Mi casa

These are pictures of where I live in Xela.

This is my street. Notice the cobblestone street and the uneven sidewalk. All of the sidewalks are like this. Most of the streets are hilly and rather than the sidewalks sloping like the street, the sidewalk is parallel at the level of each door so there are stairs in the sidewalk. This is what all of Xela looks like. It is a skateboarder's nightmare.
 

This is the beer factory at the end of my street, the cerveceria. From what I understand it is a distribution plant. I must confess that I have no yet tried Gallo, perhaps tonight when we go watch the US vs Mexico partido de futbol.
 

This is my house from the outside. My door is the one on the far left. The door opens directly into my room, which is nice because I have a lot of freedom. The second small door is another bedroom for a visiting student that is empty right now, but supposedly there is someone coming tomorrow. The big double doors lead to a driveway/outdoor area.
 

This is my room. It isn't much, but it is functional (I can't say the same for the bathroom which I will devote a whole entry to later :) I have a full bed, desk, dresser, and that yellow and orange thing has my clothes in it. There is enough space to do yoga, but the floor is a little gross so I'm trying to figure out the best way to do that.
 
 

This is the rest of the house. This is the whole living area of the house. My host mother's bedroom is off this main room, which is a kitchen/dining room/living room in one. My most mom's bedroom is to the right and the small hallway that leads to my room and the empty room is to the left. My family only consists of her. She has kids, but they have grown up and moved out and now she regularly houses visiting students. Usually the students that live with her are studying at one of the many Spanish language schools in Xela, so she is really sweet and puts up with my terrible Spanish. There is another Pop Wuj student that also lives here right now on the other side of the courtyard.
 
That blue door leads to the courtyard that has a little flower garden, but it is mostly a drive way and is shared by the other people in the complex. That is also the way to the bathroom and sink.
 
Okay I think that is it for now. So far things have been really good. In future posts I'll try to talk about my school and teachers and the projects we are working on. They are really cool.

Ciudad de Guatemala a Quetzaltenango (Xela)

Pictures from the bus ride to Quetzaltenango, which is shortened to Xela (pronounced shay-la). Xela is in the mountains so there are really no straight roads and our bus was constanly tipping from side to side as the driver tooks the turns as fast as he could without turning us over. At one point I was planning what I would hang on to if we started to tip. But we didn't. :)
The bus was really loud, but I was trying to sleep so I didn't take a lot of pictures. Just a few choice (or really not that choice) shots of random towns in the mountains:

I think it's interesting that entire buildings become advertisements here. This is a local phone company. Actually this is my phone company. If you want my number because you like spending a lot of money on phone calls let me know. :)
 
I also love local politics. If you notice this whole ad is orange. Parties are often identified by colors here probably because a large percentage of the population is illiterate or speaks a language other than Spanish (much more common in rural communities).
 

Arrive in Guatemala

 

I am trying to be good about taking pictures here, but I've only been kind of good. I will try to put everything in a Picasa folder you can see online.

This is a picture of Guatemala City from the air. My plane arrived late and Melanie had been waiting for a while (thanks!). I got here with all my stuff so it was a success! We waited for 3 more Pop Wuj students and then rushed to the car. We thought we were late to catch the bus but we had plenty of time and then we just sat around waiting in the bus station for a while. And then we sat on the bus for 4 hours trying to sleep while they blasted Guatemalan radio. We got to see a lot of the countryside, but a lot of it was shrouded in fog because it's the rainy season here.

Trying this blog thing

I am not good at keeping in touch. I am hoping this blog can replace my non-existent phone calls to the people I love especially while I am in Guatemala. It might not work, but I'm gonna try. Just bug me if I don't post. And I'm talking to you family because let's be honest, no one else will ever read this. :)