Day 7

Today's weather is great !! The sun is out and the sky is blue, which is completely different from yesterday! Eddy (my diver) is a Bacelona fan !!! :) The other picture is of my teacher :) She's so cute! :)

Day 5 y 6

Yesterday was a bit rough with all the rain that we got *Check out pictures*. We had tropical storm Agatha come by for a visit. Not having school on saturdays, volcano pacaya exploding and the tropical storm caused for quite a slow and uneventful day. Mr. Idaho is now Lyle. lol. He was supposed to leave on Friday morning however because of the volcano his group wasn't able to leave. They are now taking a bus to El Salvador and then flying out from there. The roads to El Salvador have been blocked because of massive landslides from all the rain but they are still going. There is a church that I was told about by some missionaries here. I went to it this morning but the pastor told me there wasn't going to be a service because of all the rain. They got a little rain damage and were in the middle of clearing it all away. The pastor is American and is really great! We talked for a bit and he invited me to come to a bible study on Wednesday nights, so I might check it out.

Yesterday I also helped a French couple out. We met in the French crepe place. They were trying to call their airline but were having problems communicating in English so we sat together and I helped them get calls out and talk to their airline about their tickets. They are still stuck here.

Right now I'm sitting at a Mcdonalds looking right at volcano Agu. Its is REALLY big! The French crepe place, where I usually go for my internet it closed on Sundays. The Mcdonalds is really nice here. Antigua has a lot of guards and there is one for Mcdonalds and he walks around about every 5-10 minutes. I'm not sure what I am going to do for the rest of the day. With the plans that I had last week, I was going to climb Pacaya today but obviously that is slighting impossible at the moment! lol. Also because of all the rain a lot of things are closed and wet, so really I might simply sit around and so homework for the rest of the day. Hope you enjoy all the pictures :)

Day 4

Yesterday during my trip to the coffee farm, I felt quite a big shake. It turns out that there is a correlation between that shake and the recent volcano eruption. Pacaya is the name of the volcano that just erupted. I read up on the event and the airport in Guatemala City is closed - which mean Mr. Idaho is stuck there as he was supposed to be leaving today. Guatemala City is covered in ash. My little host brother (who is just the cutest!) doesn't have school today. I am not sure where exactly he goes but his school was cancelled for the day. Antigua is far enough from Guatemala City that nothing around here has really been affected. I was planning on climbing Pacaya this week end with CSA -- but I don't think that's gonna take place anymore. :( I really wanted to go up it and roast marshmallows in the lava. Oh well. * Sorry Ang! :(

Today in class was my first little "quiz" or test covering everything I have learned. Mi maestra said I am doing really well :) I already know how to conjugate 8 verbs and have a least a list of 500 words -- which means by week 4 I will know 2000 words....maybe. This week end will consist of reviewing everything and solidifying all of those words in my brain. I have made flashcards for myself so that I can review them over and over. Teresa (my teacher) and talked a lot about little kids and how much we love them! He little boy is really cute!

She showed me some pictures of her and her husband along with their little boy :)

Yesterday was merengue night *pictures available*. The place where I went to was at Mr. Idaho's school down the road from mine. The director of his school is French so I got to meet him. We spoke in French for at least an hour. It was SO NICE :) At that school there are also two girls from Quebec and so we spent time listening and laughing at each other's accents. There was also a german lady, which means I obviously had to talk to her too :) Last night I was speaking in French, English, German and Spanish. LOCO! It was so much fun!! :)

As you will see in the pictures I have found a little French Crepe place. They have wi-fi so I have been spending time there working on my homework and of course blogging. :P

Day 2 and 3

Every evening I spend a good three hours on homework. Teresa assigns me a lot to do, which is good because I really want to learn! My family helps me with my homework as they check it once I am done and they are very impressed with the amount of work I am able and have to do.

Yesterday (Wednesday) I signed up to go on a trip to a small town outside of Antigua where I got to see the work of an organization called Constru Casa. They are sort of like Habitat for Humanity where they build houses for people who do not have the means to buy a house for themselves. This one family in particular that we went to see has been through a lot! The mother is all on her own and has 9 children - two of which have died because of illness. Her youngest (he is very cute!) was born some sort of problem where he had to stay in the hospital for one year before he was allowed to have surgery. Now he is well and able to walk. :) Thanks to Contru Casa she is living is a house with a roof and solid walls where she can close her door and windows. (Pictures available).

Today I went to a coffee farm and learned about the history and making of coffee in Guatemala. *Gemma - Take a good look at the pictures from the coffee place :) It was really interesting.

Tonight I am going to do some merengue :) - Pictures to come.

Day 1.5

After my first day at school, I tried to find my way back to mi casa and got lost. lol. I walked around Antigua for two hours trying to find my house. I sort of remembered the name of my street and so I asked a lady to help me and she pointed me the in complete opposite direction! haha...God's works in funny ways because I found a French school as I was walking around the town. PERFECT! I walked up to their gate and asked to come in. There were two French guys there and I told them I was having trouble finding the house that I am staying in. Being the French people that they are (as some of your know...) they were sort of helpful and very sarcastic. None the less I asked to use their internet so that I could look up the address of my house because I had it saved in an email. All went well and they pointed me in the right direction and gave me directions that I could actually understand. As usual all of them were smoking -- ha typical French. They told me to come back if I was still lost. Luckily I didn't have to because I was able to find mi casa :) I could have taken a "tuck tuck" , which is a little wagon of a thing, but I wanted to walk and find my way on my own. It makes me laugh that I had to use French in the middle of Antigua to find my way back to my house -- Oh how languages come in handy.

When I got to the house, mi mama told me that Mr. Idaho went looking for me. Ooppss :P Now I know my way to la escuala and back so I won't get lost anymore. :)

Day 1

Upon arriving in Guatemala City, Eddy (my driver) picked up from the airport and drove me to my host family's house. He doesn't speak a WORD of English and I obviously don't speak any Spanish -- Perfect! The entire drive to Antigua consisted of me spitting out random spanish words I picked up from my new dictionary that I read in the airplane, French and his limited English. We managed to talk about where I'm from, where I go to school, what there is to do on the week ends and the weather in Antigua.

My host family is wonderful! Mama doesn't speak any English, which means I'm gonna have to kick in the Spanish ASAP! There is another person staying in the house but I can't remember his name...oppps :P He's from Idaho and has been here for one week and is leaving this Friday. His Spanish is very good so he has been translating for me. We walked around Antigua for a couple of hours right when I got there. He showed me the places to eat and land marks around the town so that I can find myself easy and not get lost. lol (got it covered Chief).

Antigua reminds me a lot of the D.R and I wish I was back there! However, I'm so happy to be here and love learning Spanish and being in Antigua! It is rainy season and so the sky is pretty much overcast everyday. People have told me that it will be like this for a while and if it rains it'll be in the late afternoons.

Mama makes great food! This morning I woke up to fresh Papaya, pineapple and strawberries and an omelet-- Just like the in the D.R :) Mr. Idaho walked me to school because no one knew where it was. It's only about a 5-7 minute walk from my host family's house.

My teacher's name is Teresa. She is so cute and small! :) We immediately started on the lesson and she was very impressed with my pronunciation, which made me happy :) She told me it doesn't sound toooo American. The building that the school is in is half inside and half outside. Basically -- there is no roof. There is a small court yard where teachers have their desks set up. Each table has place for one teacher and one student and a white board. It's great because there are lots of students around the court yard with their table, teacher and white board and they are all learning Spanish at which ever level they are at. (pictures to come). Teresa assigned me some homework for me to work on from the things we have been working on all day. She's so great!! We talked about the Bible and out families, Switzerland, and Antigua. She asked me if I knew Christian Spanish songs so I showed her the Revelation song online and told her about the D.R and how we organized outreach events. She LOVED LOVED LOVED the song said that it is full of the Holy Spirit :) Agreed!

Welp....that's all.