Antigua, Guatemala – Hablo Espanol (un poco)
After spending the Christmas holidays in Costa Rica I decided I wanted to try to learn Spanish. I figured it would come in handy if I do more traveling in Central or South America, or if I ever get to do some relief/volunteer work in that part of the world. After a bit of a roundabout investigation I found out that Guatemala is one of the cheapest, and most popular, places to take Spanish Immersion classes. And I figured, why learn Spanish in the United States when I can learn Spanish and have an adventure at the same time. Besides, in theory, taking an immersion class in a Spanish-speaking country is a much better and faster way to learn the language. So I signed up for two weeks, left Abbey with the Gibbons’ in Loveland, CO and off I went. I say an immersion class is better in theory because it all depends on where you go. I picked Antigua because it sounded like an interesting colonial city with lots of other things to do. 
I didn’t realize it beforehand, but Antigua is quite touristy, by Guatemalan standards. It also is home to a dozen or more Spanish language schools and more travel agents than Manhattan even though there are probably less than 50,000 people living there. As you can imagine it is popular with the backpacking crowd. Even though I saw a lot of western tourists and expats there, the population was still overwhelmingly Guatemalan. However, it was too easy to fall back into English, especially when talking to other students. Towards the end of the first week though, after 4-5 hours of Spanish lessons a day, I was happy to not have to try and think in Spanish all the time. My brain was fried and oversaturated. The school I went to had about 20-30 students at any one time, each with their own individual teacher. I stayed in the home of a local family near the school. The first week there was one other student who stayed in the same home, a Polish guy named Jarek, who now lives in the US. The second week a young Dutch girl joined us. The family was an extended family with the grandparents, four or so of their adult children and a few grandchildren. It took me most of the two weeks to figure out who was who. At most meals we only ate with a few of them, because they had several kitchens in the house. 
One of the sisters, Maria, cooked all our meals. She and her brother, Freddy, both had hearing and speech problems, but they had big hearts to make up for it. They were always smiling and laughing and, of all the family members, they spent the most time with us. We found out that in Guatemala, people with disabilities are shunned and discriminated against. They told us that the students that stayed at their house were much more friendly with them than any Guatemalans. Jarek found out they like wine so he started a habit of picking up a bottle of wine now and then to have with dinner. They really appreciated that.
I arrived on Saturday night, and on Sundays we didn’t eat with the family so I spent most of the next day just exploring the city. Antigua is from the Spanish colonial era so the architecture was interesting and there were a number of old ruins still around. It was quite common to see local women dressed up in traditional clothing. 
They also had an area next to a park filled with concrete basins where the local women would come to wash their clothes by hand. 
I figured they were mostly from the rural outlying areas. One thing that lost its charm after a few days, though, were the cobblestone streets and the crazy sidewalks. The sidewalks were fairly narrow, very uneven, and every building seemed to have windows with concrete sills and iron grates that protruded out over the sidewalk. If you weren’t paying attention you could smash your head or your shoulder on one of them. There were also many large churches in the city and one of them was celebrating the feast of its patron saint, Francisco. That morning I had been awakened at 5:30 to loud music playing. There were people dancing and they had this crazy procession through the streets carrying a statue of San Francisco. 
On the route they traveled people had laid out pine needles and flowers and had made some pretty elaborate designs using colored sand. 
And then there were the firecrackers and fireworks. Actually, they went on all day. And night. And the next day. They seemed to die down for a day or two and then on Wednesday they started up again. We were all thinking that they really go crazy for their saints’ feast days in Guatemala until we found out that they were celebrating a different saint’s feast day. All day long you would hear firecrackers and explosions. Finally after several days of this it stopped, but even then you would hear an occasional outburst. It turns out that anytime you celebrate someone’s birthday, even Mother’s Day, the thing to do is to light off firecrackers. Guatemala is anything but quiet. Between the early morning music, traffic noise, fireworks, dogs running on the roofs (they’re flat – the roofs, not the dogs) and the ubiquitous roosters, I didn’t get a lot of good sleep there. It may have also had something to do with having a few beers at night, but I’m not inclined to believe that.
One of the downsides to staying in Antigua was that I didn’t really get the feeling that I experienced what life is really like for most Guatemalans. I did have some talks with my teacher about how life is in Guatemala. And one of my host family’s sons, Jose, who didn’t live in the house, came over for dinner a few nights and talked to us about the politics and other issues. He spoke pretty slowly and clearly for us, which helped a lot! So at least we got a little flavor of what it’s like to be Guatemalan. We were told that our host family was considered middle class and were by no means poor, but by US standards they were at most lower middle class. I think if I go back, I’ll take some time to see some other places as well.
On Thursday of the first week, the school had an outing to a swimming pool. Actually, there were several levels of pools with a slide going from the top to the bottom. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t too good in the morning, but we had lessons in the morning around the pool anyways. It finally cleared up in time for lunch and a few of us managed to get in the pool. The school’s director went in only because he was pushed in. The guy who pushed him in felt bad when he found out he couldn’t swim. There aren’t many swimming pools in Guatemala so most natives don’t know how to swim. If nothing else, I was happy I went because I got to know a lot more of the students and I had my first experience on a “chicken bus.” The “chicken bus” is the major means of transportation in Guatemala. They are actually school buses that have been painted in bright colors other than yellow. I never saw chickens on the buses, just tons of people. We were told not to ride them after dark as they can be dangerous and are often held up by banditos on the road. To get back to town after the pool party, we found another mode of transportation – the back of a pickup truck. It had a metal frame sticking up that you could hold onto so you could stand up. That definitely was one of our “local” experiences.
Another thing I really enjoyed doing was going down to the central park in the afternoon and reading or doing my homework. The central park was a place where everyone congregated – locals and tourists alike – especially on weekends. 
It was a great place for people watching and you could always see public displays of affection especially among the kids. It was like they thought they were the only ones there. Of course, if most Guatemalan homes were like the house we stayed in with several extended family members living in one house, it’s no wonder the kids go out on the street or down to the park. I don’t think they have much of a concept of personal privacy.
