Kaycie has done all the work on the blog up until this point. She did a great deal of digging through the rich history of Guatemala and La Antigua to provide a strong foundation.
She added these facts with the same tenacity and carefulness as maneuvering heavy cinder blocks person to person in a firefighter relay.
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| creating cement |
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| Denilson! |
Kaycie then thoughtfully cemented these ideas between wonderful pictures of the city and surrounding landscape. Single-handedly, she constructed the entire house of this blog!
These pictures were taken in May 2010, during the GSL International Service Trip. We arrived in Guatemala to assist the masons in constructing a house in Alotenango for Ana Patricia, Mario Leopoldo and their children Ronaldo, Denilson and Jhoselin. One year later, Ana Patricia and her family have turned the cinder blocks, cement and rebar into a home by painting a wall blue and adding all their belongings.
Kaycie and I will make this blog more of a home by continuing to up pictures and add stories. November 7th was the first Monday in Guatemala. With it came the first day at APPE Spanish School. We arrived a little after 8:00am and were immediately both paired up with our respective teachers. It was as if the tables had turned from the time I have volunteered with Lincoln Literacy.
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| shameless plug |
When tutoring, I was planning lessons for immigrants and refugees from the Congo, the Karen people from Burma, Mexico and even Guatemala. Now I was the student, and Miriam from Guatemala my tutor.
Spanish has been challenging for me, to say the least. I rejoice when I successfully conjugate a single word. And I’m ready to throw a parade when I understand the main idea of an entire dialogue. I would say I comprehend roughly half the words in discussion, but I do my best to follow along. I get caught off guard during large group discussions when suddenly seven pairs of eyes are staring right at me. I’m not sure if someone asked me a question, or some type of food is hanging from my face. I plan to take classes for at least two weeks. Who knows, maybe by next week my entire post will be composed in Spanish!
So get this: Kaycie and I have spent two days, a total of eight hours with APPE Spanish School and one FULL WEEK staying with the Morales family, including six days of breakfast, lunch and dinner… all without paying a single Quetzale! The amazing part isn’t that this is free. It’s not. The interesting cultural difference here in Antigua is that prepayment is not required. The only exception so far has been when we visited the laundromat; they took payment with the dirty clothes we dropped off and returned the clothes completely folded and smelling fresh.
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| view of ruins from rooftop |
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| Volcano Fuego is barely visible |
During class today, Volcano Fuego (Fire) erupted a little bit. One teacher described it as a sneeze. We learned that the colder weather (that means a low of 61 F) causes the volcano to emit dark plumes of smoke periodically. Fear not. Antigua is safely a great deal away from Volcano Fuego.
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| Manuela! |
When we returned from class, Manuela was receiving a bath! I live with a family that has a pet turtle! I live with my power animal, which teaches me to be patient and work hard. With these two attributes, I hope to learn a great deal of Spanish and hence become a worthy part of Constru Casa.
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