various

This past weekend, I went on a solo adventure to Jaibalito and Santa Cruz, two very small towns on Lake Atitlán. It was very nice to spend some time by myself (and with some very eccentric ex-pat transplants who frequent the hostel I stayed at), and I feel reinvigorated this week.

This is not the promised post on cultural differences— that is coming soon. In the meantime, here are a few photos from what we've been doing in my classroom:

Here is what our "We are friends!" wall looks like now— now with 16 students:

And here are a few pictures from when parents came in to give presentations about their jobs, as part of our "People in our Community" unit:

And here are two of my students using the iPads you all worked so hard to raise. Thank-you cards are on their way!

Fin de semana: Guate style

Friday we had no school— the town feria, a very loud, firecracker-filled fair in honor of Pana's patron saint, Francis of Assisi, started Wednesday and continued through Sunday night— and so I took the opportunity to skip town and four hours by shuttle to Guatemala City. Though living here has many charms, I do miss many aspects of living in a city. Friends I've made who live there very kindly arranged to satisfy two particular cravings I've had since moving here: going to a movie and having Indian food. And so Friday night, after dropping off my things at my friend's apartment in Zone 14, we endured the worst traffic I've ever encountered (and I've endured my share of steering wheel-pounding traffic on I-90 throughout New England...) to see a French movie in a cineplex in an honest-to-God sprawling commercial mall (which was the most technologically advanced I'd ever seen, complete with stoplights in the parking garage and assigned seats in the movie theater...!). I got orange soda and nachos with no-natural-ingredients nacho cheese just because I could. The movie was in French with Spanish subtitles, and had a few lines of heavily-accented Australian English, and so was a considerable linguistic workout (though I was very proud of myself for understanding everything, save an occasional reference to particular French cuisine); I felt I earned my dinner, which was at a lovely Italian restaurant on the ground floor, surrounded by a truly random smattering of (semi-)familiar chains (Tommy Hilfiger, United Colors of Benetton, Naturalizer...) 

The next day, I met up with a woman who I haven't seen since 2009, when we were both living in New Orleans. She has been a missionary in Guatemala City since 2010, and hearing about her experiences— both Guatemala-specific ones, and ones more related to being a missionary (whose living expenses and teaching salary are funded entirely by Christians in the U.S.)— were fascinating. We then took (cover your ears, Mom!!) her motorcycle to Zone 16, where I met up with two friends and went on a truly spectacular hike through a very lush, very un-urban spot right in the middle of the all the urban sprawl. That night, we had Indian food, which was... unlike any Indian food I've had ever, but it satisfied a craving two months in the making, and then returned to my host's house and played bilingual Bananagrams.

Sunday I had lunch with friends, spent more time in a mall (a different, but equally technologically advanced, mall), and then came back to Pana. And here I am, having survived yet another day in school. Today one of my students spilled his entire lunch in his backpack; while investigating this, I found several days' worth of missing homework, balled up at the bottom, now covered in mayonnaise.

Oy.

Watch out for the next post, on cultural differences, misunderstandings, and things about this place that are just plain weird.

Very long-delayed update!

First things first: I've updated my photos! Click here to see photos from travels to San Marcos, Santiago Atitlán, Antigua, and Earthlodge (a hippie-style lodge in El Hato, near Antigua).


I am so sorry that I have not updated this blog in far too long. Now that I have gotten over the not-writing-because-I-have-so-much-to-catch-up-on hump, I will be much better from here on out. Blogs are an interesting format; because this is semi-public (though I certainly don't flatter myself into thinking that many people read this; I just need to be aware of the fact that anyone could), I feel like I need to filter certain— mostly negative— aspects of my experience. This is— like teaching, like living in a foreign (sometimes very foreign) country, like life— a work in progress, and I am figuring it out as I go. But I promise that I will update more regularly once more.

Tomorrow will be the 24th day of school; I know this because every morning we fill out our "How Many Days Have We Been In School?" chart (with alternating colors and patterns— at this point the kids know that even days are written in orange and odd in yellow; this week we started a triangle-triangle-circle pattern around the numbers as well.) School is getting easier (for me, at least; I hope it's getting harder— academically, not in other ways— for the kids!), though there are aspects of school life that make me pine for aspects of the American school system I never thought I'd miss. I currently have 15 students, with one more joining after the Guatemalan school year ends this month, in a space that's not nearly big enough to accommodate them. Their English— non-existent at the beginning of the year— is improving (they now say things like "Tengo que ir al bathroom"), but I feel like the core of the first-grade curriculum— learning to read and write via recognition— remains inaccessible, at least for now.

I've learned how to work hard without overdoing it; I have late evenings and weekends to myself, free of work, which keeps me sane. I'm gone on lots of weekend trips, and am establishing a social network in Guatemala City, which makes life feel far less claustrophobic than it might in this very small, very interconnected town.

I will update soon; until then, peruse the photos!