I got up at 6:30, so I would have time to get ready and spend time with God before breakfast at 7:30. I was surprised to see that we were having waffles (or wafles, as they call them here) with real maple syrup (presumably from Erica, who is from Canada). They were quite delicious. I brushed my teeth, grabbed my stuff, and left with Brenda a little before 8 to walk to school. The roads here are confusing because they are not straight. It seems like a lot of them are diagonal, so it is difficult to find your way around. We got to school, and Oscar let us in. I stood around and waited for my teacher to appear. I started talking to Helen, who is a teacher there. I asked who is student is, and she said she has a new student today. I asked if it was me, but she said it was a boy. We chatted for five more minutes, and then Oscar came over to say that Helen is my teacher! We went into the office for my lesson.
We began with a review of very simple concepts such as numbers, days of the week, months of the year, seasons, colors, and the alphabet. I felt like I was in kindergarten! Needless to say, I am very good at all of these things, even in Spanish. I reviewed/learned the words for skin and hair colors. I also learned a new word for purple (lila) and a word for blood red (corinto). We then started working with verbs in the present tense. Helen laid out over 50 cards with verbs on the back and I had to flip them over one at a time and use them in a sentence. It was easy and went quickly. There were only two words that I did not know. Several of the words can have more than one meaning, so Helen would also point that out or ask me if I knew another meaning. She then wrote out all the irregular verbs as I told them to her. I thought I did pretty well. We then started working in the past tense. We had done about ten minutes of this and then it was time for the break. Brenda, Ed, and I walked to a gas station near the school where there is an ATM. It was a little confusing at first, but I got money out on the third try. When we returned to school, we had to wait for the teachers to finish their snack. I had run out of water and was thirsty, but the school didn’t have any drinking water for us. We started our lesson back up again. We went through all the rules of the preterite and imperfect tenses and then all the rules for different groups of verbs. It went well. Helen then spread out more than 50 other cards with verbs on them and she would tell me a person or object and I had to conjugate the verb in the preterite. My brain had to think quickly, but it was good. I could feel my Spanish neurons reconnecting in my brain. I then had to tell Helen a story about something that happened in my class at school to practice using the preterite and imperfect tenses. I told her about our trip to the zoo. She said I have a good vocabulary. Then she made a plan for next week that listed what I will learn each day. I asked about homework and she gave me an assignment. I have to read a newspaper article and write about what I read. I also am going to copy her notes into my notebook. I asked her about visiting San Francisco El Alto this afternoon to go to the market, but she said it is too late because you have to go in the morning.
I walked home with Brenda for lunch. I don’t remember what we had to eat, but it was good. Sandy is a good cook. Brenda and I went to the internet café for a while, and then went to find a bank to exchange her dollars into quetzales. The first bank didn’t do that, but we found one that did. Brenda’s Spanish is fairly basic, but she does a good job using what she knows and she is very brave about speaking. I came with her to help translate, if needed, but she exchanged her money on her own. We then decided to go to the church in San Andrés Xecol which is a town near Xela that has a bright yellow church which was recommended by all of our travel books. We took a microbus to Terminal, and then got on another bus to go part of the way there. We had read that the last bus to leave San Andrés Xecol left at 5, and it was getting close on time. This bus took longer than expected. It started raining, so we had to stand in the rain while we waited for the next bus to take us to San Andrés. By the time it arrived, it was 4:45, and the bus assistant told us it was too late to go and come back. We definitely wanted to be able to come back. We stood next to a hot dog seller and waited in the rain for the next bus back to Xela. It finally came and we got on. We thought we would have to go to Terminal and then take another bus back, but Brenda recognized the gas station with the ATM, so we got out there and walked in the rain back home. Brenda then told me that Sandy had told her it was too late to go that day. Oh, well, it was quite an adventure. Now we know where Terminal is and how to take a bus from there.
I went to my room and showered and packed for the next day. Brenda is meeting a friend in Panajachel on the shore of Lake Atitlán, and she invited me to come with her. I agreed because I want to see Lake Atitlán eventually so it makes sense to go this weekend. I fit everything I needed and more into my backpack. We ate dinner at 7 (again I forget what we ate), and Brenda showered. Then we walked downtown to go dancing at a salsa club. We stopped by Ed’s house to see if he wanted to come, but he was not there. He left us a note, though, and said he might come later. We had trouble locating the salsa club, but after a bit of wandering around and asking for help, we knew we were close. A woman told us it was up the street, but we walked too far, and had to ask for help at a hostel. A man told us we had walked too far, so we walked back and finally found it. There were supposed to be lessons at 7, but when we arrived at 8:30, there were only four Guatemalteco couples dancing. We decided to leave and come back later. We went next door and listened to a not-so-great band play until a little after 10. We knew we had been there long enough when they started repeating the songs. I enjoyed talking to Brenda, but the music was loud, so we practically had to shout in each other’s ears to hear. When we came, we were the only people there, but soon the crowd doubled, then quadrupled. However, most of the people only stayed for a few minutes. Maybe they agreed that the band was not very good. We went back to the salsa club a little after 10, and there were more people this time, mostly locals with some language students mixed in. We watched for a few songs, then they had a time to dance where you didn’t dance with partners, instead everyone was in lines. It was kind of like salsa line dancing. It was fun, even though it was crowded. We did this for several songs, and then they started regular salsa dancing again. I danced with a couple guys including one with bulgy eyes who reminded me of our Shih Tzu, Buddy. He wasn’t a very good dancer. Around 11:30, they started playing English music like YMCA and others. Brenda and I asked Ed if he wanted to share a cab back to our neighborhood. He said he would in 15 minutes. I was really tired by this time. Finally, we left and quickly found a cab. We dropped Ed off close to his house and we continued on home. The taxi driver was really nice. It was 12:15 when we got home. I finished packing a few things and got ready for bed. It was close to 1 when I went to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment