Written by Central America Students, Shloimy G. & Leila B.
Since our last update, we’ve traversed the Guatemalan Highlands, and have made it to Xela/Quetzaltenango (in separate transports of course due to our unfortunate little itty bitty Covid outbreak).
We’re staying in a hostel right near Parque Central, both the center of town and the center of the recent protests. We learned about the reasons behind these demonstrations during our orientation for Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco (PLQ), our language school where we’ve been spending 5 hours every day learning Español.
After our new friend Chris, the student coordinator at PLQ, gave us an orientation on Guatemalan history, the history of PLQ and most relevantly, the current political situation in Guatemala, we got our first taste of our highly intensive daily Spanish immersion. We spent 5 hours every day, Monday through Thursday, conjugating, learning vocabulary, and eating delicious snacks (yum! 😋). When we weren’t taking classes, we got to do many different activities, such as salsa classes (we’re all experts now), lectures, and excursions outside of town.
On Thursday, we got to the town of Salcajá, where we visited the oldest church in Central America and learned about local traditional dress and alcohol making. That night, we got to spend time with Chris and the other students and PLQ at a local karaoke night, where we preformed such classics as Payphone by Maroon 5, multiple Taylor Swift songs, and Tik Tok by Kesha. When we weren’t doing planned activities, we were roaming the streets of Xela, sampling local restaurants, and of course making many pit stops to the local Micky D’s. It was wonderful to have hot showers, laundromats and most importantly, Wifi to reconnect with family and friends (which is all we did on our phones 😉). Saturday we got to hike to the top of Cerro El Baúl, and enjoy hurting our behinds on an overly long concrete slide.
Our Top 3 Highlights of the Week:
🗣️ Our top highlight would definitely be spending time getting to know our Spanish teachers. Even though we may not speak the same language, or come from the same culture, we got to connect with them on an individual level, while still improving our Spanish.
🎤 Karaoke night also definitely deserves a mention here, as both a means to get out of our comfort zones, but also as a way to have fun and connect with our fellow students.
🇬🇹 And although we couldn’t participate in them, getting to witness history in the form of people demonstrating for their right to democracy was a very impactful and educational experience. Although it impacted our stay and we haven’t gotten to do everything we would’ve liked to, we see it as a worthy tradeoff (And half of us couldn’t do much this week anyways, see Covid).
What’s been challenging this week?
Speaking of our favorite little infectious virus, that would most definitely have to be our biggest challenge of the week. Losing half of the group for the vast majority of every day, as well as needing to mask up at nearly every moment, made things very difficult. We felt very distant from our peers, and are so excited that they will be joining us and we can be Covid (and mask) free, all together again.
What’s been surprising so far?
Something that continuously surprises us, even more so in a large city with many strangers, is the kindness that nearly everyone has shown us. Of course there are still those who are unfriendly, it is a place with people in it after all, basically everyone who we pass on the street will offer at minimum a ¡Buenos días! and a smile, or will even stop and converse. Anytime we’ve needed any assistance with directions or local knowledge, we’ve been shocked at how many people are willing to offer it.
One final thing …
Quick shoutout Irma and Teressa, the two women who have been making us delicious and accommodating breakfasts and dinners every single day. As much as we miss the food at home, we’re so grateful that they’ve kept as fueled and ready for the day. Also a shoutout to the hostel workers, who have helped us with planning around the blockades and generally keeping us happy and safe. We miss you all back home but we don’t mind staying another two months, with the warm welcome we’ve received. ❤️
