Onward to month #2...

It’s been a long time…

Life down in THEE Central America has been keeping me so busy that I haven’t even had time to write. I’m still busy with full time classes of Spanish (5 days a week, 4 hours a day) in the morning, and we always have a million activities planned by afternoon, night, and weekend. Last weekend was FINALLY our first free weekend, sans activities, so we took the opportunity to explore Xela. We have a really cool little café a couple blocks from my house called La Luna, and they just so happen to have a bar below, called BAJO La Luna – creative, I know. Anyways, it’s a wine and cheese bar, so the group started there last Friday and then went to my favorite discoteca Kokolokos (and by favorite, I mean the only one we’ve ever gone to). It’s got a dance floor equivalent to Ricksta’s, so pretty big, really hot, and super crowded. The next day we went out to dinner and then went to the opening soccer game of the season- Xelajú is our town’s team. In addition to the season opener, they played one of their biggest rivals, Las Cremas, so the stadium was packed. They threw down some mad confetti and a 4th of July equivalent amount of fireworks went off at the start of the game. (I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but fireworks are huge here, they go off at every hour of the day for every reason you could think of – I think it’s a comparable rule to our “it’s 5:00 somewhere” drinking policy). We went with one of the Spanish teachers to the game, and she’s a huge fan, and thanks to her and the rowdy crowd, I quadrupled my knowledge of curse words in Spanish.

Classes started full time again this Monday, I chose to keep my teacher on board with me for 2 more weeks simply because she’s amazing. A couple girls and I started going to this crazy ridiculous aerobics class in the mornings before school- it’s completely free and really hard. The woman there wear work-out in Barbie spandex type clothes, although they fail to have Barbie’s proportions nor are they close. Either way, these women CAN MOVE! As always, we had salsa on Thursday, but only 5 of us went (classes are optional), so we learned so crazy spin moves and all of the girls were pretty darn dizzy. Thursday night, our school had a benefit party, so of course we went to support them. We decided to start out at Bajo La Luna again, and without much resistance I convinced my host mom and sister to come out with us. My host family THEN agreed to go to the benefit at another discoteca- La Parranda, so needless to say it was THE BEST night I’ve had here. My family is really really fun, and my 13 year old host sister was one amazing dancer. Friday afternoon, we had cooking class at the school. (If I have previously to failed mention the fact that their hot chocolate here is amazing- I apologize…its like heaven). Anywho, we spent the whole day making our own chocolate. We toasted cacao seeds, deshelled them, took them to a factory to put them through a machine that grinds up the seeds, added sugar, and voila- we had a fresh-fudge like consistency of warm chocolate. We took it back to school and you just keep flipping it, which happens to be like how you make fudge if you’ve ever seen it, and keep going until it hardens. Then you can take the hard chocolate bars and put it in hot water to make chocolate puro!

Yesterday was rough. We all met at the school for hike #2 at 6:30 am, took a bus 30 minutes outside Xela, and hiked Chicabal. As before, I left my mark on the side of the mountain, as I suffered from altitude sickness yet again. After a long hike, we got to the viewpoint, which is a big lake where a lot of religious ceremonies occur. We got back at 2:30, and I passed out for the afternoon to sleep off my altitude sickness. I woke feeling much better, so I went out with my friend Lauren, to the one and only Kokolokos. Not only did we start the dance party, but we talked with the dj’s, and they then played our requests the rest of the night - not too shabby at all. At 1:00am, the light went out completely all the way to the park, so the night was shot, and I felt like I was back in the Dom. Rep. where saying “se fue la luz” was an everyday occurrence.

Regardless we met some cool Guatemalan kids, and I cannot even tell you in English words how good I’m getting at Spanish. No lies, but it actually freaks me out. Every day I’m carrying on normal conversations without having to think about which grammar is correct or if I know the words to say what I want to say. I’m actually being sarcastic in Spanish too all the time, which is a pretty good indicator that I’m really able to speak. My volunteer training starts tomorrow and I’ll be working in a couple different places. My main project will be teaching sex education and general health classes through PEILE around Xela. I’m also going to be working in a clinic during the week, traveling around with a comadrona (or midwife) whenever she has deliveries, and volunteering at Rodolpho Robles Hospital with AIDS patients. Please don’t worry- I will be very safe. Comment on my blog or email me if you have time, I’d love to hear what everyone is doing! Miss you all!