Thursday, July 24

It is getting harder and harder to write my entries as I approach the end of my stay here - I will be back in MN in less than three weeks. I am enjoying my time with the teachers so much that it is hard to make time to check my e-mail, let alone write.

Life continues to be great here. I have had an eventful week at the school with my third week of classes. We have had terrific attendance, but I hit a big bump on Tuesday evening with a couple of students who, I felt, were giving me a hard time. I went to class yesterday before Rafa and wrote on the board: Enojada (angry), Frustrada, Cansada (Tired), Confundida (Confused). When he came into our cabana, he asked how I was, and I pointed to the list. True to form, he first corrected my grammar and pointed that I should say "Confusa" instead of "Confundida." I think it is a true measure of our trust and the fun we have together with language that my first reaction was to listen and my second was to laugh. We then spent over three hours talking about what had happened, how I felt about it, his perspective of Maya culture and attitides in Guatemala about education, all in the context of looking at how to approach the situation as a learning experience rather than as a problem. It is hard to describe the intensity of our talks; suffice it to say that even I get overwhelmed. Yesterday evening I taught another class, and it was like day and night; I felt that I could go with what the class wanted and not push my own agenda. We had a great time.

San Pedro is beginning to feel very familiar. Right now I am sitting in a small restaurant which has internet access, and it has begun to rain as it does pretty much every day. Yesterday it rained four times.

I am beginning to resent the time I have to speak English, and last week two people mentioned that my Spanish was improving. One of them was a young man who works in the kitchen of a restaurant next to the school. I told him I didn't think we had had enough conversations for him to notice, but he said he had been listening to me and noticed a big difference.

One of the charming (and sometimes annoying) things about San Pedro that I may have mentioned is that almost no business has change for a 100Q note (about $12). The way they handle it when I don't have change is to ask me to come back. The restaurant where I am sitting is one of the places where I have owed money for a week, since the last time I came. I mentioned it to the woman working here, and she remembered that it was 2Q.

I will wrote more this weekend, when I have promised myself that I will take some time from teaching to catch up on my thoughts and my notes.