Hey all! Another day off from teaching! Not sure why they don´t have classes today, but we rode up to La Cuchilla to find an empty and locked school. It´s not the worst thing that could happen—we hit the Bake Shop, a Mennonite-run bakery with tons of great American baked goods. I had a giant bagel with cream cheese and a whoopie pie. My second breakfast of the day…

This past weekend was a great one. Because I traveled big time last week I decided to stay in Xela and make day trips to nearby attractions. I had mentioned to Bryan (coordinator) that I was planning on going to San Francisco el Alto for its Friday market. San Francisco is a small village set almost like shelves up the side of a mountain. Every Friday it holds the biggest market in Guatemala and boasts the most beautiful textiles. Bryan liked the idea and decided to turn it into an El Nahual trip so a bunch of us headed there around 5:30am Friday Morning. We spent a few hours browsing the countless fabric, fruit, nuts, and various other necessities until we reached the top where they sell live animals. It was really interesting to experience that largest authentic market after having visited the tourist market. Both are great for their own reasons!

That night a group of us decided to go out in Xela. We met at a bar we usually hang out at, moved on to 5Q tequila shots (thats about $.80), and then went to a nightclub in Xela´s “zona viva”. It was my first time at a nightclub (besides the salsa club that offers free group lessons on Wednesdays) here and it was actually a lot of fun! It made me excited for mixers and such this Fall.

Saturday I spent the day wandering around the city. I finally cracked open my GRE prep book. In order to keep myself motivated to study I decided to start my own “tour de chocolate”. Guatemala has some of the best hot chocolate I´ve ever had—it´s sweet, rich, and cheap. I decided that for the next 4 week I will study for an hour in each cafe in Xela and reward myself with a hot chocolate. By the end of my time here I will have a pretty good grasp on the best chocolates in Xela AND (hopefully) the GRE.

Saturday night a bunch of us from the school went to the Xelaju game. Xelaju is the city´s professional soccer team and they have a reputation for being pretty awful. The stadium was only slightly bigger than that of my high school football team´s, but the fans were nuts about there team. It ended up being a lot of fun. The final score was a tie…which caused for a lot of chaos at the end of the game. Along with throwing trashing and insults…there were apparently police shots in the air and tear gas in the stands right after we left.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early and hopped on a chicken bus for a nearby town called San Martin, where we began the 2 hour hike to La Laguna Chichabal. Chichabal is a volcanic crater lake at the top of the mountain. It´s believed to have mystical powers and is a sacred spot for the Mayans. We got lucky and about 15 minutes into the steep 45 minute stretch through the town, a man passed by us in his pickup and offered us a ride for only 5Q each. Now don´t be shocked—cheap rides in the back of someone´s picku÷ are actually very common in Guatemala. He drove us to the national park gate where we paid our entrace fee and began the hour or so long hike to the lake. I´m not athletic and until I came to Guatemala I´d never hiked nor had an interest in it, but it´s such a great area for it that it´s hard for even me to pass it up. The hike was short but steep—I was dying up it and needed to take a few descansos. Once we reached the crest of the mountain it was a whopping 600 or so steps down to the actual lake. The lake was one of the most spooky places I´ve ever been. Because it´s up on the top of a mountain the clouds move in and out; at some points you can´t see even 5 feet in front of you, at others you have a clear view of the entire, gorgeous lake. It´s also surrounded by 10 or so Mayan altars which only added to the eery feeling. For the 2 weeks or so after Easter it´s a special Mayan worship site (non-Mayans aren´t allowed to go then) so there were lots of dead flowers and such left over from this year´s celebration. The overall experience was one of my favorites from this trip, probably second to only Semuc Champey. Along with being a nice (although challenging) hike and a beautiful lake, it was really interesting to visit a place that is sacred to many Guatemalan people, a nice picnic spot for others, and very rarely visited by tourists.

I´m planning to go to the Rio Dulce, Livingston, and Tikal this weekend. Rio Dulce and Livingston are on the east coast near Belize and Tikal is in the northern part of the country. It´s a big trip to do in only 4 days…but I think I figured out how to make it work!

¡Buenos dias! The past week or so has been one of the best weeks I´ve had so far in Xela. Everyday I get more and more comfortable with the city, the language, and teaching.

Classes last week went amazingly well, especially in La Cuchilla where I teach 2 classes twice a week. The “class cup” that I started in the 5th grade class is going pretty well. I´m seeing students get involved who never raised their hands before and I feel like they´re actually absorbing at least some of the material. Of course there are a few kids who do nothing, but at least they aren´t bothering or distracting the others anymore. Last week on Tuesday we learned classroom vocab and classroom commands (sit down, be quiet, etc.). They knew some of the basic vocab but learned a lot. On Thursday Ellen (one of the new volunteers who was assisting/observing before she takes on her own classes this week) and I drew a class room and desk with all the materials on the board. We gave the class a half hour to identify as many of the objects as possible, with a point for each going to the team of the person who identified it. The game went really well! I was concerned that only a few students would participate but competitive drive made a lot of kids more interested. I´m also starting to develop relationships with some of the students. I sat and talked with a group of girls (who were some of the biggest trouble makers at first) about Hannah Montana, Jennifer Lopez, and, funny enough, my nose ring.

On Thursday after classes we went to the Walmart (which is just about 1km from La Cuchilla) to get various things that we needed. I was still on the hunt for a camera. I didn´t have my passport so I couldn´t use my credit card (which didn´t end up working anyway…I´m still camera-less) but we did pass by the movie theater in the mall and see a sign advertising the midnight premiere of Harry Potter. I had been to the movie theater before (the two of us saw Zookeeper in Spanish…thats a story for another time) and with the absence of advertisements for HP7pt.2 I had accepted that it wasn´t going to be released on the same day. I was ecstatic to find out that we could see the premiere at midnight, just like at home. 11am rolled around and we took a taxi to the theater, pre-ordered tickets in hand. It was packed! People were excited, anxious…it was almost like home except that no one was in costume. We hoped that the movie was going to be in English with Spanish subtitles, but it was completely in Spanish. If I hadn´t read the book I don´t know if I could´ve followed the movie in Spanish; magical terms aren´t exactly a part of my daily Spanish vocab. Nonetheless, the movie was awesome and a cried like an idiot when it was over. I was a little bummed about the shortening of Harry´s speech but the sap in me loved the epilogue and Hermione´s lack of age makeup.

We got home from the theater around 3am and then left for the bus station at 3:30am to catch a 4am bus to Guatemala City, the first 5 hour leg of our journey to Semuc Champey. We switched buses (and stations) and easily caught a 9:15am bus to Coban. These buses are old greyhound buses and are first class public transportation. They are definitely the most comfortable way to travel long distances. Another 4 hours later we arrived and quickly hopped on a Collectiva, which is a public microbus, from Coban to Lanquin, where our hostel was located. The ride from Coban to Lanquin is a crowded, unpaved, winding, and bumpy 2-2 1/2 hour ride. When we finally reached Lanquin we were directed towards our hostel and finally arrived there around 5pm.

We stayed at El Retiro Lodge, which is one of the most popular hostels in Lanquin. It features a bunch of cabin-like dorms and private rooms, with 2-person lofts on top of the private rooms as well, and a restaurant and bar. It´s set right on the side of the river which is perfect for cooling off (it´s hot there..which was a welcomed change from the Xela cold) and goofing around. There´s a wooden board tied to ropes, tied to trees for surfing on the swift current. We spent Friday evening playing in the river, relaxing in hammocks, eating one of the best meals we´ve had in Guatemala, and drinking with a pair of English travelers that we met.

Saturday we woke up and began the group tour of the surrounding areas. We started off the day at the Kan´Ba caves. Each person was given a homemade candle before we descended into the cave. The experience was unlike anything I´ve ever done before—for a pretty unadventurous person it was a big milestone in my life. We swam through the cave holding our candles above our heads for light. The experience was like a mix of touring the caverns of Virginia and swimming through rapids. There were points that I felt stuck and even out of control of my body. It was beautiful, exhilarting, terrifying, and incredible all at the same time. After the caves we went tubing down the river. It was a beautiful day and the river was cool, so we were all excited to just lay around and float. The exit from the river came pretty quickly and many of us missed it. Instead of just floating past and getting off a ways down I tried to get off at the right exit, missed it, and got stuck in a fallen tree. The water was rushing passed me and dunking me under but for some miraculous reason I wasn´t scared. The guide climbed the tree and helped me get out, all the while saying “this is adventure, this is adventure tourism” in his broken English. After the tubing we walked to Semuq Champey. GOOGLE IT. GOOGLE IT RIGHT NOW. Photos don´t do it justice but you´ll still be amazed by its beauty. It´s a series of clear turquoise natural pools elevated on a slight slope of a mountain. I can´t describe just how beautiful it was, all I can say is if you ever have the chance to go there, especially in the near future, do it. It´s more or less untouched by capitalistic tourism because it´s kind of hard to get to and is full of natural beauty. We finished the afternoon with a short hike up to a mirador where we could see an aerian view of the pools. That night we ate another fabulous dinner and spent the night playing drinking games with our new friends from the trip. The day as a whole was one of the most memorable of my life. I know that Lanquin and Semuc Champey will be places I will visit again and recommend for years to come.

We originally planned to leave Sunday, but with bad hangovers and the beautiful river and comfortable hammocks surrounding us we decided to stay another day. I did nothing all day and it was beautiful. Bill spent the majority of the day “surfing” in the river and Keith went to the Grutas de Lanquin to see the thousands of bats fly out of the cave at sunset.

We left early Monday morning. It was another day of easy travel to Guatemala city. Once we arrived there Keith stopped to use the bathroom in the train station and left me his bag to watch along with mine. A man came up to me and very quickly asked if I was leaving on the next bus. I said no, and within seconds he was gone and Keith was out of the bathroom. The bag was gone too. We were victims of the most stereotypical crime against tourists and I felt like and idiot for not having my hands on the bags like you´re always supposed to if you turn your eyes away from them. The material loss wasn´t too great—a broken camera, a nice camcorder and a passport—but the sentimental loss of the 100s of photos and videos Keith took over the weekend really sucked. Luckily we were ahead of schedule and had time to head to the US embassy so Keith could apply for a new passport before we took another bus back to Xela.

For those of you who I didnt´t tell (which was pretty much everyone) or who haven´t figured it out yet, at the last minute—literally 8 days before we left—unemployed Bill decided to join me for my first month in Guatemala so he could study Spanish, travel and learn about another culture and himself. He left this morning and Xela will definitely not be the same without him. I am glad I got to share such an incredible experience with one of my best friends in the whole world and I´m privileged to share memories of panic attacks on chicken buses, various arguements on street corners, and some pretty incredible adventures with you. The training wheels are off and today I begin the trip I expected to have.

Hey guys. Hope everything is going well in the states. Based on what I can get off of my newsfeed Derek Jeter did something special, google+ is (not quite) all the rage, and a lot of people are at delaware this weekend…cool.

I had a great week in Xela. On Monday one of the El Nahual students and his host family held an All-American 4th of July BBQ…complete with burgers and budweiser. We even ended the night with some firecrackers in the street. It was almost exactly like home and we all definitely appreciated it!

Teaching this week went well. Tuesday and Wednesday were reviews for the students so I could get a better gauge of what they know and don´t know. Thursday I split the 5th grade class into 6 teams. Here´s something that unites 11 year olds everywhere—boys and girls DO NOT want to work together! I literally had to stomp my foot down and yell  “if you don´t get into your teams now we´re going to write lines off of the board everyday!” They dragged their feet to their new seats, but once they got started on their work everything was fine. Their main teacher even told them he was thinking about leaving their seats like this—which sparked a lot of “UUUGGHH”s and “NOOOO”s.

Today I had the day off to do whatever I want in Xela. I woke up late, read and studied for the GRE a little bit, and then decided to head to the mall for the afternoon. If you´ve been keeping up with my trip you know that I lost my camera a couple of weeks ago. There are plenty of shops near the Parque Central that sell cameras but I decided to be a true guatemalteca and go where the precios bajos (lowest prices) are—Walmart. I´m not a big Walmart fan—I avoid it as much as possible and find a Target—but I knoew what I had to do to find a cheap but quality digital camera. Being in a Walmart in Xela is weird. It looks just like your average Walmart except a lot cleaner and therefore lot less revolting, plus everything´s in Spanish. It´s also interesting to see a lot of people dressed in tradition Mayan wear (even saw a lady carrying her shopping basket on her head as if it were a woven basket of vegetables) perusing the TVs and microwaves. Unfortunately my card wasn´t working (I think…I still don´t understand 40% of all Spanish sentences) and I came out empty handed but with an interesting cultural experience…

buenas tardes! thanks to everyone who has emailed/facebook messaged me…makes me feel special :)

I am now Miss Lindsay (mees leensee actually) 3 days a week in two different public schools in addition to the 5 days a week after school program. I spent a lot of the weekend thinking about how I could tactfully go about classroom management because these classes are WILD. I decided to split each class (30 to 35 kids) into teams of six. For every good quiz grade, correct answer during a class activity, and for good behavior teams can receive points. At the end of my 2 months here (now only 7 weeks, boo) if each team reaches 100 points we will have a class party and the team that receives the most points will get a regalito, a small gift. Totally stole this idea from the house cup in Harry Potter, but as any good American student I understand the use of competition as reward as incentive. If anyone else has ideas or strategies to keep a class of 30 kids under control and interested please email me!

So on to the fun stuff..

Thursday: The Guatemalan highlands have some of the best hiking in Latin America. Xela seems to be right in the middle of all of it; an inactive volcano just a few kilometers down the road, an active one just past that one, and the highest point in Central America only a 2 or 3 hour drive away. Because the hiking is so fantastic here there is a really great organization based out of Xela called Quetzaltrekkers. Quetzaltrekkers, run almost entirely by foreigners, leads various hikes for all different levels and all of the money that people pay to go on these excursion goes to a program that supports street children in Xela. They are very reputable and seem to be pretty well organized too. Now, you´re probably thinking to yourself “Lindsay went hiking?! the girl who can´t even run a mile?” The answer to your question is a big fat NO, or rather, NOT YET. Every other week Quetzaltrekkers holds a benefit party for the program that they fund at either their house or a local bar. A few of us from El Nahual decided to go to the party last Thursday, which was unknown to us was 80s Canada Day/4th of July themed. We hit the party around 9:30 or 10…pretty late for Xela standards. I don´t even know where to begin….HIPSTER CENTRAL. THEY´RE EVERYWHERE….EVEN THE GUATEMALAN HIGHLANDS. I FELT LIKE I WAS IN A BASEMENT IN PHILADELPHIA. Kind of scary that the hipster culture represents that majority of gringos in this peaceful, religious city. Regardless, it was a great time, a nice change of pace, and we contributed to a good cause. I think you can expect to see us at their parties again soon…and maybe even on a hike? aaahh.

Tomorrow begins my 8-week career as an English teacher…a real, public school, Miss Thomas teacher. When I would tell people I was going to spend 9 weeks in Guatemala the question was always “Soo…what are you going to do? Teach English?” I didn´t really know the answer at the time. Usually I´d describe the school and its programs and explain that since El Nahual works with public schools, I probably wouldn´t be doing any teaching because I´m not TEFL (English as a foreign language) certified and I don´t have an education background of any sort. I expected to be more of an aide in the classroom and an after school care provider.

I guess I was a little too optimistic about the public schools systems here in the Guatemalan highlands. On Wednesday I went to Llano del Pinal, a small village only a few Km outside of Xela, to observe another volunteer teach English classes. It wasn´t until I got there that I realized he was the actual teacher of the class (although their primary teacher observes) and not just an aide. I got there about 15 minutes late and Dan, the volunteer/teacher who I was to observe and eventually take over for was sitting in the courtyard. There were about 5-10 students in uniform in the courtyard too, but for the most part there was no sign of activity or classes anywhere. We asked one of the kids where everyone was and he told us that there was no school for the rest of the week because of a training period for teachers. We (and I guess some of the students) had received no notice from the school´s administration that classes would not be in session that week.

The next day I went to La Cuchilla, a rural area of Xela, to observe Dan at a different school. Every Tuesday and Thursdays 2 volunteers from El Nahual teach 2 English classes each, either 5th and 3rd or 6th and 4th. I observed Dan´s 5th grade class, which along with 3rd grade I will take over tomorrow. Dan was reviewing pronouns with the kids for the 3rd time. Except for maybe 3 students (in a class of 34) they were in and out of the classroom at whim and completely distracted. After the class I was told that group was a relatively well behaved one, and to watch out for the 4th grade. That class, the wild group of 10 year olds texting and hitting each other, were the well behaved ones?! It was at that moment that I realized just what I was getting myself into. I would be responsible to somehow teach 30-35 Spanish speaking kids English, with no education background, training, curriculum, administrative support or even resources.

On that note—-if any of my Elementary ed, English ed, or Spanish ed major friends have lesson plans, strategies, or anything that all that they can email me, PLEASE DO. I´m going to need it. I´m spending today preparing lessons for this week as well as working on a curriculum for the classes and the after school program (my main project for the days I´m not teaching) so if you have anything…hit me up. lethomas4@gmail.com

IN OTHER NEWS (sorry I know this is a long one)

We spent this weekend hanging around Xela. On Friday night we went to El Cuartito, a very popular cafe and bar for travellers and students that has great coffee, hot chocolate, and cocktails as well as games to play and nightly live music. It was the first time I felt completely comfortable in Xela outside of El Nahual, and I expect we´ll go back there a lot. In fact..I think I went there 3 or 4 times this weekend alone.

On Saturday (after bagels and chocolate at El Cuartito) we went to Fuentes Georginas, a natural hot spring about 7km outside of Xela then up a steep mountain. We boarded the Chicken Bus (google it) and arrived in the town of Zunil about a half hour later. From there we took a taxi up a winding road up a steep mountain, just feet from some of the sharpest cliffs I´ve ever seen. Fuentes Georginas was beautiful. Surrounded by lush tropical forest, it´s 2 pools and a smaller pool all naturally heated by sulfur. It´s a popular spot for locals to relax and I definitely see why. It was nice to just lay in the water for a few hours after a week of walking up and down the rocky, hilly streets of Xela. To get back to Zunil we hopped in the back of a pickup truck for a ride down….and I though the cliffs were scary in a cab..jeez. It was foggy and rainy but the driver still whipped around the sharp bends like it was nothing.

Yesterday we hung around Xela at the Parque Central and then various coffee shops once the rain set in. We tried to watch a movie at a cafe that has what are more or less 2 big living rooms with nice sized TVs and movies to rent, but about 10 minutes in the power went out. We hung out at the cafe for a couple of hours and had dinner, but once we realized the power wasn´t coming back for a while we headed home for the night. We´re going to try our luck again tonight after our weekly volunteer meeting there.

So before we went to Brazil, the professor who advised us gave us a lengthy presentation on culture shock and its inevitability. For those of you who don´t know, culture shock is the feeling when travelling that your native culture and customs are better than foreign ones. I actually felt the opposite of culture shock (reverse culture shock) when I went to Brazil and had a hard time adjusting back to the fast paced, competitive, and less passionate society of the United States. I´m finally understanding what the professor was talking about—and I´m really grateful for the lecture and the advice she gave us.

First things first;lukewarm showers. I don´t consider myself a super high maintanced girl…but I love my hot shower every morning. Most of the showers in Guatemala don´t produce hot water. Instead, hot water runs through an electric heater. Yes…electricity in the shower. Wires everywhere. And the water doesn´t even get that hot!

Second: Limited street signs. If you´ve been anywhere with me you probably know I´m directionally challenged, so the idea of a city with street signs only on major roads is a little bit daunting. Especially when most of your day is spent in rural communities and side streets anyway. This morning I had to meet the volunteer coordinator at his house to catch a ride to one of the public schools. He drew me up a nice little map but of course I misplaced it. With only the nearest intersection to his home I set out to find it. I ended up walking 5 blocks in the opposite direction (unknowingly because of the lack of street signs) before I asked someone for directions. They told me I was walking in the right direction, so I kept going 3 more blocks. Eventually I reached a road that I knew was in the total opposite direction, so I had to turn around and have a light job up and down the Xela hills to get to where I needed to be.

There are some things about Xela (and I think Guatemala in general) that I really prefer over the United States. You can´t walk anywhere, especially in the morning, without getting a ¨Buenos Dias¨or ¨Buenas tardes¨. You don´t get greetings like that from people in the US unless you know them or you´re buying something from them. I also love the dancing. Last night we went to a popular Salsa club and instead of joining in, I spent most of the time watching the beautiful and talented dancers. If I got replace the frat/srat grind with the salsa I´d be all about that.

Hey all! I´m here in Xela safe and sound. The flights were a breeze, we were picked up and taken to the bus station really quickly, and we arrived in Xela around 6:30 Xela time…which is actually 2 hours before east coast time.

My family is very nice and accomodating. I have my own room with a big closet and plenty of space for my stuff. The two daughters of the family are 21 and 22, both university students here in Xela but on their 2 week summer break. The language barrier is a bit awkward—really it just makes me shy and nervous to ask questions—but I am able to communicate with them and I think with time will come confidence and we´ll get along just find.

The school is walking distance from the home, but it feels a world away. The home is a nice, modern home on a bright city neighborhood street but the school is in a very rural community with tin-roofed homes and no electricity. It´s amazing that just a half a mile or so are such different communities.

I arrived at the school around 8am this morning where I was greeted by Jamie, the director. When Bryan, the volunteer coordinator arrived just a few minutes later he gave us a very thorough tour and we got to work. El Nahual seems great. There are about 9 Spanish students (mostly from the US) studying at the moment and 4 or 5 volunteers like myself. This morning I helped build a new compost shelter for the school, which has its own organic vegetable garden. I got to knock using a hammer and nail (which I had never done before, really) off of my bucket list. The shelter is almost finished and with just a bit more wood it should be completed soon. Tomorrow I will be going to two public schools to teach English with another volunteer. I´m really nervous about it because I´m not familiar with their level or curriculum, but I´m also super excited to get started on what I am here to do. The other volunteer has been here for 8 weeks so he should have it all under control.

Right now I´m at an internet cafe in the city center. El Parque Centro is really beautiful and there are tons of shops, restaurants, hotels, and internet cafes surrounding it. I´ll probably explore a little bit until I head back to the school to watch a movie with the other students and volunteers.

In approximately 6 hours I will be heading to Dulles Airport to begin my summer adventure! I’ll make the 3.5 hours flight to Houston for a quick lay over; then I’ll arrive in Guatemala City around 1:15pm there time, an hour before east coast time. I will be picked up by an associate of the school (a stranger with a sign with my name on it…feels like the movies!) who will take me to the bus station. The bus ride from Guatemala City to Xela is 3 or 4 hours, so hopefully I will arrive there around 6pm to be met by my host family!

My host family lives about 10 minutes walking distance to the school and 15 minutes to the city center. I will live with a mother, father, two teenaged siblings (age and gender unknown as of now), and a dog. After living with such an incredible host family in Brazil I am most excited about this part of my experience, but I’m trying to maintain realistic expectations because no one will ever be like the lovely Eliete, Vovó, and Iapona. Hopefully they will be as excited to host me as I am to stay with them!

I’ve heard a lot of great things about Xela from native Guatemalans and friends who have recently traveled or studied there. The pictures don’t hurt, either! I’m looking forward to experiencing the Guatemalan culture, practicing my Spanish, and meeting other students/backpackers like myself.

I want to hit an internet cafe sometime Monday evening, so if I do expect a post then. If not…Tuesday it is!

Keep reading or better yet…email me! lethomas4@gmail.com