¡Vivo en Guatemala!

I can't believe it's been a week already since I arrived in Antigua. So much has happened though, in just 7 days, that time seems to lack consistency for me. I have been trying to write a little each day, and I will attempt to recall the most interesting (or bizarre) moments of the week. Maybe my travel blog will be a weekly event, so look for updates on weekends.

Dia dos: So much has happened in the past 2 days, it seems like it has been a week. When I got to the end of Monday and found myself saying, “Yesterday, when I went to the Dreamer Center to fill out my volunteer application… oh wait, that was this morning”—I knew this was going to be a long first week. I have been seeing a lot, learning a lot, and doing a lot at the Scheel Center. I am starting to realize, though, that I’m going to need to break away and actually get to know my surroundings a little better at some point. This afternoon, a volunteer asked me where I live, and the best answer I had was, “In Antigua, on 6^th Avenida… close to el mercado,” I realized I should probably get to know my home for 6 weeks a bit better than that. Someone showed me where I live on a map, and said the closest landmark was El Arco, probably the most famous historical spot (tourist-speaking) in Antigua. I have never seen nor heard of this place. So, one of the things on my to do list for the week should include a self-guided tour of the city. I will probably need a map for that. It’s been a bit of a strange introduction to a place, having a personal guide pick me up at the airport in Guatemala City and literally walk me to my door for the past 48 hours. However, I have decided that by day 3, I should start my grown-up experience working at the Scheel Center, so tomorrow Ron will take a tuk-tuk super early in the morning, and I will arrive at a normal volunteer time of 8:30 or so. Breakfast starts at 7:45, but classes don't really start until around 8:30.

I spent most of today helping in the kitchen, since one of the two chefs on staff was sick and really needed to go home to rest. I chopped beans into tiny pieces for about an hour, then peeled carrots-on-steroids (the size of cucumbers), washed all of the breakfast dishes (about 125 bowls and spoons from the kids and 20 or so plates and cups/mugs from the staff), and then helped serve the lunch to over 100 students through a makeshift service in the kitchen. Normally the kids eat in the two dining areas on the first floor, but today there was a clothing distribution, and it was still going on at 12 when it was time for first lunch. I spent the afternoon photographing and videotaping the Junior Master Gardener program and the two Basico classes’ physica examenos- a series of running tests followed by 25 group activities and exercises. A friend of Ron’s who recently volunteered at the school had created the program. The kids are fierce with a soccer ball! I have a few bruises from moments when I was busy with the camera and wasn’t paying attention to where balls were flying. There was a slight mishap this afternoon when a man came onto el campo (it is a public park) and started bothering one of the teachers. Some kids went to get the security guard from the school, and in about 15 seconds there were 4 men from the school racing onto the field to investigate. I feel quite safe here, as everyone is watching out for everyone else. Of course, the kids themselves could probably cause a good amount of damage by merely chucking one of those soccer balls at an intruder.

After school I met yet more volunteers, bringing my current count to 7 short-term volunteers that I’ve met so far (3 Germans, 2 Belgians, and 2 Americans). Ron set me up on Wordpress, his blogging application, so I should be posting photos, news, and videos soon. I’m enjoying my stint as historiographia de Centro Scheel, but my real project is to develop some sort of behavior management course for the teachers here. Strategies, I have. A plan for how I’m going to teach Spanish-speaking staff to implement those strategies, all the while coming off as a friendly, encouraging fellow teacher… I have not. I’m starting a list of strategies and ideas of what to include in the course, and then I’m going to have to either learn enough Spanish in less than 6 weeks, or enlist another volunteer to translate. It is sort of depressing that the Belgians at the Scheel Center speak better Spanish and act as a translator from English… but I am definitely grateful for their help!

I’ve also decided I need to make more friends here. Tomorrow I’ll ask Nele, one of the Belgian volunteers, where she meets people for the bus ride to Centro Scheel. That will be one way to get to know more volunteers. It would be great to have some evening activities planned during these 6 weeks. I’m sure they will go by fast, but they’ll be even quicker and more interesting the more I do.

Off to read up on Antigua in my Guatemala guide book. Hasta luego!

Dia tres: Today also went by muy rapido, and also full of primeras tiempos. I slept in for the first time (6 am, mucho mejor!), ate el desayuno with Sarah and Doña Ynette (another American student at my house and my host mom), and took a tuk-tuk by myself. Observed two classes- sexto primaria (about 5/6th grade) y segundo primaria (about 2-4th grade, around 10-14 years old). Photographed the JMG class again. Made friends with a bunch of niñas from segundo primaria, who loved my retractable mechanical pencil ("Where did you get that, Miss? Can I buy it from you?"), my watch, my camera... They begged me to go to el parquesito (the little garden courtyard in the school), and play a "good guys & bad guys" game of tag, in which you could save yourself from being tagged by touching your head and shouting "Pelo! Pelo!" Apparently hiding behind me was also considered a method of gaining safety. The game ended in a somewhat dangerous photo session in which I was almost toppled over by a bunch of girls hanging all over me for a picture (see slideshow). This episode compelled me to begin a list of "palabras necessitas" for my work at the school, and I am grateful to my Spanish teacher for the phrase- "¡Cuidado! ¡Voy a caer!"

Today I also had my first Spanish lesson with Majo, a tiny, spunky language teacher. As Ron's Spanish teacher, she only half-jokingly takes credit for his quick accomplishment with the language, as well as expressing great admiration for him and the work of the Scheel Center. She lives close to the school, so I take lessons at her house in the afternoons, which is an adventure in itself. Imagine learning a foreign language for 2 hours in a house covered in advertising posters (her husband is a graphic designer) while 2 children under the age of 7 run around entertaining themselves (quite well, I might add), and the doorbell rings at least once every quarter hour. Possibly most interesting of all, she and her husband ride their motorcycles into the house. Yes, straight through the front door! Living room and garage all-in-one. Very... economico? I think I may have more fun just talking with her than actually learning grammar, but nonetheless it will be a cultural experience!

Dia 7: Has it been a week already? I kind of fell off the blogging schedule mid-week, so here's a list of the most interesting (or extraño) points of the week:

• interviewing a kid about the gardening project and later finding out that he wasn't even in the class, but had slipped in to the garden and helped create the compost pile. He went on and on about all he'd learned and the importance of gardening. Whether truly interested or merely craving attention, it was exciting to see a kid so excited about the project!
• the segundo primaria class thinks I'm a great artist, and their teacher asked me to help with her art classes. I was only finishing a copy of a Simpsons family picture (as a decoration for Father's Day), but according to them, I'm a better artist than the volunteer who had started the picture. ¡Lo siento, Christian! I thought it was fine!
• Senora Claudia seemed excited about my teacher wish list project, so I'm hoping this will help me make headway in my ultimate goal, working with the teachers to introduce new teaching techniques.
  
• My first time ever to get a response of "Thank you- I love you!" when teaching a math strategy. Christian is going to help me "ease the teachers into" area model method and other math methods. Happy to have a partner in this revolutionary business.
• Firecrackers going off literally above my house at all hours of the night and day. Apparently there is no correlation with holidays. People just shoot them randomly at all times in the year. This morning's display was a little disconcerting, as I heard particles falling onto my bedroom roof, but it's hard to tell whether actual ashes are falling or the explosions are merely creating vibrations and shifting around things already on the roof.
• I slept through my first earthquake. Thursday morning, my host dad asked me at the breakfast table, "Did you wake up at 4 am? Did you hear us shouting?" and followed up with a gentle scolding that it is "pelligroso" that I didn't feel the "tremblor", because it was medium-sized and quite rattling. My bed is extremely comfortable, and appears to have some sort of thick foam mattress on top, so this (and extreme exhaustion from a day of walking, wading through Spanish conversations) could be part of the reason I slept so soundly. Also, the house vibrates a bit whenever a big car passes by on the street, so it might be hard for me to tell the difference between that and a small earthquake.
• Climbed Serro de la Cruz, a small hike up a hill on the north side of the city that gives a beautiful and complete view of Antigua and Volcan Agua to the south.
• First Mass in Antigua, at the Cathedral off Parque Central. It was easy to see the priest even from the temporary seating to the side of the sanctuary, thanks to a jumbo-tron screen and projector strung from a chandelier, but hard to hear, as the doors were open the entire Mass and a microphoned announcer was shouting as people crossed the finish line for a small running race which was set up directly below in the street.
• I don't know whether to thank or hate Ron for placing me in a house across the street from Luna de Miel, a scrumptious crepe cafe with cushy seats, free wi-fi, and a French-speaking manager. If I gain 50 lbs. in Antigua, you will know it wasn't from the delicioso fruits and vegetables.
• All the public buses here are hand-me-downs from the U.S. or Canada. Some of them are painted bright colors and designs, but some of them are still yellow school buses with the name of the U.S. county school district on the sides.
• Tuk-tuks are the quickest and most efficient form of taxis... too much traffic? Just drive between the lanes. Dangerous, possibly. Probably more likely, though, that all the unfiltered exhaust fumes will kill me later in life.

A mañana, mis amigos y amigas! I'm sure I will have more adventures to tell...