The first day of classes went pretty well. Well, I guess it was just one class that took five hours of my early daytime. I really did enjoy it. My professor is one of the most experienced teachers in the school which I could tell just by his manner of speaking which was very respectful, patient, and obviously experienced in teaching. We started out by a basic chat getting to know each other, and testing the waters as far as speaking ability in Spanish went. Starting with the most basic questions and moving on to more complicated and advanced questions. After that, I took a brief grammar quiz (which proved me me, once again, that grammar is an area I need to work on). From there we began discussing the structure of the course and how we were going to approach the following three weeks. We then, dove into the course itself. Starting with a discussion of some of the latin american literature that I've read and then we picked out two books for me to read. The first is a Guatemala testimonial about the civil war, and the second is a book by Isabel Allende. Once we came back from the school library, we started in on literary vocabulary in Spanish.
Then we had the break, where every Monday the school has their weekly event announcements and we had a short group meeting with our study abroad coordinator. Following, that meeting all the literature students met together to discuss some more the structure of the class and some of the group activities we are going to do. They are just two oral presentations, a movie, and at least one group discussion. When we got done with that meeting, my Spanish teacher and I, went back to our little wooden table to continue our class. I basically spent the last period of time reading aloud from the novel and looking up vocabulary words.
All in all it was a very good class. I am sure that I will be challenged by the course, because I will have to have intellectual conversations in Spanish for five hours everyday. Not to mention reading two books in Spanish in the next three weeks. Wish me luck!!
An update as to the homestay situation, still lovely to have my own room to relax. There is also another person living in the house, who is a young man from a rural area of Guatemala here to apprentice with a computer repair shop. The food and general experience of the house are really simple, but definitely pleasant.
This afternoon, we also had the chance to watch a really interesting documentary on a community in rural Guatemala called "Voice of A Mountain." The documentary talks about the struggle for debt free land of a group of people who got together after the war to develop an organic coffee and banana farm. Their story was very interesting, and the documentary well made. If you would like to learn more, you can visit this site: http://www.voiceofamountain.com/.
A side note: I am currently sitting in a cafe. While I have been sitting here to update this blog, there have been several small children walking into the cafe asking for money. Just a glaring reminder of privilege and inequity. :/
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