October 25-31

Sunday afternoon we met with the daughter's of one of the men who works at El Solar. They wanted to practice their Spanish, and Larissa and mom and I were all really excited. I have a greater respect for people who learn English well after Spanish, because it is a lot harder since we don't have all the rules in Spanish. As it turns out they hardly spoke any English and couldn't understand most of the question we asked them. When they did understand, they responded in Spanish, so I'm not sure overall how successful the afternoon was. They were very shy (understandable with these foreigners from the United States) so it was really hard to start a conversation because we asked all the questions we could think of, and typically they gave one or two word answers. Occasionally a sentence.

This last week of classes has flown by incredibly fast. I find it hard to believe that it's already Friday afternoon. I don't even remember what happened on Monday, but on Tuesday Larissa and I went with out teachers and about 6 other students to find a basketball court and played basketball for a couple hours after the break. It's been a long time since I've played, and I was a little rusty, but I had so much fun just goofing around. There was no pressure to even make a basket since a lot of us weren't having much luck with the iron backboards.

On Wednesday Soraya and Maria took us to the market to buy bariletes (a sort of kite) and we went to fly them in a parking lot. We had a lot of fun because the wind was actually too strong for the kites so they didn't work to well and were fast torn apart since they're only made out of tissue paper. I think we also really entertained all the people who could see us in the market...they were laughing a lot. Though the actual flying of the kites was unsuccessful, we had so much fun. I'm really going to miss not being able to see and talk and laugh with them once we finish school.

On Thursday I had to get to the school early so that I could take my exam to pass grade B and Maria could grade it before the break. This way I got the exercise book and grammar book for level C for free. I passed the exam relatively easily I think, with all my errors being silly brain freeze things. Mom thinks one of the funniest errors was in verb conguation. It was supposed to be spelled "doy" except I spelled it "doi" and mom was laughing because it's the kind of thing I would say (like "duh") in English when I have a silly error.

I forgot to mention that on Tuesday afternoon we moved to a new apartment. As of yet, I can't decide which apartment I like better. Of course it's nice to not have water dripping and mildewy smells everywhere, but the other apartment was so typical Guatemala. Right on the street with a little courtyard and you could hear all the numerous fire crackers that go off multiple times a day in different places. This apartment on the other hand is really American, with a big green lawn and a swing set. It's almost out of the city so it's really quite here. To some extent it's nice, but it's secluded, almost not like living in a different country at all.

This morning (Friday) I came to school sad because it was my last day. We will return to say "hi" to our teacher's since we're not leaving Guatemala yet, and it's possible that I will come back during high school to study and stay with a family, but who knows if I will be able to have the same teacher or not. Since we only had one day we decided not to even start grade C, so for most of the morning we walked around in the market and in the cemetary. This is one of the few times of year that it is safe because tomorrow is Dia De Los Muertos and Sunday is Dia De Los Santos, both of which are special events. The people here really honor the dead and clean their tombs, scrubbing them down and repainting them and decorating them with flowers. It was a fun thing to see how good the tombs looked after somebody had cared for them.

After the break we went to walk in Antigua with a bunch of other students. Today one day (stage) of a bike race finished in Antigua. They call it sort of the Tour of Guatemala. It's a new event, but it atracts proffesional bike racers from all over (Central/Southern America anway). It's a two week long race and this year a Venezulen man is winning it right now. Other than that I don't know much about it. The racers weren't supposed to enter the city until after the classes where over, but it was fun to walk along and see everybody. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera, so I don't have any pictures. When we got back to the school I gave Maria a thank you/good-bye present of nie chocolates and a card which she loved. It was hard to say good-bye, but now we're moving on to see other things.