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Trip Start Nov 11, 2006
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Trip End Nov 26, 2006


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Flag of Guatemala  ,
Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Class went well today, or at least it felt better. I am speeding up my listening. My teacher was moving at a faster speed and I was keeping up. I told her about the weekend...to use past tenses..Including the new ones I have learned. I was able to use the new ones a FEW times in conversation with a lot of time to stop and think. Then I wrote an essay on the weekend and with time to think I used them more. Then we read the a Guatemalan Encyclopedia together, about Mayan folk tales. This was written at a difficult level but with the teacher to help me over a few tough spots I understood and it was fun. Pizza for lunch sure tasted good! I did a little more shopping in the market in Xela. I dreamed a little in Spanish last night, and when writing here I sometime have to stop and think...ENGLISH! Donīt expect too much. Still I usually donīt know how to say it in Spanish, but when I DO know how it seems to be occurring to me first right now.

We watched a very difficult film in English with Spanish subtitles about the Civil War called Finding Dominga this afternoon. Like I said earlier it colors every conversation even though it has been over for...maybe..15 years. Many Mayan (and other) people killed in terrible ways and there is a feeling that the bad guys got away with it. We saw the office of the Methodist church the other day from a distance. I have only seen one Methodist Church and one sign for another. The one we saw was in Chichisistenango, a more Mayan area. The Methodist Chursh here has been around for a long time. It is a poor church primarily identified with the indigenous people. The teachers are young people in college and some are out of college, the future professional class. They seem a little puzzled that our group comes from the Methodist Chruch. We donīt look like any Methodist they have ever seen.

It is difficult to figure out how they feel about those of us from the US. I think they parse it pretty well. I think they like us..the individuals at the school..and ALL of the teachers want to come to the US legally. Many of them have spent a fortune trying multiple times to get legal papers, but no one can figure out why they keep getting denied, and why it takes years each time they try, just to find out they are denied for some unknown reason. I think they both admire us and feel that Guatemala is pretty much owned by the US still...at the same time. They admire us and think we are the source of most of their problems...for reasons like the time we overthrew their democratically elected government and started the civil war....at the same time. Hard to figure out but interesting.
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