Xela

We just completed our first week of Spanish school in Xela. The week felt very slow to me, I think because every day was so mentally draining. Our classes were in the afternoons. So, we’d have the mornings to ourselves to study, wander around the city, and chat with our host mom, and then we’d go to school from 2pm-7pm for our one-on-one classes. I’ve literally gotten to the point that when I’m lying in bed at night, unable to sleep, I can’t help but conjugate verbs.

Not only do we spend five hours at school working on the language, we spend at least an hour and a half every day conversing with our host mom. We talk a lot about food, since our conversation always happens at the table. It turns out that we are super lucky because she is super health-conscious and all about eating natural, fresh goodness. All the food she makes is excellent and healthy. A couple days ago she made us soymilk. I mean, made the actual soymilk. Seriously.

Ryan and I are also trying to speak to each other in Spanish as much as possible. Of course we slip out of it sometimes, especially when we want to speak quickly or passionately about something, but we’re trying.

All this language study has already paid off. In every store or restaurant or public place we’ve been to, we’ve been able to communicate with people in their language. This feels totally awesome. The other day we ran around Xela to several different travel agencies, trying to find the cheapest plane ticket out of Guatemala to the next chapter of our journey. This is an example of some searching and explaining and discussing that happened all in Spanish.

A couple days ago a really crazy storm passed through. It’s the rainy season here and it rains every afternoon, pretty much all afternoon. I still haven’t gotten used to it. Everything gets wet and the city doesn’t have anywhere near the infrastructure necessary to deal with all the water. Anyway, the rain that came on Thursday was unusually strong. Ryan and I were in class when it hit. I was sitting with my teacher outside by the courtyard (in a covered area) and I saw the brightest lightning I’ve ever seen in my life. It was practically blinding. And I heard the loudest thunder you can imagine. I mean, I was plugging my ears. It was insane. When we got out of class at 7pm, the streets were like rivers of mud. Water was flowing everywhere. I walked to the corner and a car drove by quickly and splashed mud all over me. It was pretty gross, but I guess it was kind of funny too (at least Ryan seemed to think so). Still, soaked and mud-covered, we made our way to Salon Tecun.

Salon Tecun is the oldest bar in Guatemala. The place was packed with locals, and a random mix of local and American songs (e.g. Michael Jackson’s “Black or White”) were blaring. There was a soccer game on the TV that the entire population of the bar aaawwwwwwed and oooooohhhhhhed with. People were clapping and cheering and getting angry. I loved seeing all that excitement around me! Then, a man came up to our table and asked us first if we speak Spanish. We said yes (yes!), and then he explained to us that everyone was so passionate in the bar because it was a game between Xela’s team and a team from El Salvador. So, there was a lot of local pride. I thought it was so cool how he just offered that information to us. He wanted us to know what we were in the middle of. Then, Ryan and I got into it too!

I also enjoyed a particularly interesting cultural experience yesterday. Ryan and I took a little walk in the central plaza. There, we were witnesses to Xela’s one and only “Festival de Heavy Metal”. We hung out for a little while and I just couldn’t get enough of it! It was so beautiful in a way. I found myself not looking at the stage at all, but rather at the crowd. It was filled with a bunch of teenage boys wearing all black and singing the lyrics while they were head banging. I just couldn’t get over it—-how they imported that music and made it their own. Maybe this can be seen as a lack of creativity, but I felt like they totally owned that culture. Or like they really identified with it.

I find myself constantly taking note of which aspects of life here are different from the life we know, and which parts of life in Xela and Houston seem to have no difference at all. I am always processing these observations. I guess there are a lot more differences than similarities. Or, maybe it’s easier to notice the differences.

The other day we found a place that feels like it could exist in Houston or Tel Aviv or New York. It’s a coffee shop, called El Cuartito, that feels like....I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. Home, maybe? Just pure goodness. All over the walls are works of art by local artists. What music were they playing during our first visit there? The album “March of the Zapotec” by Beirut. One of my favorites. Seats are lined with beautiful, unique pillows with the cutest buttons in the center. I had some ridiculously good banana bread. El Cuartito has a lovely mix of locals and travelers. We are actually back there right now. Ryan is reading. I'm totally digging the M.I.A. they're playing (Blaine--you know which song).





This morning we had a fantastic adventure, but it is one that deserves an entry of its own.

Closing remarks….I am about average height here. Sometimes I’m tall. Ryan is a giant. He regularly, daily bumps his head.