My three weeks in a homestay have come to an end. I really enjoyed my Guate-familia but I am excited and ready for the change. On Friday I moved to a long term hostel type situation. The building is attached to a Spanish school, not the one I attend but I have been practice my Spanish with the owners. There are two apartments with four bedrooms each and right now all the bedrooms are full. My apartment is filled entirely with people who speak English, an Australian friend from my school named Monique, a fellow from SF and a couple due to move in today or tomorrow said to be from Australia as well. This does limit my Spanish speaking at home, but living there allows me other cultural/linguistic experiences that I find important. I have been shopping at the local markets and grocery stores (more about this later) and preparing my own food (I made refried black beans from scratch for the first time yesterday). Another bonus is that I actually feel comfortable using the common areas in the apartment and we had our first dinner party last night! (You know how I love to entertain.) I will be in the apartment and continue to take classes for the next three weeks and then start some traveling for my final two and a half weeks in Guatemala.
The activities have been good and plentiful so far this week. I went to Las Fuentes Georginas (a hot springs in the mountains) on Tuesday afternoon. It was a beautiful and magical place with lots of greenery and mist. There are three pools of water that have graduated levels of heat. The hottest of the three is a direct flow from the Zunil Volcano which spills into each of the other pools. This was my second experience at a hot springs (the first was in Northern California last January) and I will say this was definitely better than the first because no newts were harmed and the water was really really hot.
On Wednesday we went to a local Fabrica de Chocolate which makes delicious drinking chocolate (I will bringing some home if I don't drink it all before I get back). They are a relatively small operation, but they are pretty well known here. The chocolate factory is owned by the family of one of the teachers from my school. They showed step by step how the chocolate is made (by the way, all activities put on by the school are completely in Spanish). From what I remember, they start with roasting the cocoa beans, then grind them up in a machine, then add the flavor (sugar, vanilla and cinnamon), and finally make it into bricks which are chilled and portioned out into squares. All of the ingredients are natural and there are no added chemicals or preservatives. In my opinion, all the makings for an excellent cup of cocoa!
The night after the tour a few of us went to a benefit for los perros de la calle (this means dogs of the street, of which there are many) put on by a bunch of high school students. A couple of bands played and there were tons of people (pretty much all Guatemalan). Several people were dancing salsa and some were quite impressive despite their young appearance. The most entertaining was this older couple that disproved the stereotype that all Latino people can dance. Well I guess the guy could have been trying to do the robot or something. Basically, a good time, and an inspiration for me to learn salsa.
This weekend I haven't been up to too much (I am still feeling a bit parasite-ie unfortunately) but I did make it to the market and the large grocery store at the Mont Blanc mall. The market is an amazing experience similar to a flea market/swap meet sort of thing. There are tons of fruit and vegetable vendors (which is what I usually buy there) and anything else you could want in electronics, clothing and housewares. The prices are good, but the quality isn't guaranteed (I am now on my second set of headphones purchased in Guatemala). The colorful market is a stark contrast to the somewhat sterile grocery store but they both have their purposes. I found myself entranced by all of the options the grocery store provided, though I didn't end up buying that much. I was definitely tempted by the Q30 cheese (that is roughly $4) but declined thinking about how cheap the fruits and veggies are at the market: Q20-25 ($3) for eight bananas, two delicious mangoes, three onions, three limes, three huge avocados, and one bell pepper. For my tortillas I buy direct from the tortilleros for the amazing low price of Q2 ($0.25) for eight fresh off the grill tortillas! All in all, I greatly enjoy my new found food purchasing power.
That pretty much concludes my week. I may end up posting late next weekend because I am going to lago de Atitlán with the school on Saturday. I sort of slacked on the photos this week (only 30 uploaded to FB) but I am trying to take more now and I am going to try to get more of myself. Oh and if you didn't catch on to the various titles this week, I have been listening to a lot of Talking Heads on this trip.
I miss you all and will update soon!
Te Amo,
Sarah
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