!Hola from Maya’s first day at The Mountain School! We left Xela this morning and have checked off our first out of 12 weeks together and will be officially 2 weeks on Tuesday. These past 12 days have been awesome! We slid into the first week of orientation where we stayed together in a cozy hostel with an amazing view of the mountains and city (pics below) and get to know the program/itinerary, city/culture, and each other better. We dove into exploring the downtown city finding artisanal goodies, restaurants/cafes (our favorite probably Café Lounge) and little tiendas (my favorite Al Natur). Some of us took upon our free time to hike to the top of the highest mountain in view from our hostel, yoga classes, playing cards all night with embarrassingly loved throwback songs, and other fun stuff. We all definitely took in a lot of culture shocks as well as expanding our comfort zones. Much more of this came this past week when we started Spanish school (PLQ) and homestays. Being a targeted gringo is a little difficult in the first place but being completely dropped and immersed in someone else’s lifestyle and culture is for sure a learning rollercoaster experience.
The school was an honor to attend with activities like dance classes (which was hilarious), soccer night, hot spring pools, tour to San Andreas, Trama textile presentation, and a guest speaker named Don Pedro who suffered during their civil war which was an extremely powerful experience to hear about. Friday night was our graduation at PLQ along with others who finished this week with a “cena international” where we gave our gratitude and shared our home cooked meals. Saturday was a favorite day for a lot of us so far. We hiked a couple hours in the clouds to Fuentes Georginas Hot Springs which are like hot tubs in the middle of a waterfall in the rainforest. Luckily we snagged a free ride home from a nice generous family and packed in like a clown car.
In the beginning of joining as a group we each set personal goals for the semester like learning more about ourselves and group goals as well. We are all extremely stoked to have been grouped together, and can’t wait for more times. We all instantly clicked and had no choice but to become real comfortable real quick. There’s a great mix of mindfulness and hard core laughs. There’s bound to be rough challenges ahead, but I know we all can roll with anything and have support for each other. We’ve been putting our warm clothes and rain gear to use In Xela, so hoping for sunny times ahead! We loved the city but ready to see what else is in store!
All are safe and sound, missin our homes and fam and love to everyone!
STAY RAKUFU
