The Big Trip: San Pedro

Adios mis amigos y bienvenida a San Pedro. Estoy escribiendo esta de un Internet cafe. Esta viernes en la manaña and todo is bueno! Estamos estudiando a la escuela de San Pedro y viviendo con una familia cerca del centro.

Esta espanol es facil.

Mirar.

Me llamo Estuardo y estoy bonito, guapo, inteligente, simpatico, generoso, amable y astuto.

No problema.

(corrections, especially from Cathal appreciated)


We have been here for two days now and have yet to learn the past tense so will write in good ol English for the remainder of this entry. I would have blogged earlier but we have had a power cut here which began when we arrived and has only just come back on.

We arrived by boat Tuesday lunchtime crossing the impossibly beautiful Lake Atitlan and were taken by a little man to the San Pedro school of Spanish where we enrolled for a fortnight of one to one Spanish lessons starting that afternoon. We are both taking 4hrs a day from one to five at a cost of $56, a bargain! Also, we have decided to stay with a local family to maximise our immersion in the langauge. Besides, it´s $50 for a weeks board with three meals a day except Sunday when they all go to church.

We were soon introduced to our 'mother' Rosalia who took us up through the winding cobbled streets of San Pedro to our home to be for the next two weeks. There we met her husband Juan and 15yr old son Abner. Also, there is a third student staying here Caitlin who's from Seattle and who already speaks pretty good Spanish. In a way it's a good thing that she's here as the family don't speak a single word of English.

The house is quite modest although I think for San Pedro Rosalia and Juan are quite well off. The house is currently being extended with two extra floors being added to take further students so when it's complete they will be earning a tidy income from us students. To put it into perspective, they get $50 a week, or Q375 per student which is about the same as the weekly income of one of the teachers at the school. So, when there's 5 or 6 students there at any one time...

The family are lovely. Juan is a teacher at a local school whilst Rosalia makes cakes to sell locally and they are fantastic cakes!

We had our first lunch or almuerza of rice and goat which was surprisingly good!. Rosalia loves to cook and the foood is always fresh and very tasty although I'm already getting tired of tortillas. Then it was off to school, a 10min walk away down the steep hill towards the lake.

The school is beautiful and set in the perfect surroundings of the lake and volcanoes with little straw huts dotted around the gardens where the teaching takes place. It is the perfect place to learn and with all our meals being prepared for us at home we have nothing to do but concentrate on learning the language.

My teacher is Clarita, a 21yr old girl who has just recently got married. She is a bonita chica as you can see! Melanies teacher is Letty who is very nice also.

Our first lesson went well. Clarita speaks little English but in 4hrs we covered introducing yourself, age, origin, numbers and some basic verbs. I even got some homework.

After school, we returned home for cena (dinner) with our family. There being a blackout we had to eat by candlelight. We tried to have a conversation with our hosts but it mainly consisted of listening to them, nodding our heads and saying si every now and again. After dinner we went to bed as this learning lark is quite exhausting! We have Rosalia and Juans bedroom for the duration of our stay whilst they are camping out in another room. It´s quite nice with two double beds but there are no windows so is a little dark.

Yesterday morning after breakfast and completing our homework we explored San Pedro.
It is a town of about 6000 and a lot of them are hippies! We were worried at first as the first non-local we came across was a poi wielding Israeli crusty but thankfully that's the only one we've seen. It's low season here and there is a nice balance between the local culture and the hippy bars and internet cafes that are dotted around the town. I imagine that in high season this place becomes a bit like Glastonbury but as it is now I like it. The activities on offer here range from kayaking on the lake, horse riding and volcano climbing to chilling in the bars watching movies or salsa!

The local population are mostly Tzutzuhil, a Mayan community, and do not speak Spanish amongst themselves. Tzutzuhil sounds like Klingon - lots of glottal stops.

In the afternoon, it was back to class where I learnt telling the time, days, months and some prepositions.

Last night after dinner we went out to a bar called Buddha where we played darts, drank beer and shot some pool, home away from home I suppose but the music was good and the beer cold.
I think we may be spending quite a lot of time here in the next couple of weeks.

Have got to sign off now as we need to be back for lunch before this afternoons class.

Adios