We are nearing the end of our month in Xela and will be moving to Antigua next week to begin the next leg of our journey. The past month has been very hectic with lots to see and do - while adjusting to our new surroundings. The typical day starts around 6 to 7 A.M. when we wake up to the barking of dogs or the rumble of beer trucks from the busy brewery across the street. We eat breakfast that never varies - corn flakes, coffee and bananas (I hope I never see another corn flake - ever) and then off for our 10 minute walk to school. Our route to school is always filled with lots of traffic, dense exhaust funes, lots of children in their school uniforms on the way to school, and usually views of the picturesque volcano - Santa Maria. We have 4 hours of intense, 1-on-1 Spanish instruction in the morning, a frantic hour of Internet in the school library at noon, a big mid-day meal with our host family, and then off to an activity or studying Spanish at our favorite coffee house, Baviera.
We usually make our way home at dusk, about 6, and read for a while before a lighter dinner is served around 7:30 pm. Then it´s back to our small bedroom to study more before bed by 9:30. All in all - not very exciting and we´ve come to realize that we can´t keep up with our fellow students - all 20-somethings from Denmark, Aruba, and the USA - who have invited us to go salsa dancing til the wee hours. They do let us hang around with them on various adventures, and we enjoy their company for coffee, drinks, or dinner - provided these things happen before 10 pm. We have been warned not to be outside after 10, so we are content to be in our snug room at that point in the day.
Xela is an interesting place - a great stew of indigenous people, wealthy and poor, foreign students and natives, and a dramatic landscape dominated by volcanoes and green hills. It rains hard every afternoon but the temps stay in the upper 60s to mid 70´s. The houses have no heat but people dress for the morning and evening chill. We have some great pics and will post them once we find an Internet cafe that can load pictures onto the computer.
Last weekend, we took a trip to Panajachel on Lake Attitlan and stayed at one of the finest hotels that we´ve ever stayed in - Casa del Mundo. It is a world class place built on the side of a cliff facing three huge volcanoes that sit behind the lake. We were so taken by the views, the service, and the food that we want to go back and are recommending it to everyone. Of course, it´s a long way to go if you're starting in North America, but worth it once you get there. We spent the whole weekend just drinking in the views and pinching ourselves - wondering if this was real. Of course, once you step outside the gates, you are in the real world of rural poverty with truly depressing sights, but we enjoyed it for the weekend.
The contrasts between wealth and poverty here are striking, and we are constantly trying to reconcile our relatively wealthy status with the desperate conditions in which some people are living. For example, we have our laundry done by a service just a few doors away from the school. We ask ourselves if this is fair - feeling a bit guilty that someone else is doing something that we normally do ourselves. We justify the dilemma by noting that this is a service, like anything else, and that we are helping to support another family. This justification gets stretched a bit when we are accosted by aggressive Mayan women trying to sell us yet another gorgeous weaving,or by the urchin shoeshine boys wanting to polish our hiking shoes.
All told, a great adventure with lots of challenges but so far so good.
We usually make our way home at dusk, about 6, and read for a while before a lighter dinner is served around 7:30 pm. Then it´s back to our small bedroom to study more before bed by 9:30. All in all - not very exciting and we´ve come to realize that we can´t keep up with our fellow students - all 20-somethings from Denmark, Aruba, and the USA - who have invited us to go salsa dancing til the wee hours. They do let us hang around with them on various adventures, and we enjoy their company for coffee, drinks, or dinner - provided these things happen before 10 pm. We have been warned not to be outside after 10, so we are content to be in our snug room at that point in the day.
Xela is an interesting place - a great stew of indigenous people, wealthy and poor, foreign students and natives, and a dramatic landscape dominated by volcanoes and green hills. It rains hard every afternoon but the temps stay in the upper 60s to mid 70´s. The houses have no heat but people dress for the morning and evening chill. We have some great pics and will post them once we find an Internet cafe that can load pictures onto the computer.
Last weekend, we took a trip to Panajachel on Lake Attitlan and stayed at one of the finest hotels that we´ve ever stayed in - Casa del Mundo. It is a world class place built on the side of a cliff facing three huge volcanoes that sit behind the lake. We were so taken by the views, the service, and the food that we want to go back and are recommending it to everyone. Of course, it´s a long way to go if you're starting in North America, but worth it once you get there. We spent the whole weekend just drinking in the views and pinching ourselves - wondering if this was real. Of course, once you step outside the gates, you are in the real world of rural poverty with truly depressing sights, but we enjoyed it for the weekend.
The contrasts between wealth and poverty here are striking, and we are constantly trying to reconcile our relatively wealthy status with the desperate conditions in which some people are living. For example, we have our laundry done by a service just a few doors away from the school. We ask ourselves if this is fair - feeling a bit guilty that someone else is doing something that we normally do ourselves. We justify the dilemma by noting that this is a service, like anything else, and that we are helping to support another family. This justification gets stretched a bit when we are accosted by aggressive Mayan women trying to sell us yet another gorgeous weaving,or by the urchin shoeshine boys wanting to polish our hiking shoes.
All told, a great adventure with lots of challenges but so far so good.
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