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Jan. 15/16 – Guatemala

Saturday, January 21st, 2006

Day 167/168 – Woke up ready to get some writing and website work down, but to our dismay the whole city lost electricity. The power was nonexistent until the evening, so we spent the day wandering the city more and drinking coffee.

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ummmm.. coffee.


view from the cafe above Parque Centro America

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more pics of Parque Centro America

Monday, our first day of school!! We dressed in our best clothes and put on our backpacks to meet our new teachers and classmates. Okay, not really – we put on what was left of our non-dirty clothes, picked up our notebooks, and walked to school. The school has a very nice courtyard, rooms for focusing on studies, and a quaint kitchen where the bread, coffee, and tea are for break. In the middle of each morning we take a half hour break to consume the delicious treats and talk with all the teachers and students. The lessons are one on one and can be prepared according to each students motivation to learn. We both learned more on the past and present verb tenses, and I learned more vocabulary and general conversation. Jason learned more economic and social based conversation. On our second to last day, Jason’s teacher suggested we have a small group discussion on the social and economic situations in Guatemala. That was a very interesting and great discussion. INEPAS is located on 15a Ave 4-59 & 5 calle – t. 765.1308 www.inepas.org


Our host family!! They are wonderful! lft to rt: Ana Maria, David, Juan, Ana Maria, April, & Jason 🙂

Today we also met our host family that we will stay with for the whole week. Their house is only 20 feet away from the school, so it is an easy walk for us. 🙂 Ana Maria and Juan (aka Paco), the parents, along with their daughter Ana Maria (aka Ana) and her son David all live in the house. Also, Rosa lives in the home. She is a university student from the north of Guatemala and rents out a room from Ana Maria and Juan while she attends school. Senora Ana Maria Gutierrez de Fuentes is always welcoming guests to stay in the apartments while they are in Xela. Her address is 5a calle 14A-30, right near INEPAS, t. 7763.0237. Recommended.

Our luck with Xela’s utilities has not been too good. We found out this evening that the water in the city will be shut off for three days, starting tomorrow, while the water system is being worked on. The city was granted money by Japan to update their water system, but they had a strict deadline to complete it. We were also told that the water availability has been a problem all year. We took our last shower for a few days and hope all goes well with the work.

Dec. 12/13 – Mexico, Baja

Thursday, December 22nd, 2005

Day 133/134 – Our second week of Spanish lessons and our first time staying in the town. We said good bye for the time being to Vincent and TJ – it was really great meeting you guys! We wish you the best of luck with the ocean and will pray to the snow gods for you! Hope to run into you guys again and share some morning coffee.

We headed into town for better immersion in the language and to save a bit on gas money. The lot we are staying on is located on a hill in the south end of town. It is a small, but very nice lot with a pit toilet and a shower area that is useable once we clean them up. Jason is doing all the raking, collecting fallen palm leaves, and clearing out the utility areas. I picked up all the trash that local dogs brought onto the lot to rummage through, cleared the litter from other people, and I’ve worked on the blog 🙂


sunrise from the lot in Todos Santos.

Tuesday we were invited to Guillermo’s for dinner, a place he is house-sitting in for the winter. The house is located near the water, so we could hear the waves crashing and enjoy a nice view of the sun setting on the horizon. Three other ladies who live in Todos Santos were invited also. Suzanna is an architect that recently finished her house in Todos Santos and has started on a few other homes in the area. Araceli and her daughter Nicole were the two other ladies. Araceli manages the Todos Santos Hotel downtown and Nicole is learning as much as she can in school. We had a really good night and enjoyed meeting people from town; it made us feel more at home.