Xela, Week 3 and Counting

We wanted to send a short update to let everyone know how we doing in Xela (pictures updated!). We are currently in the middle of our third week here and we are still loving the city and the surrounding areas. The first week we were here we stayed at the local cultural center/hostel and spent our time hiking, hunting for a good coffee shop, and signing up for Spanish classes. Last week we started our Spanish courses at a small non-profit school. All of the proceeds go to a scholarship fund that supports single mothers and helps them send their children to school. We were really sold on the school, especially once we met the two women who started it and are currently running the school. They are also single mothers and have a real passion to help their community in this area. They were very flexible allowing us to visit with our host family before moving in. They have also followed up with us through the past two weeks to make sure we have enjoyed our experience with the school and our family.

Against her previous inclination, Kendra has actually enjoyed Spanish school, at least a little. Originally thinking that she would complete only 1 week, she decided to continue on to a 2nd with Rich. Some have doubted how much work Kendra and her teacher actually do as they can be heard giggling throughout most of the morning sessions. Rich has been able to work with a different teacher each of the past two weeks and another for the next week, as he has enjoyed learning different aspects of Spanish from each. Now wielding the power of past-tense peterite and imperfect verbs, he has let Spanish get to his head and has decided to take a 3rd week of classes, pushing us into the 4th week here.

In addition to learning a meeger amount of common Spanish phrases, Kendra has been spending her afternoons learning how to weave on a backloom. Trama Textiles is a co-op of women weavers from all over Guatemala. They have come together as the quality of their trade has significantly declined in the last 10 years, as has their ability to feed their families from the profits. This co-op promotes better weaving practices and sells the high quality goods at a fair price. Part of the funding for this non-profit comes from fees they collect at their weaving school. We use the term weaving school very lightly as it is mostly composed of traditional Guatemalan women weaving and a few tourists who come and go each day working on their projects. Kendra picked the second most involved project at a total of 25 hours (mostly because she could not understand in Spanish what the 30 hour project entailed). All said and done, we will have a slightly misshaped, but made with love, table runner with some basic embroidery. If only we had a table...

The stay with the family has also been good. The family seems to be extremely busy as they have two teenagers, one adult daughter in med school, two young Guatemalan students boarding there, 15-20 birds, an aluminum business in their courtyard, a wedding cake business, a smoothie and pastry stand, and church obligations that take them out of the house 3 days a week. The stay there has also been a good reminder to both of us of some of the cultural differences that exists, mainly along gender lines and the concept of time (Dinner´s at ¨6¨? Good, we will be back from studying Spanish in time to eat at 9). However, as challenging as it can be to suddenly find yourself in the middle of an already complete, functioning family, it can also be rewarding, such as when Kendra finally manages to get a coherent sentence out in Spanish during dinner, or when the mother of the family takes extra time in the morning to make banana licuados with the pancakes for breakfast (think banana milkshake, with, is that chocolate?...yummm). All around, the family isn´t that different than our families. They have their quirks and their routine, but they do love and care for each other, as much as they scream at each other across the house for someone get the ringing phone.