A typical day in Guatemala
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
11
Trip End
Aug 11, 2007
Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
At 7:30, I go downstairs and have breakfast. Albina gets up at 7:00 every morning and has only slept late once since I've been here. She says that she just wakes up at the same time every day. I can see how that can happen given my new habits here. In any case, my typical breakfasts are pancakes with honey and a bowl of mosh (a corn-based cereal) with a banana. It sounds like a big breakfast, but I need it because we don't eat lunch until 1:30.
By 8:00, I'm at the school. Most mornings, I'm a little early, so I have time to drop off my laundry with Hugo, the guy that owns the lavanderia on the way to school. He's a nice guy and does a good job. After the first time that I brought my laundry to the school, I've gone to Hugo every other time, except once when he opened a little late. He's a bit more expensive than other laundries, but he's still less expensive than the school's service and I feel like I have a relationship with him. The one time I brought my laundry somewhere else, I felt like I was cheating on him. It was weird...but I absolutely couldn't wait another day.
At school, I study one on one with a teacher for 4.5 hours a day. We meet from 8-10:30, take a 30 minute break, then go again from 11:00-1:00. The first two weeks, I was overwhelmingly tired, but I've built up more mental stamina now, I guess.
After school, I go straight home, stopping only to pick up my laundry from Hugo if I left it there. Albina has lunch ready at 1:30. For the first two weeks, I would take a nap after lunch, then go back to the school for the afternoon activity or to a cafe to study (sometimes both). Now, I don't need the naps quite so much.
Dinner is at 7:30 and I tend to go back up to my room and get ready to sleep after that. Sometimes, I work on homework, other times, I read a little bit. But in any case, I'm usually asleep before 9:30, which is very early for here. There have been a few times that I've gone out after dinner (which I will or have detailed in other entries), but it's certainly not every night.
Overall, I feel like I've learned quite a bit of Spanish in the last 3 weeks that I've been here. On one hand, I feel sad that I will have to leave, but on the other, I can't wait to get back home and see Eric, our friends, and our cats.
I know the last may seem strange, but people in Guatemala have a very different relationship with animals than in the U.S. Here, there are pets, but most of the dogs that I've encountered have been street dogs that seem to have no owner. Most of the dogs are quite submissive to or dismissive of people. They don't seem to have much use for us here, actually. I'm sure that someone feeds these dogs (Albina saves chicken bones for this purpose) and I've yet to encounter one that is vicious, even when traveling in small packs. But, most of them are clearly not pets in the way that we understand that concept in the U.S. This is even more true for the cats here. In all the time that I've been here, I think I've seen a total of 5 cats--3 were younger cats (6 months or a year old at most) that were more like outdoor pets and two more that I've seen walking the calle de gatos (the rooftops) in the mornings. So, I miss my furry little bedwarmers back home.
I know that I need to do more updating and I have much more in my head than I have on paper. But, once again, I have an afternoon activity today (a cooking class this time) and quite a bit of challenging translation (2 actual letters to the school from families applying for aid) ahead of me.
