language class

    For the past week Tracy and I have been in Flores, Guatemala in school.

    I've been trying to improve my Spanish since moving into Benque Viejo, but it has been slog.  So we decided to try an immersion class, and it has been keeping my brain bubbling.  

    Flores is really an island in the middle of Lake Petèn Itza, connected to the mainland by a manmade roadway.  It is remarkably beautiful.  We stay with a family in San Miguel, about a 5 minute ride north across the lake in a locally made, heavy, flat bottom boat.  Linguists among you will note that I have not been including hyphens in hyphenated words.  I would like to say in my defense that I cannot find the hyphen key on this keyboard, although it does conveniently include ñ, ç and è which are very hard to find back home.

On the Lancha from San Miguel to Flores, Flores in the background

    ...OK, so I just found it accidentally, and if I find it again, I´ll use it.

    Anyhow, my instructor, Pedro, is 22 years old, and a student at the the University of Guatemala in Santa Elana, back across the umbilical link to the mainland.  He´s quite patient with a fossil like myself, and as we stumble through conversations, I´ve learned that once a Guatemalan student passes the entrance exam to college, tuition is 100 Quetzales.  The Quetzale trades at about 7.5Q to one US dollar, so it´s a little less than $14 US.  He said that somewhere around 5 to 6 out of 10 students pass the test.

    He lives at home, and supplements his income for the tuition and books by teaching English at Dos Mundos language school.  These are government schools of course, like the land grant universities in the US, and being still myopic in my perception of other countries I will entertain the thought that a US education is probably intellectually more rigorous.  But resident tuition and fees at UNL amount to  $7,312 while non resident comes in at $19,940.  

    Most of the students here would prefer a US education, probably.  I didn´t ask.  But for $14, a person has to think that the Guatemalans do want any child who wants an education to have that opportunity.  He plays some football, bongo drums, and a bit of guitar, likes good poetry, philosophy, pretty girls and the writings of Albert Einstein.   Doesn´t mind throwing back a beer or two.  

    Of course, with my limited grasp of Spanish, we didn´t wander too far down any particular road.  He had me reading out of a 5th level Spanish school book, probably used for 10 or 11 year olds.  I snuck out with more of a Sesame Street level book and found I could understand it quite well...the 5th level was another story.

     Of interest though was the content I could grasp out of the 5th grade book.  The literary quality of the writing and the ethical and moral lessons imparted were at a level I don´t think we hit in the US until perhaps junior high, maybe even high school.  It included poems by Josè Marti, renowned Cuban poet, and short stories from Mexican author Gabriel Garcia Marquez, all of a higher literary level than I remember when I had to fend off dinosaurs to get to school.

    Marta, the mom at the family we stay with, cooks us breakfast, lunch and dinner, part of the package for the language school.  Her husband, Oscar Tun works on the house/hotel, and ferries us across the lake.  The shower doesn´t drain well, there is no hot water and none was promised of course, cold milk for cereal means room temperature and the lights are temperamental.  But the coffee is Guatemalan and hot, the service is friendly and faster than what we're used to in Belize and the room is clean and comfortable.  

Tracy, Oscar and Ocar, with San Miguel behing

    Flores is a tourist town, no doubt about it.  But it still retains a local charm and the shop keepers will show you their wares and wave a friendly goodbye even when you don´t have money to spend.  The town is littered with backpackers...German, Chinese, American, Canadian, Irish, and some accents and languages I just couldn't quite place.  Most of a generous and convivial nature, and we've had good conversation and beer or two over pizza with several.  Which did lead us to discover that the last boat across the lake leaves at about 1030 p.m., and it can be cold on the edge of Lake Petèn Itza, waiting in the rain for the last boat to San Miguel.

We spent a little time in an Catholic orpanage for girls in Santa Elena; Tracy found some new friends.

We took a local shuttle back to Benque; this is how you get 22 people in a 15 passenger van.

Comments

[C]

*inserts photos*

[GJG]

One step at a time. First the hyphen key. THEN photos. :-)

It does sound like a beautiful spot. AND with pizza and beer!!

[C]

Wisely stated GJG. I'll hold my breath for fotos next blog.