Slowly but Surely.

The ups and downs of learning a language. Last Friday, I almost had a break down during class. Let me prefrace this with the fact that I still have perfectionist tendencies especially when learning something. I am at the point that if someone speaks slow enough and in simple language...elementary school level...I can understand. I know basic grammer and present tense and preterite tense. It is so hard for me to talk in Spanish. I do not like being corrected and get frustrated that it takes me so long to say what I want to say. Sometimes when I start to say something, I realize that I do not know the words for what I want to say. I then have to start over using different words that I do know.

My professor had been asking me to write compostions 1 to 2 pages long on different topics like my brother´s wedding, my life in california, etc. I would write them for homework at night. At the beginning of class, I would read them to her and she would correct the grammer. I would then tell her what I wrote in the story without looking at the story. Since I could do this well, she did not know I was struggling so much with speaking.

I told her that I was very frustrated and could not speak well. She told me that I always told her the stories I wrote and the stories we read in class well. I confessed that I had pretty much memorized them after writing them, reading them, and the telling them to her. She asked me if I tried to talk to anyone else besides her. I told her that rarely did because I did not think that I was able to speak correctly and did not like to get corrected by out house mom.

She then encouraged me that the only way I was going to learn to speak was to try to speak to anyone about anything and not worry about mistakes. At this point if I get my point across, it is a success. She then said that she would prove to me that I was able to talk correctly even if it was slow.

She asked me to tell her every detail of how my family celebrated Christmas when a few years ago. Off I went telling her about the details. She would correct me every once in a while. She would ask a question to keep the story going or guide the story in another direction. One thing lead to another and before I knew it, she had me talking for an hour straight. She said that she could understand everything I told her and then proceeded to summarize it. I was amazed that she truly did understand what I had said and had not corrected me every other word. Zoila smiled and said, "see, you can talk. Right now it is better to be slow and correct. Speed will come. The more you try to talk, the easier it will be."

I do feel much more comfortable talking with Zoila. I am still very uncomfortable talking with strangers. I get uncomfortable because I want everything to be right. I know it is unresonable standard, but I am working on it. I tell you though, the desire to learn another language besides English is deepened everytime I meet someone else that can speak multiple languages. Most people around here speak multiple languages. The Europeans we meet all speak 3-4 languages. Amazing! I guess I will keep plugging away and hopefully be able to speak sufficiently in Spanish.

Little did we know...

This weekend provided an adventure I will never forget. It began at 5:15 AM Saturday morning. We woke up at that insane hour in order to walk 15 minutes to town to catch a microbus (shuttle) at 6:00AM. Apparently Pana does sleep in the early morning. It seems like Pana is always busy with taxis, people, dogs, buses, markets,etc. When we walked to town, the streets were silent with one exception. There is a dog couple that is always sleeping on the side of the road near our house. Apparently, they are nocturnal. When we walked by in the morning they were up wondering the streets and barking very loudly at us.

We then had our first experience with latin american time. We arrive to the arrange stop at 6:00AM. The guy at the agency where we bought the tickets made it seem like it was very important to arrive at 6:00 on the dot. Well, we waited until 6:30 for our shuttle arrive.

We had an uneventful ride to Antigua and arrived mid morning. We ate the traditional breakfast (scrambled eggs, black beans, plantains, and tortillas). We then arranged a 2:00 tour of Pacaya, the active volcano. We arrived to the travel agency at 2:00 and were picked up by the shuttle bus driver. We then drove around Antigua in about 5 circles until we had picked up all the others going on the tour. After driving for about 1.5 hours we arrived at the trail head for Pacaya. There we were met by a guide named Melvin. Melvin gave our group the name Tigre (tiger). He then proceeded to walk up a steep incline at a very rapid pace. Keep in mind, we are already at a high elevation. I asked him how often he climbs the volcano. He stated that he climbs it once or twice a day. Therefore, he is in very good shape. Lena, Kathyrn and I who are in descent shape were out of breath within 5 minutes. I thought, ¨oh no, I do not think I will be able to keep up with the group.¨ One girl could not keep up the pace and had to ride a horse up to the base of the volcano. I noticed that our guide did not stop at the same places that the other guides stopped and that he did not have a polo shirt or name tag identifying him as a guide like the others. Oh well, it is what it is.

We continued walking rapidly in the woods until we came to the base of the volcano. We all just stared at it and thought, ¨how in the world will we be able to climb that¨ From where we were we saw little specks climbing up the steep volcano but there did not appear to be a trail of any type. Oh well, we did sign up for this and paid money. We most certainly would not be allowed to do this in the US. So off we went.

We began the ascent through lava that had been pounded and treaded upon until it was like sand. We would take a few steps forward but not make much forward progress because we would lose half the ground we had just gained. After taking 10 to 20 steps, we would take a break. The need for the break was not due to poor cardiovascluar shape, rather muscle fatigue.

As we got closer to the top, the lava pieces got bigger and bigger. Keep in mind that the lava pieces were simply resting on top of each other and would roll or fall down the mountain with a miss step or perturbation. In order to maintain safety we resorted to climbing with our hands and feet. For you physical therapists, we lower our center of mass and widened our base of support as much as possible. I really did think about this while we were climbing an active volcano. Every move was carefully planned in order to not cause the lava rocks to rapidly descend the mountain and perhaps hit other people on the way down.
As we neared the top of the lava flow, heat waves could be seen in the air and the rocks were warm to the touch. The terrain luckily was flatter now. Some rocks were white, others were red. In between the cracks of the harden lava a red orange glow could be seen. Well, today I had to fight panic. I will try my best to describe to you the situation and feelings and thoughts it stimulated.

The only person in my direct view was Kathryn. If you stand in one place too long, your shoes begin to melt and you feel intense heat. If you yell for your guide, who is no where in sight, he cannot hear you secondary to all the heat waves. If you make one wrong move or step on a loose rock, you would end up burning in lava and no one would hear your cries for help. As bad as it is to say, this gave me a very real mental picture of what many people describe hell to be.

Kathryn and I did make our way to the side of the lava flow and to the side of the caldren where is was much cooler. Here we were able to collect ourselves and decide if we wanted to continue. There were people out on the lava river. I made it part way out there before the fear got to me and I turned back. Brave Kathryn made it all the way out to the lava river.

As this blog is getting very long I will reference Kathryn's blog for the details of the descent. The highlights are that hundreds of people appeared that were not at the top. The sun was setting. The terrain was very dangerous.

Once we had safely made our descent to the level ground, we turned around to see a bright orange lava river flowing down the mountain, away from the people. It was a magnificent sight that made the whole trip worth it.

Once we returned to the beginning of the trail, I saw our driver hand our so called guide some money. This confirmed my suspicion that he was not a trained guide. Oh well, it was denfinitely a once in a life time experience!
I still do not think the reality of what we did has set in.

Please go to Kathryn's blog for more details and photos of the excursion.
http://katwil23.wordpress.com

What you can do with a few words

This week Lena, Kathryn, and I have had many hard laughs about mistakes in Spanish word pronunciation and using a similar but wrong word. For example, one of us said that we were going to open the door with eggs instead of keys. The word for eggs is juevos, and the word for keys is llaves. Another example is that Lena and I practice physical prostitution for out occupation instead of physical therapy. Needless to say with so many words and grammar floating in your head combined with the urge just to say what you want to say, these mistakes happen often. It certainly provides much needed humor relief.

It is amazing what you can do with 9 days of one-on-one Spanish, basic grammar, and a few words. This past week has been so busy with Spanish! When I am not in class, I am doing homework or memorizing words. I am learning between 50 to 70 new words a day. It is the increased vocabulary that has made the most difference so far. I will either hear a word that is on my vocab list for the day or hear a word that is put on the vocab list the next day. The vocab list is not a topical list like in Spanish books. The words are those that have come up in our conversations that either Zoila said and I did not know, or that I wanted to say and did not know.

The neat thing is that with only a few words and a basic sentence structure one can have conversations about complex topics. For example, this week Zoila and I talked about Obama versus Bush politics, the different stereotypes and predjudices in California, NC, and in Guatemala, and how when I was growing up the public schools were integrated by busing kids across town to name a few. Although I am learning so much every day, I have realized that I am not sure I will be having basic conversation Spanish at regular pace and correct grammar when I return. It takes me a good minute to 30 seconds to construct what I want to say making sure all the articles match, the verb conjugation is correct, and grammar is correct. I will continue learning and see what happens!

Although I have made so much progress in a short about of time, I still get very frustrated because I cannot say what I want to say when I want to say it. Zoila speaks very slowly and uses simple words which gives me hope that I am learning. I am able to slowly but surely communicate with her. When Lena, Kathryn, and I are in the commuity, the Maya do not speak slowly ans simply. I am normally able to get the last word they say and ask them to repeat it. The second time around I am able to get the jist of it from context. Regardless, I have learned more Spanish in 9 days of class than in one year of highschool Spanish. We will see what I learn in the next 4 weeks.

During our conversations, Zoila and I learn about each other, each other´s families, each other´s culture. I am truly enjoying getting to know more Mayas and more about the Maya people and culture. The Maya people make up about 60% of the population in Guatemala yet only have 10 of the 121 seats in the government. The Ladinos and the Mesticos have the power. Ladinos are those who are ¨white¨non- indigenia who were born in Guatemala. The Mesticos are mixed (one ladino parent and one indigenous parent).

This weekend Lena, Kathryn and I went to Antigua (I will write about soon). This is another town two hours away from Pana. It was established by the Spainards in the 1500´s. It still has a very Spanish feel in the architecture and people. Although, I do enjoy being here in this history filled Antigua, I realized that I missed seeing the Mayas, the colorful clothes of Pana and the more genuine attitude of the Maya people I have met and interacted with in Pana and around Lake Atilan.

photos of the weekend around Lake Atitlan

http://katwil23.wordpress.com/

Santa Catarina, my favorite so far

On Sunday, Lena, Kathryn and I walked on the road to the next town on the lake, Santa Catarina. It was a wonderful leisurely walk. The road was high above the lake which provided different view of the lake. On the lake side there were several large houses with marvelous views of the lake. There were signs advertising two or three pieces of land that had a boat launch. On the other side of the road the mountains have a very steep slope. After walking for about an hour, we turned the corner and saw Santa Catarina nestled in a valley at the lake shore. As we descended into town, we were greeted by bombas.

Santa Catarina has more of a local town feel. We stumbled upon a soccer game on a field by the lake. The two teams were really good. We sat down with the locals in the shade and watched the game for a while. We then continued to walk along the lake shore. Much of the shore was shaded. There were a few narrow long docks interspersed between the long grasses and trees. Sunday apparently is the laundry day in Santa Catarina. It is a family affair. The women carry the laundry in large shallow buckets on their heads. The daughters bring a smaller bucket with a few pieces of clothing. Once at the particular beach, the women and girls wash the clothes on rocks while the men and boys swim and play in the water. Once all the clothes are washed, the women carry the buckets of wet clothes on their heads as they walk back home. If the boys are not swimming in the lake, they are shooting off little fireworks.

Instead of walking back to Pana, we decided to take a pickup truck. This particular one had a metal frame in the bed and pieces of wood on both sides. While walking to Santa Catarina, several pickup trucks passed us. These pickup trucks were packed with locals. Our pick up truck only had two local teenagers who were speaking a different dialect than the one in Pana.
Another wonderful afternoon in a town on the lake!

Gringas Alert!

This weekend provided a wonderful mix of much needed rest and adventure. All the guide books state that Pana is a tourist town. I did not see this to be true during the week. Friday morning, however, as the buses from Antigua trickled in, Pana became more and more crowded. While I was studying by the lake and walking around town I saw more and more Gringos and Guatemalans who were here for the weekend. The town was now crawling with people who did not know where to go and were being taken advantage of by the venders. It amazed me that after only 5 days in Pana, that I felt like a local. Today the town is back to the normal hum and level of business.

Lena, Kathryn and I were all very tired. We all agreed to sleep in on Saturday. Well, let me qualify, wake up around 5 or 6 from the noises but remain in bed and dose off and on until 730. We agreed to speak English with each other so we could have some fellowship and rest our minds. English was like music to my ears! I was able to communicate without thinking! With the goal of exploring the other towns on the lake and enjoying a boat ride across the lake we agreed to meet at the docks at Pana. There are several ways of accomplishing our goal and we were just playing it by ear. You can take a big slow boat that goes to several towns during the day, you can take a lancha...a small private boat... to one town, you can take a lancha to several towns. The lanchas are much faster that the big cruise type boats.

Remember that there are many tourist in Pana on the weekends, so the docks were crawling with tourist and venders. No sooner had we met each other that a lancha driver pounced on us quoting us a price of 450Q per person to take us to three towns on the lake. It was then we learned that the lancha were faster than the big boats. We said no we could find cheaper. He persisted with the price trying to convince us it was a great price. We walked away to discuss what we wanted to do. Within 30 seconds the man was back quoting us a price of 350Q a person. We negotiated with 350Q total. He agreed. We may be gringos, but we know when were are being taken advantage of.

We went down to the boat and met the driver Luis. We were off to San Pedro. The lake is much bigger than I realized taking about 30 to 40 minutes to cross from Pana to San Pedro. As we neared the San Pedro, Volcano San Pedro appeared to get taller and taller. It reminded me of the landscape in Hawaii. In both landscapes you can see the tracks where the lava flowed. Here though the land is more rounded. In Hawaii, the land is more jagged. The volcanoes ascend right out of the water. The shore is dotted with the towns.

San Pedro is the next biggest town after Pana. It is where the hippies moved when Pana became too touristy. San Pedro has a small tourist market between the two docks by the shore. We decided to climb up the steep hill to the main part of San Pedro. San Pedro has at least 4 Baptist churches. We also found a local market with fresh vegetables and fruit, traditional clothing and yarn to make traditional clothing. The buildings were not as colorful and the town was not as busy as Pana. The big find here was the art work. It was here that we saw the traditional artwork for the first time. We looked in several galleries before returning to the first one that had the artist painting right there. Once again they locals start with a high price. If you stick to your guns you are able to get a good deal most of the time. At the appointed time we returned to the docks to find Luis. Luis was no where to be found. We instantaneously thought that he had left us. Within a minute though, Luis popped out from a big boat that he had tied his boat to.

We then continued along the shore across the lake from Pana to Santiago Atitlan. This provided a different view of the volcanoes. Here we could truly see that Toliman and Atitlan were indeed two separate volcanoes. Toliman actually has two peaks like a camel. We asked Luis where to eat lunch. He recommended Pescados. The directions he gave were it is straight ahead. As soon as we stepped off the boat we were hounded by locals trying to sell of bags, bracelets, scarves, etc. They were very aggressive. As we continued on our way to the restaurant, we walked through the market. There was more selection of things to buy, but the people were so aggressive that we decided not to buy anything there. We did find the restaurant at the top of the hill.
This was the first experience where the difference in the dollar and the quetzal was very apparent. We walked into a very nice restaurant where the waiters were wearing white button down shirts and black neckties. We chose to sit outside on the patio. The table was covered with a white table cloth and another coral cloth in the center. It was also here that for the first time I was truly struck with the difference between gringos and the locals. I will discuss this further in another post. There were two boys about 10 years old who were hanging around the resturant. They would simply come stand by the table and stare at you. After a minute or two they would ask for 1 or 5 Q. Even after you said no, they would continue to stand there staring. One of the boys appeared to have diplegic cerebral palsy walking with a crouched gait with significant internal rotation and adduction. He was asking gringos if they wanted to see his house. If you gave him 5Q, he would take you to his house. We did not do this, but witnessed several others do so. Also there was a group of kiddos that had two chicks that had been dyed hot pinked and neon yellow. A gringo couple who was also eating at the restaurant asked if they could take a picture of the chicks. They proceeded to take the chicks out of the plastic bag put them on their table. After taking a picture of them, the couple gave them 10Q. We all had a wonderful meal. I had black gill fish that was breaded with breadcrumbs and lime. The cost of the meal was $7.

When we arrived back to the dock, we asked Luis to take us to San Antonio Palopo. This is a town on the same side of the lake as Pana. This town is not a common tourist town. The town is sitauated on a hill so everyone can see a lancha coming to the one dock from a long way off. As soon as we docked there were two women selling their products. They were pretty aggressive as well. The one woman did admit which of the scarves were handmade and which were not. After getting by them, we climb the steep hill to find a shop with several looms set up and women working throughout the shop. It was amazing to see the looms and their work was very high quality. We then continued up the hill to the church. As I was walking up the hill a local comes running down the hill with her arms spread wide to show the large piece of colorful cloth she wanted to sell. This town was like a game of shoots and ladders with staircases and walkways that led to deadends while others led to a lower level of the town.

Cristo Negro vs Cristo Blanco

School: Hooray! Hoy es viernes! Mi cabazea es sobre explode. (my head is about to explode). I am amazed at how many words, concepts that I have learned in only 4 days of one on one spanish lessons. It is interesting just how tired I am at the end of the day when I have been sitting all day long. To bad thinking hard does not burn alot of calories:) My homework for the weekend is to write an essay about my time here so far and to write sentences with all the rules for ser and estar.

Life in Pana:
go to kathryn´s blog for photos and descriptions for the way the nights are around here.
http://katwil23.wordpress.com

More information about things mentioned in previous blogs:
The dialect spoken here in Pana is Kaqchinquel. The dialects are only spoken.
The volcanoes are called San Pedro, Atitlan, Toliman.

Cristo Negro:
Today the people in Pana are celebrating cristo negro. Lena and I got different stories about the orgin of the day. Never the less, the main tradition is shooting off lots and lots of fireworks. The story I got from my professor ( in spanish) is that in a town in Guatemala there is a cave in the shape of a crucifix. One day someone found a statue of Jesus in the center of the cave. The statue was morena or dark skinned. Apparently, there are two Jesus...Cristo negro and Cristo blanco. Many indigenous people have a crucifix with Jesus made out a dark wood. They burn candles or incense three times a day. Today is the birthday of the cristo negro and Christmas is the birthday of the cristo blanco

You know you are immersed when you:

Despues tres dia en la escuela de español tú:
1) feel confident enough to try speaking and not be ashamed about making errors
2)Agree to speak spanish with your friends next week.
3) have 15 pages of vocabulary words
4) Are able to congugate a few words in past tense simply from hearing them spoken by others
5) when you wake up in the middl eof the night with Spanish vocabulary running through your head
6) have a hard time speaking only English after 4 hours of only Spanish
7) want to insert Spanish words or phrases you have learned in your English emails
8) get frustrated when you can´t say what you want to say or you can struggle struggle to say it a really long descriptive way to be understood.
9) get excited that you can have a very slow, belabored conversation without being corrected every word
10) get annoyed by the tourists that come to Pana for the weekend
11) Realize how much more you have to learn

Photos

http://katwil23.wordpress.com/

The above is the link to my friend´s blog. She is very descriptive about what we have experienced so far and has several photos posted as well. Enjoy! Sorry for sending you to another site.

School: Yesterday was my second lesson. Currently my biggest challenge is my limited vocabulary. In just 2 day, however, I have 8 pages of vocab words. The vocab words are generated through our mini conversations rather than from a list. If I do not know a word, Zoila is normally able to discern what I am trying to say and will say the word in Spanish and then write it. I then write it in my notebook. Each night I have to go over all the words.

I am already able to understand more in yesterdays lesson than first day. I can understand much more than I can speak. Speaking is very difficult for me. When I listen do not need to know every word to understand the concept. When I speak, however, I have to know every word. I feel like it takes me 5 minutes to come up with a question or a sentence. Zoila is so patient. It is getting harder to switch between languages. My Spanish is so broken at the moment, but I am constantly trying to communicate in my broken spanish. Now as I am trying to write this blog, my mind is trying to insert Spanish words and phrases and switch the order of the words.

The main point right now is to get me to talk...to get my idea across. The correct grammar is not a necessity at the moment. Zoila will correct some things, but not my verb tense at the moment. She will give me a regular verb -ar, -er, -ir. I will quickly congugate it in the present. She will then ask me a question using the verb. I will respond and we will discuss the topic for 3 to 4 sentences back and forth. We will then move to the next verb. Yesterday she also read me a story in spanish. When she was finished I had to tell her the story in spanish.

Life in Pana
I am learning about the Mayan culture here both through living here and through my conversations with Zoila. These are more facts than anything.
Coffee (Café): Although Guatemala is known for their coffee, most if it is exported. Instant coffee is served to guests because it is more expensive. In their mind it is an honor to have instant coffee. The locals drink organinc coffee as they call it.

Alcohol: single women are not allowed to drink alocohol. They are only allowed to once they are married. Married women are allowed to drink as an escape.

Clothes (las ropas): Shorts are never worn. The men wear pants and tshirts or button down shirts. The women wear long straight skirts and short sleeve tops and a belt. The younger women and girls often have less color in their clothes. The older women have many colors and their clothes are more expensive. Rarely do the top and skirt and belt match. They do not have many sets of clothes.

Languages (idomas): There were over 20,000 Mayan dialects, not there are less because the children learn spanish in school but not the dialects. Each town has its own dialect. This morning, I heard the dialect that is spoken here in Pana. I can´t remember the name at the moment.

The lake(el lago): I really enjoy going to the lake each morning. As I mentioned there are many venders at the lake. The first two days I went to the lake, every vender tried to sell us their product or a ride on their boat. Today, though, only one asked me. I am glad they are starting to recognize that the girl with the red jacket will not buy anything.

The town (El pueblo): I think I finally have most of the town figured out. It is not that big and I normally do not get lost easily. Here, however, there are no street signs or address. All the streets look the same...brightly colored buildings, cobble stones, markets. Also there of course are no side walks. This means that you have to share the road with bicycles, tut tuts(very small taxis), chicken buses, and other pedestrians. Here pedestrians do not have the right of way... it is every man for themselves whether in car or on foot.

Well off to review my spanish vocabulary.

The First Day

The Lake: Lake Atilan is beautiful. The lake is at 5,600 feet from sea level. It is surrounded by three volcanoes, San Pedro, San Lucas, and I forget the other name. The lake is a deep blue color. When the morning sun hits the water just right, there appears to be diamonds dancing on the water. As you get closer to the shoreline you notice clusters of small boats. As you get even closer everyone asks you San Pedro? San Lucas? I will say although every one of them will ask as if we magically changed our mind in the last 5 seconds, they stop after 2 or 3 no gracis responses.


The Spanish class: Yesterday I had my first class. I took a test at the beginning which covered numbers, letters, question words, regular verbs, female and male nouns, plural. My teacher (Zoila) began going over the test. I did alright with most of it. When there was a concept that I did not have we would practice it. Since my vocabulary is very limited at this point, she would talk and ask me questions. After she was satisfied I understood the concept, it was my turn to ask her questions. The answers to the questions would be 2 to 3 sentences long...a short conversation. Any word that I did not know that she said or that I wanted to say, I wrote down. We covered several verbs. By the end, my head was swimming and I had 4 pages of vocabulary word to learn by this afternoon. I also had to write 10 sentences and 9 questions practicing what we had worked on. I learned more in 4 hours of individual tutoring than in all my Spanish classes. I get frustrated as I do not have the vocabulary to say what I want to say. My teacher is very patient and generally by the end of my struggling in broken Spanish understands what I am trying to say.


The house:Yesterday was the first full day in Panajachel (Pana as the locals call it). My house is on the main street in the middle of town. You would walk right by it as it appears to be another colorful shop. Inside there is the first floor where the family lives in one room. There is a narrow hallway that leads to the small rustic kitchen and a dining room. One then proceeds upstairs to the rest of the tenant rooms and a bathroom. The stairs are outside but covered with thick plastic. The room is simple but has everything you need. The shower does have hot water supposedly. It, however, is so hot that it encourages one to pratice navy showers in order to avoid freezing in the shower.

The sounds: Being in the center of town provides ample background nosies throughout the day and night. The schedule appears to be 3 to 5:30AM the rooster begin crowing, a5 to 7 the buses clang their cymbal as they pass through the center of town, during the day there is normal hustle and bustle with tut tuts (small taxies), buses, bikes, etc, 8-12PM concaphony of music is heard from multiple bars down the street. There is also the sound of the bursts of wind that rattle the plastic covering of the stairs.

The food: It is decent. If you are on a low card diet, however, you would be starving. The meals are heavy on the carb side with potatoes made in different forms, bread in different forms (rolls, english biscut type, pancakes, watermelon is fruit served at every breakfast) Breakfast has eggs or pancakes. Lunch was a thin soup with a potato side. Dinner is normally a lighter meal with beans (jovas- like long green beans, frijoles-black beans in several forms) and potato or bread.

Guatemala City to Panajachel

I am here in Panajachel. The trip from from Guatemala City to here was on the interamerican highway (1). It is a paved two lane road most of the way up and down the hills and through the country side. We did not see any stoplights even in Guatemala City. What was noteable in Guatemala City were the Chicken Buses. A chicken bus is a school bus which is brightly painted with a theme. All of them have a name painted on the back. On top of the bus there is a metal frame where any and all lugage is stored for the journey. The chicken buses are packed full with people. If you are on the street and want to get on, it appears one simply waves your hand and it will stop. I am not sure if there is a schedule of any type that they run on or how you know that particular bus is going where you want to go.

As we made our way to the highlands, we drove through hillside full of brown maize and other plants that looked like lettuce or kale. The maize was still standing even though it had been harvested long ago. Scatterted throughout the hills were clumps of sterotypical housing made of metal and plaster. Occassionally we would drive through a down town which was lined with small colorfully painted shops. 90 percent were related to cars or motorcycles. There were mufflers, exhaust pipes, tires, and other assorted parts hanging on stands and one or two cars at each shop. The other 10 percent were small snack shops filled with brightly colored wrappers.

The interesting thing in the towns was how you got across the intersection. One in particular is memorable. A Chicken bus wanted to cross the main thoroughfare. They simply stuck the front of the bus in the intersection in front of the on coming traffic. They traffic in our lane was not moving due to construction up the way. Some people behind us became impatient and drove on the side of the road with the oncoming traffic. Another car on the same street as the bus made its way into the middle of the intersection so they could turn left and be in our lane. A traffic jam in the making with no stoplight. I am still not exactly sure how it was worked out but after about 10 minutes we were on our way again. Thankfully on the highway there were not many intersections.

As we neared Lake Atilan and Panajachel, we got off the highway on to very narrow cobblestone like streets. We were at a higher elevation and were descending on the lake. It was beautiful. The lake was calm with various shades of blue surrounded by tall dormant volcanoes covered in green jutting out of the water. As we entered the town of Panajachel, there hustle and bustle increased as the roads narrowed even more. There are colors everywhere: the store fronts, the clothes, the small vehicles and motorcycles.

Well, I will have my first lesson this afternoon.

Yes, I can honestly say I am Excited!

Excitement is in the air. People have been asking me for weeks if I am excited about going to Guatemala. Even this week people would ask. My typical response was..."no not yet. I, however, normally do not get excited." For those who know me well, hold your breath. The time has arrived. I am excited!

I am traveling to Guatemala tomorrow! I should be sleeping at the moment as I have to get up at 3:00AM tomorrow. So many thoughts in my head. I am just starting to get settled here and now off on another adventure. Tomorrow when I step off the plane, I will have entered another world. It is finally becoming more of a reality. The friend I am going with is a roommate from graduate school. Although we have kept in touch, we have not seen each other for 18 months. She arrived at my house tonight in time for supper.

I just finished packing the last things in my carry on. Packing this time was different than any other time I have packed. Have you ever tried packing when most of your belongings are in various boxes and bags? It is more like a playing a mix of the childhood games of scavenger hunt and memory game. "I think I put these clothes in this bag." "Did I put the shampoo in this box?" All in all it was not that much of a challenge.

I mentioned that many thoughts in my head. This week home has been an adventure in itself. The short version is I had a job interview in a suburb south of Charlotte on Tuesday. I accepted the job on Saturday. Therefore it follows that when I return from Guatemala, I will be staying in the Charlotte area. You may think to yourself, "Well that is wonderful it has to be great to be home." Well, as I have mentioned in other blogs, Charlotte is not the same place. I will be starting over here the same way I would if I moved to a new city. There is one exception...I do know most of the roads here. I will be looking for a roommate, a place to live, new friends, new church. I will be learning alot in the new job as well.

Well tune in soon for the next episode.

Guatemala FAQs

Ok, the time has come to start preparing to go to Guatemala. Since so many people seem to be asking questions, I am going to answer FAQ about my trip.
Why Guatemala? Why now? Are you going for a mission trip? How long will you be there? What will you be doing? Are you excited?

I have always wanted to travel. One of my biggest regrets in undergrad was not studying abroad. I had a choice to study abroad or graduate on time. At the time, I thought graduating on time was more important. I am currently single, have money saved, am between jobs, so why not? There will never be a better opportunity.

I have always wanted to learn another language. I took Spanish in high school and college, but unfortunately never valued the class. It was always a slack class for me since so much of it was rote memory. I would learn the grammar rules and vocabulary words and spit them out on the test promptly forgetting them. Verbal was always the hardest, but I could get by without too much effort. Being in LA for the past 18 months and now coming back to NC where lots of Hispanics live, I have a new appreciation for being able to communicate with them.

I am going to spend 6 weeks in Guatemala with the main purpose of learning Spanish. It will be pure immersion. I will have one-on-one Spanish lessons 4hr/day 5 days/week. I will be living with a Mayan family who speaks Spanish and a Mayan dialect(I would assume). I plan to travel some on the weekends. I will be in the town of Panajachel which is on Lake Atilan.

I am currently not excited, but that is just my personality. I don't get excited about much. As the time is getting closer, I am getting alittle bit anxious as I do not know exactly what I am getting myself into. It will be an adventure in many ways. I will try to post often.

Life is Relationships

As Dad and I were talking over lunch today, he said, "Life is relationships." This is what I am realizing in these past few days. Let me back up and give you the context of the comment. I went to the church which I attended as I grew up. I had not been there in 18 months. Dad continues to be a faithful and involved member there. Similar to coming home to my actual house, there is a comfort in returning to a family. Many things were the same, but several were different. Many new faces, but several friends of many years. I got so many hugs this morning. It was wonderful! The best characteristic of this church is the honesty and genuine love and care everyone expresses. Life is relationships.

Have you ever had thoughts that you couldn't quite put together and then someone pulls it all together for you? That is what the sermon did today. The sermon was on being missions oriented. I will be honest, I was not excited when I heard that in the introduction. I thought, "hear we go again...follow the great commission, serve and love people." As he spoke though, there were minor undertones of that but those were not the main points. I will not go into the details, but what stuck out to me was that our focus should be outward. Live your life the best way you can and follow God's leading the best way you can. Make relationships. People are hurting in the church building, people are hurting outside the church, marriages end in divorce in the church building, marriages end in divorce outside the church building. We are all living life together, all have mountains, all have valleys, all have something to offer, all have the image or fingerprints of God on our souls. We are supposed to spread the message of God's love by having an outward focus. That means sharing life together...that means forming and having honest genuine relationships..that means letting people know about God's relationship with us. Life is relationships.

Having just moved and having gone through Mom's things these past few days, I am aware of stuff. We all collect stuff. Much of it is useful. Some of it is decorative. Some of it is sentimental. Regardless, when we leave this earth , none of it comes with us. Don't worry, I am not getting preachy hear. I have stuff too! What is interesting to me though is what I find valuable at the moment...what did I keep. Letters, cards, and photos. These are all representations of relationship. Relationships in the long ago past, relationships in the recent past, relationships in present. I have two shoe boxes filled to the brim with letters and cards that I have gotten over the years. Of all Mom's stuff, I kept a few love letters we found. What was the hardest to leave and what do I miss most about CA...relationships. Life is relationships.

When it is all said and done, what continues on? Relationships. This was brought home again when we went through what was on Mom's bedside table. This is was evidence of what she had been thinking about those last few weeks...dreams, plans, hobbies. Mom left bathroom remodeling plans, last two issues of a magazine, financial investing books with a pencil inside the book marking the current page, and a few pictures she wanted to find frames for. It is kinda like she simply walked out the door. She left everything just the way it was. She does not need any of the earthly things anymore. What is the one thing that has lasted...our relationship. Sure it is very different now, but it has not ended. Life is relationships.

Whether introvert or extrovert, we all need and want quality relationships. The world functions through relationships. Some deep, some shallow, some business, some short, some life-long, some for fun, some for struggles. Even in a world where there are less and less human to human interaction, we still function through relationships. The parent-child, student-teacher, family-pet, cashiers at stores, co-workers, clients and customers, emails, texts, phone calls, bills, doctors, meals, renewing relationships with old friends, meeting new people, etc. Life is relationships.

If you are reading this long post, that means that most likely I have a relationship with you. I am thankful for that. I hope you have a great week this coming week as we all get back to the schedule...no more holidays.

Bike Ride or Bust

This episode started because I wanted to get some exercise. I am not able to run far or for a long time at the moment due to lingering IT Band problems. Prior to the marathon, I had been riding a bike and my knee pain was not getting worse. Since the marathon, I had been so busy trying to finish everything I had not exercised more than a walk around the neighborhood. I really wanted to go for a hard, short run. Knowing that I shouldn't, I settled for a bike ride.

I knew that it was going to be cold outside, so I layered up...warm pants, T-Shirt, and a fleece. I figured I would be cold at first but then warm up and not want excessive clothing. I then went out to the garage where there are two bikes from childhood and one that is adult size. The adult size one needed the tires blown up. I dragged the bike out of the garage and find the tire pump. I fiddle around for a while and got both tires filled with air. "Great," I thought, "That was not as hard as I thought it would be." I was off to ride around the neighborhood loop we rode while growing up. I make it about 300 feet and realize just how cold it is with the rushing wind. I kept riding thinking it will warm up. I decided after about 1/4 mile that it is just too cold. I returned home and proceeded to put on a ski jacket, gloves, and a tobagan under the bike helmet. What an outfit!

OK, now I was ready. I returned back outside determined to get a bike ride. This time, I was not cold. "Mission accomplished! Everything is great...exercise, no knee discomfort, not cold" I thought. I got to the farthest point in the loop and the front tire intertube breaks. Since it is a very old bike, I rode the rest of the loop home with the flat tire. Oh well, I gave it my best shot. Just as I thought, "I hope no one sees me" someone turns the corner. They just smile and continue walking.