January in a nutshell

I would like to dedicate this blog to my mom, Debbie, for emailing me continuously expressing that she's worried because she doesn't here from me enough. Hopefully this will put her mind at ease a little... :)

I’ve been in Quetzaltenango (aka: Xela) for almost four weeks now.

To start, my host family is good. There are anywhere between three to seven people living there on any day, because four people only live there Monday through Friday. It’s hard to explain but I’ll put up pictures as soon as I can.
I live close to school, close to a great coffee shop, and close to some friends.
And sometimes for breakfast I get fresh fruit… covered in yogurt… covered in honey… and granola… and white chocolate chips. I am considerably lucky. Many people eat beans and eggs every morning, and some eat them every morning and night. The food is pretty good in general, except that the people all have a strange affinity for mayonaise.

Also, school is great. A little about my program: it’s five hours a day of one-on-one instruction. After five weeks of the intensive Spanish, we will take only 10 hours per week and enroll in an actual university and begin our volunteer work. The first three weeks I worked with a very demanding yet amazing indigenous woman named Antonieta. For the next two weeks I will be working with a younger woman named Anita. 

.....I'm trying very hard to rack my brain for all the amazing things that have happened over the past month.

I suppose number one would be Obama.  We got to take a break from classes on the 20th to watch the inauguration.  Almost all of the students and their teachers piled into a room to watch. I went to a conference over the Mayan calendar, which stops in 2012, and asked the presenter, a Mayan Priest, what he thought about the end of the world happening in three years. He basically said that because Obama was elected, the earth's life expectancy has been prolonged, and everyone started applauding.

Also, I've gotten to see my friends Theo (working with the Benedictine Volunteer Corps) and Molly (Peace Corps) since being here. Both visits were special treats!

And I've been learning some salsa. My friend Jordan and I somehow ended up winning a salsa dance competition. The contestants: two gringo couples that had no idea what they were doing. The judges: a bar full of Guatameltecos (Salsa PROS). They all seemed pleased (or amused?) by our sweet moves.

To make this easier to write, and hopefully more exciting to read, I am going to try to update weekly. Hopefully by next time I will a) have my camera (it is in transit currently... I left it in the Denver airport... Godspeed Correo!) and b) will have figured out how to post photographs. Hasta Luego!