning home.

            Once I landed, I couldn’t contain my excitement. The magnitude of the adventure at hand suddenly descended upon me and I had a ridiculously big smile for any stranger who happened to look in my direction. After collection my delicious new Palisade pack that I had bought with Christmas money for the occasion, I went out into the blindingly sun-filled and crowded street outside the airport. I found the driver that my school, Centro Linguistico Maya, had sent.

            His name was Sersio (sp?) and we conversed as well as I could manage during the hour long drive to Antigua along the Pan American Highway, which seemed to take much less than an hour because of all the sights to witness. Guatemala City is sprawling and crowded, and on a Saturday the streets were simply crammed with people walking, cutting through traffic on rickety motorcycles, buying and selling food, and shouting amongst themselves. The air was thick with the noise of aggressive drivers and ancient chicken bus engines, and with exhaust fumes.

            Upon our arrival in Antigua, our bumpy cruise down the lumpy cobbled streets slowed to a crawl as we pulled up behind a funeral procession. Here in Guatemala, the procession is in the street and police escorted as in America, except for here it is on foot. Somehow, this struck me immediately with its sincerity.

        

            Arturo was extremely welcoming and thorough in his explanation of my living arrangements and class schedule. After a brief talk, mainly in English for my comprehension but plugged full of phrases in Spanish to encourage my learning, I reunited with Sersio to drive to mi familia Mendez.

          

             My host family’s name is Mendez. I first met Josephina who is the housekeeper during the day while Ana Lilian and Freddy are at work. Josephina is a small and smiley person, whom I would later learn is a very good cook. Upon meeting her at the large, wooden double doors in the front of the house, I bid goodbye to my brief companion Sersio and followed Juanita to my room. I noticed immediately with great interest the make up of the house: colorful blue tile on every floor, and several landings wrapping around the central open-air space.

            Juanita introduced me to the other resident student here, who is a guy named Ken from Japan. He has been studying at the Centro Linguistico Maya for some time, and plans to work for two years in Central America after his studies.

            After unpacking, I went for a walk around the town, exploring the familiar sights of the central plaza, the preserved ruins of several ancient churches, a famous yellow arch over one of the main streets, and the many small stores tucked into pockets in the blocks of Antigua. After a bit of searching, I found the house where I had lived during a stay in Antigua several years ago.

            At dinner, I met Ana Lilian and Freddy, both of whom were very obviously suited to the life of keeping students. They are patient and helpful with me, eager to support my frail attempts at Spanish dinner conversation. We ate together in their kitchen, and after the meal spent several long minutes in talkative company.

Later, I went out to walk around Antigua with Ken. We met up with some other Japanese students of the language school, and wandered around town. We visited a disco where latin pop music blasted with a heavy salsa beat, and young Guatemalticans drank the local favorite beer, Gallo, by the litre.

Later, we stopped in a cafe and had some food, and afterwards I returned home, there documenting the night with this entry.

            This is going to be a good trip.

Tuesday 15

Today I woke up to the sound of Freddy’s truck cranking up. I noticed the light through my window shade with anxiety; reaching over to my phone clock I realized that it was a couple of minutes to eight in the morning. I was very late! I was angry with myself for not making sure my alarm was set, and as I rushed to dress, brush my teeth, take my malaria pill, and snatch a miniature banana and two pancakes left over from breakfast at seven, I explained to Freddy that “yo tengo mucho enojado conmigo.” (I have much anger with myself.) Classes start at eight in the morning, so I chose a less populated route to the school and ran most of the way. I hate to make a bad impression for the family and teachers, especially so early into my stay. However, Arturo and Guillermo, my morning teacher, were both kind and forgiving, brushing my tardiness off as no big deal.

            This morning Guillermo and I continued our study of basic Spanish grammar and vocabulary. He was pleased to see that I had made flashcards of all the new verbs and words I had gathered the previous day, and the first thing we did was to run through them once. I knew almost all of them, and this happiness with this fact made me feel better about being late. At least I had done my homework.

Midway through the lesson, at about ten o’clock, Guillermo and I broke for coffee and pan dulce. I met my Japanese friend Ken on the rooftop terrace, and we practiced our new Spanish on each other while enjoying our drinks. Back downstairs for another cup (I still felt flustered having woken up late and run to school) I attempted to communicate with a cute student from Belgium named Melissa, who speaks neither good Spanish nor English. The subject was the afternoon excursion. Apparently, on Tuesdays and Thursdays there is an optional cultural excursion offered for free by the school to allow students to converse with their professors out in the real world. Today, the excursion will be to a nearby macadamia nut orchard. I saw my afternoon conversation teacher, Lidia, in the coffee room and got her approval to go, and later added my name to the list.

          The last thing Guillermo had me do before lunch was to read another article out of his Spanish version National Geographic magazine. “Por practicar pronunciacion, no por comprehension,” he said. The article was about the Roman Coliseum, and although I could understand the basic gist of it, I could definitely see that Guillermo’s goal of acclimating me to the rhythm of spoken Spanish was working. I’ve learned much since just yesterday.

            On the walk home from school, I took many pictures of the colorful, busy streets of Antigua. Not pausing to frame the shots with much effort, I’m looking for quantity to weed down later. I entertain the notion that genuine images of normal life here are easier to catch haphazardly than with a professional attitude.  

            Now as I sit here typing this, I can hear the housekeeper Juanita slapping fresh tortillas into shape over the croon of Greg Allman.

            For the afternoon session of classes, many of the younger students in the school opted for a field trip to a nearby organic macadamia nut farm. Each student’s teacher attended as well, and so I got to spend two hours conversing with Lidia about the interesting word of macadamia. One of the farmers led a interesting and informative tour of the rudimentary nut processing process on site, as well as a demonstration of the many uses of the finished product. Of course, the entire lecture was in Spanish, but the complimentary macadamia chocolates offered midway helped soothe any frustrations accrued from lacking comprehension.

            On the short, bumpy bus trip back I had a talk with Melissa about her plans to work in Guatemala for a volunteer social-work organization based in Antigua. Apparently, she has up to four more weeks of study at the school, and is on the market for an apartment on site.

            After dinner, Ken and I ambled down to the central plaza, where a smorgasbord of fireworks announced the beginning of a inauguration ceremony for the newly elected mayor of Antigua. The plaza was crammed with spectators, and a political assembly was seated behind a microphone-enhanced speaker on the steps of an adjacent church while praise was sung. We met up with Melissa here, and after stepping into a painfully American-styled tourist bar we switched to a more quant and cozy one called Café NoSe further down the street, where we exchanged primitive Spanish conversation over Victoria cerveza and coronolitas (chips and salsa). A pack of dogs warmed the atmosphere of the otherwise tranquil bar, running up and down its length and occasionally bursting into an unexpected brawl.

Wednesday 16

            Last night I asked for an extra blanket from Ana Lilian before retiring. Each night when I lie down for sleep, it is still hot enough to stay on top of the sheets, but I’ve been woken up each night thus far in the early morning by the subtle, creeping chill.

            Fuelled by the ever-present breakfast coffee con leche, I enjoyed a morning thick with lessons on new aspects of Spanish grammar. Reflexive verbs, two new classes of stem-changers, expressions of time, interrogative words, the difference between saber and conocer, and possessive adjectives were all among the gauntlet Guillermo led me through. Midway through the morning, my aging professor jumped up from the table and led me quickly to the roof, where I captured a few pictures of a billowing pillar of smoke spouting from Volcan Fuego. This active volcano is one among three volcanoes very near my location here in Antigua.

         

       For lunch, Juanita prepared a delicious meaty soup, complimented with a sweet drink made from rice, a strange fruit pudding that, if I understood correctly may have been star fruit, and hand-made tortillas. I realize now that I can count on these for nearly every meal. They are a staple of Guatemalan cuisine. About four inches in diameter, lightly cooked, and served steaming hot, these little pancakes never run out; throughout the course of the meal, Juanita constantly cooks and replaces the ones we eat.

            I can’t adequately explain the joy I get from two solid hours of detailed, rambling conversation with Lidia in the afternoons. We sit on the rooftop under a section of tin roofing that doesn’t stop us squinting at each other through the brilliant sunlight, and simply speak of what comes to mind. My list of new words piles up quick and I’m constantly repeating the phrase, “Como deletrea?” (How do you spell…?) In no other way am I learning the language faster than during these sessions.

            After class, I attend an hour long instructional salsa class. The instructor is a short, charismatic Guatemalan who pairs us up and teaches the steps to this traditional Latin dance. All the while, fast-paced music chatters in the background, and by the end of it we are stepping and spinning with confidence.

           

         Dinner tonight was tamales, bread, cooked potato slices, and grilled bananas. Muy bueno. And now, I continue to add to my drastically growing block of flash cards, and simultaneously to my mental bank of new verbs. Outside my room, insects chirrup rhythmically in the nearby forested hillside, and the occasional tuk-tuk or motorcycle rumbles down the smooth cobblestones.