NUTS!

Friday afternoon at two, some of us from Spring Arbor went to the Macadamia Nut Plantation with La Union and other students from there. It was a really cool experience! When we arrived, a teacher from La Union gave us a brief overview of macadamia nuts: where they originated and a lot of other information. After a 20 minute 'briefing' we went into the plantation further and got an overview of how things work from one of the workers (all in Spanish of course). Once we saw how it worked, we went into a room where we got some samples (nuts and chocolate) and I also got a free massage from there too! It was a great afternoon.
[Sign at Valhalla]
[Nuts!]
[My sample nut]
When we got back to La Union, Jenna, Aleia and I went to check out the mini market by the church we walk by every day on the way to Spanish. I didn't get anything, but I'm sure I'll be going back! We stopped by a 24 hour prayer chapel as well which was very beautiful. I want to go back there again! Then, I watched part of a movie and relaxed until dinner.
[Beautiful part of the sidewalk...and I love the phrase]

Yesterday, Jen and I checked out the market again and now I've officially almost completed all of my Christmas shoppin...Just a few more people to get for and then I'll be able to shop for myself! haha. Spend the afternoon at a cafe and hung out with some other studnets from our group last night and watched (part) of a movie.

Today we went to Mono Loco (crazy monkey) for lunch as a group and it was amazing! I now could feed myself with left overs for the next few days...seriously. Next week will be week seven of Spnaish and my last week with a test. I still have two more weeks of SPanish afterwards, but no more tests!! We are planning on going away next weekend- Friday to Monday- as long as the roads are clear and the sun continues to shine! So, pray for no rain!!

Hasta luego, amigos!

Cambio, Flexibilidad y Paciencia

It has been a crazy and mildly stressful past couple days. Between presentations and reading for class, housing and travel, Monday and Tuesday have been quite the test. I definitely feel myself being stretched and tested in ways I did not expect. These days can be described in three words: change, flexibility and patience (hence the title of this post). Change sums up Monday, patience sums up Tuesday and flexibility includes both days!

Monday started as any other Monday here. I got up at 6:30, ate breakfast at 7:15, and went to Spanish lessons from 8-12. Then, we had lunch at 1:15 and I left for class at 2 at my professor’s house. I stayed there until 5:30ish and walked home with my roommate, Aleia. When I arrived home, the changes began…We were told that we would be moving from our apartment to the two rooms in our host mom’s actual house because three girls were coming from Sweden the next morning and would be staying in the apartment where we had lived for the first 40 days. We packed our things quickly and moved everything into the main house and unpacked again. Instead of doing homework for the 2 hours before dinner, I packed up my possessions and moved them to a new room and unpacked them there. After dinner, I found myself finally ready to work on my homework…Soon it was time for bed before our big day in the City Tuesday.
Here are some pictures from my new room…
[My bed]
[Jen’s bed]
[Our closet]

Tuesday was another adventure in and of itself. We left Antigua at 8 to head to Guatemala City. Our plan was to go to the Embassy, a school and Casa Bernabe and be home around 4:30. Of course, that was not the case. We arrived at the Embassy a little bit late and after going through security and everything it was a little after 10 a.m. The Embassy was really interesting and we were able to hear from a lot of people who all work in different areas of the Embassy. We ended up being there a little longer than anticipated (about an hour longer), so we ended up getting back on the bus around 12:20ish. Then it was off to the school, Colegio Decroly Americano. This would have been fine if someone had known where it was. As it turns out, the driver had the address for the school, but we could not find it. No one knew where it was either. We eventually found a random stranger who knew where it was (after asking many) and made it there around 2. We got a brief tour of the school and then watched a class practice a dance while waiting in the cafeteria for Cassie, who will be doing her student teaching there this spring semester. We left around 2:45 to head to Casa Bernabe and grab some lunch. We ended up stopping at a Burger King on the way to Casa Bernabe around 3:20 and by the time we got our food, it was about 3:40 and we were off to Casa Bernabe. We arrived there a little after 4 and received a brief overview of what they do and how it is layed out. We had the chance to visit a few houses where the children live in family units and passed out candy and got to play with some kids. It was a really neat place! I hope to try and make it back there this semester when it’s nicer out and I have more time as my roommate, Jennifer has been there before. We left the orphanage around 5:30, but didn’t arrive back in Antigua until 8:20…not exactly 4:30, but close enough I guess :) Chiqui made dinner quick upon our arrival and then we went to our rooms where I worked on presentation for today.
[Sign outside the school]
[Casa Bernabe with a kid!]

Needless to say, Monday and Tuesday were interesting days! I am definitely learning a lot while here. A lot of change went on Monday and it was necessary to be flexible about what needed to happen. It’s only Wednesday, but I already love our new housing situation. I feel closer to our host mom and her granddaughter, Sofia, is always in my room coloring and talking to us. I feel more like part of their family now that we live in the same house. Change can be good! When we were packing our belongings to move to our new lovely home, I was talking with my roommates about how when we first arrived we were a bit disappointed that we didn’t feel super close to Chiqui (our mom) and wished that we felt more at home with her. So I said, “God is laughing at us right now. He’s giving us the opportunity to get to know our host family better and this is going to be a great opportunity for the last half of the trip!” So far, I was right. I think we all love the change and have learned to be flexible…I can’t control everything! :)
Tuesday was another great reminder of flexibility, but also gave me a huge dose of patience. Through everything that went on: being late and getting lost, I learned to be patient and flexible. I think I am a pretty patient person, but yesterday I found myself getting frustrated with the situation. I was able to take a step back and pray about it and realized that I just needed more patience. Everything was going to work out and everything was going to be fine. I just needed another gentle reminder to be flexible.

Guatemala is teaching me much more than I thought it would, but I’m okay with that. A little lesson in life never hurt anyone. Neither did change, flexibility or patience.

Semana Cinco de Español

What a week!

I could sum of this week of Spanish in one word: Insanity. Spanish was interesting this week to say the least. Monday, when I arrived for class, my teacher was not there and I was informed that I would have a different teacher for a few days. My teacher was about 20 minutes late last Friday due to neck pain as she had to make a stop at the doctor’s before coming to class. She was experiencing the same pain Monday as it hadn’t gone away over the weekend. My teacher for Monday and Tuesday was Veronica. (She taught another Spring Arbor University student the first three weeks here, but hasn’t had students since then.) She was very nice, but it was hard to get used to a new teaching style and develop a relationship with someone new in such a short time. Our class involved a lot more conversing, review of many tenses I had already worked on and then conditional.

Wednesday my teacher was back again! It was nice to have her back and I realized how attached to her I have grown in just four weeks! When Delia, my teacher, came back we began conversing more and Wednesday and Thursday were great! Yesterday, Friday, was test day. It’s usually not that bad, but yesterday was killer! My test was 10 pages long and took me over two hours to complete. :/ I wanted to die, but knowing that I would get to play bananagrams afterwards got me through it! My brain was fried by the end, but I finished! Hopefully I did well. We will see on Monday! After dinner last night some people came over to our little apartment and we watched a couple movies before bed.

This week I also started volunteering at Nuestros Ahijados or God’s Child Project. My roommate, Jennifer, and I have been translating Christmas cards that the children write to their sponsors from Spanish to English. It has been quite the task, but really beneficial and fun! We will go every Tuesday and Thursday to volunteer and also bring some home to work on at night. I’m really excited about working there and all the practice it will give me! So far, so good! :)

If I had to sum up today in one word it would be: productive. This morning I was incredibly productive. I took some laundry to the lavandaría and picked up the laundry I dropped off yesterday. Then, I went to the market with my roommates and Ashley and accomplished a lot of shopping and got some amazing deals! Now, after walking through the pouring rain to Paul Nemecek’s house, I am finally able to use the internet and in a little bit, we are going to watch the movie, Inside Job.

La Ciudad de Guatemala

Today we woke up and had an amazing buffet breakfast at our hotel! (I’m excited for tomorrow’s breakfast already!) At 9:30a.m. we loaded into our mini tour bus and headed to the Guatemala City Cemetery. It was really interesting to see their cemetery. Here, they bury their dead above the ground (as you can see in the pictures that will follow).
[In the cemetery, graves above the ground]

While visiting the cemetery, we were able to get out and see the city dump from above. It was a breath taking sight. The stench was horrible, but nothing compared to seeing all of the people below searching through the dump trucks full of ‘fresh’ garbage to sort through. The people there receive a permit of sorts to take our cardboard or other materials they find among the trash and try to sell what they find in order to survive. About 60,000 people live near the dump which is as big as 24 football fields. Vultures are everywhere. It is really quite a horrifying sight. Tourists are not allowed down there anymore because of the conditions and people are no longer able to live in the dump.
[The dump…]
[The vultures]After we got back from the cemetery, we got to watch Reparando before listening to a speaker. For dinner, I went to Applebee’s with four other girls. It was a fun time AND the part that made my night was that they had Apple Chimicheesecake!! Of course, I had to get it for dessert before coming back to the hotel and watching a movie con mis amigas!

Tomorrow, we’re going to Casa de Dios before heading back to Antigua. Looking forward to the visit there, crepes for lunch, and Domino’s pizza for dinner at Paul and Bev Nemecek’s house! Ready for another great week of Spanish lessons to begin on Monday.

¡Hasta luego, amigos!

Semanas Tres y Cuatro de Español

¡Lo siento, amigos! It has been far too long since I’ve updated my blog! Things have been crazy here the past few weeks, but a good crazy! Weeks there and four of Spanish lessons were intense, but wonderful! I still have the same teacher and I’m learning so much. Every Friday we have a test (as required by Spring Arbor University) to receive credit for the Spanish lessons. I’ve been doing well on them. My test yesterday was on imperfect tense, future tense, comparisons, new vocabulary, new verbs, synonyms, and I also had to write a story using different tenses correctly. It covered a lot of stuff that I learned in high school, minus the new terms, which was a nice review and refresher. It’s hard to go four years without Spanish and then jump into four hours a day of Spanish with a native speaker, but it is definitely getting easier! I’m glad I have five weeks of Spanish left! I can’t wait to see how much I learn between now and then!

We are spending this weekend in Guatemala City: three days and two nights! Yesterday we visited FAFG (Forensic Anthropological Foundation of Guatemala) where we watched a movie about what they do, received a tour of their facility, and learned a little about how they identify victims. After visiting FAFG we went to the relief map in Parque Minerva. It was a really neat map of the country of Guatemala. It was cool to see where we live and where we will be visiting later this semester!(See pictures below)
[Where I live!! Behind the tallest mountains]
[Tikal]
[View from the top]
We arrived at the hotel a little before 4 and received Q200 (about $26) for last night’s dinner, and today’s lunch and dinner. I wandered around the city a bit with four other people scoping our restaurants and such. Around 5:20, (really early for dinner here since I usually eat at 7:15) Jen and I went to a little pizza place and it was delicious!! We got our meal (personal pizza and a smoothie) for Q59 (a little less than $8). Then our group watched the movie El Norte. It was a good day in the city!
[Our drinks (Jen’s lemonade and my strawberry/banana smoothie]
[My amazing pizza]