A trip to Zunil and an abbreviated spanking

I'll start today's entry with a summary of last night when Tony, my friend Stephanie and I commemmerated our first day of classes with some toasts made over bottles of Gallo, the national beer of Guatemala. We hung around at "La Playa," a local bar, and watched as students from other immersion programs filed past -- unmistakable and instantly recognizable by either looks of confusion or a fashion sense (or lack thereof) not native to these parts. A couple of estudiantes from our program dropped in for a round of beers and the complimentary appetizers that come with each round (our first one was a kind of vegetable spread on crisps resembling tortilla chips, our second almost a seafood bisque). We left as that particular bar closed at 6.30 p.m. and returned home for a dinner of a piece of beef, potatoes and carrots in a red sauce over rice or egg and warm corn tortillas; a smaller, reheated portion of that day's lunch.

After dinner the whole family (mama, papa, Sandra, Tony, another student in our house named Angela and I) walked to the central park here, which is lined by a summary of Xela's diversity. On one side of the park, there´s a beautiful kind of pedestrian mall, closed in and an ex-patriot's haven of European and Western cuisine, drinks and an underground drug market, so we were told, if one were to be looking for it. The "mall" is adjacent to hotels priced according to the aforementioned clientele, a room for the night chiming in at the tune of $70 to $120 a night. Across the way, down the street from the McDonald´s (apparently in our local mall, which is rumored to be 40 percent owned by Wal-Mart, also boasts a Taco Bell and Radio Shack), there is a great Catholic church with two huge, exposed bells emerging from the facade. Near the park is also the Xela museum and the theater. We shoved our way into the theater in time to dash up the stairs to the balcony level and catch the last few moments of a local performing arts high school´s music recital.

After leaving the crowded concert hall, our dad bought us all lollypops from the vendors outside and together we made our way home, said goodnight and "hasta mañana" and went to bed.

As per usual, my five-hour block of Spanish classes started at 8 a.m. with my teacher, Paoula. After only two days here, I can conjugate multiple useful verbs, name parts of the body, days of the week, months of the year, hours on the clock and...almost make a sentence. My speed is far from neck-breaking, but it´s progress and I´ll take it.

After classes, we returned home for a lunch of a cold, off-color but interesting brocolli salad, sausage patties and blue corn tortillas and then dashed to the ATM near McDonald´s to withdraw money for our afternoon trip to the nearby puebla (village) of Zunil.

We met one of our teachers at the school and took off for a "chicken bus" stop behind the market. (A chicken bus is no more than a public bus usually painted brightly that, well, functions as a normal bus does, taking people where they want to go. I think it´s called a chicken bus because people will load on whatever baggage they may have, which sometimes includes a chicken or two.)

Anywho, we took this bus to Zunil, toured a church, walked the steeply slanted streets, looked at some colorful, woven Mayan fabric and hopped right back on another chicken bus to return to Xela. For reasons still unclear, once slightly outside Xela, we switched to a minibus, which was crammed with people -- two women even had to stand, hunched over, to get their ride. The highlight of that ride was definitely having no collective idea of where the deuce we were supposed to sit (we were traveling in a group of seven or eight students and a teacher), and having kids laugh at our assinine efforts. As if to drive the point home, a tiny Guatemalan boy of about 4 or 5 years old smacked me on the bottom as I was bent over to squeeze out the minibus´sliding door. I turned around and he was just smiling...perfectly punctuating the unspoken yet communally felt sentence, "you guys are idiots." It was perfect.

The plan for tonight is homework, dinner with the family and discussion of how to celebrate the Fourth of July -- I don´t think the goings-ons of Xela, Guate. were listed in our last issue of the Las Cruces Sun-News "Pulse," so we´re kind of on our own here. Also, hopefully tomorrow I´ll be able to upload photos here so everyone back home can get a taste of what amazing sights Guate has to offer!

Hasta luego!