Second week of Spanish classes!

    Our second week of classes is muy bien! Afternoons are a little more difficult for me since lunch is the biggest meal of the day so I get sleepy in class. Still, I have all sorts of verbos básicos and verbos irregulares floating around my head and I am learning a lot. It's amazing what I can understand after just a week and a half (though not everything of course!) But speaking it is always muy difícil. Yo debo practicar más!

     We are enjoying our homestay at Alejandra and Pedro's home as I wrote about previously.  In the mornings this week, we worked out at the local gym a few times, ran to the coffee plantation, trip planned for Chile and did homework.  On Tuesday, we boated over to Santiago for shopping and to scope out another language school.  However, it actually is closed which led to our decision to just stay in San Pedro another week.  The big city of Xela was another option but it required a few hours of travel and presumably much louder and colder.  Plus we haven't explored all there is to do around the lake, I love the small town feel of San Pedro and continuity is probably best for me during my last week of classes. 

         The school hosted salsa classes on Wednesday night which was fun. The other students are great. We met a guy from Fort Collins and a girl currently in a MPH program so we are in similar company.  We also learned about Mayan numbers on Thursday night.

Mark y Rocky bailan

     We returned to Santiago on Friday morning because that was the big market day.  We bought a few gifts but mainly squeezed our way through the local market, taking in the colors, sounds and smells of market day in small town Guatemala.

The many colors of the market

Rip-off shoes and sardines right next to each other

More fruit!

I love how nonchalant breastfeeding is in other countries!

Marco y el gallo

One form of transportation.  We'll have a whole post on the tuc-tucs we've seen!

Midori, Mark and I on the bumpy boat ride back

    On Friday afternoon, mi maestra y yo visited a local poor family that the school supports.  We brought food and the madre de la casa Cecilia showed me the two rooms where 7 people live.  One daughter's education is supported through the school.  Cecilia also tried to speak in Spanish for me but really can only speak Tz'utujil which is a guttural language so it sounds so cool.  She did let me take a photo with her and yes, I look like a giant.

We also treated Mark's maestro and his family to dinner as a thank you. I enjoyed playing with Jeffrey since you don't need to speak the same language to play hide and go seek!