Civilians and Chocolate

For starters, let me just express that chocolate has been the theme of today.

This morning, after a couple hours of class we had the typical break period. We decided to go on a search for chocobananas, which are, exactly what the name makes them sound like they are.... chocolate covered frozen bananas. We brought our loot back to the Spanish school, and then went back to class full of deliciousness.

For me, class was poetry analysis practice. Ripping apart poems for the sake of literary understanding is not really my favorite activity, I´d prefer to do such things to novels. However, I am learning to appreciate it more. The other day we had a visitor in our literature class (everyone has their own teacher, but there are three of us taking literature). He was one of the few Guatemalan poets that has really made a name for himself within the community, though, most Guatemalans don´t read often.... so a lot of people know him as the poet but have never read any of his poems (or any other poems for that matter). Anyway, the class is pretty interesting and full of relearning literary analysis. This time in Spanish.

After class, we all went back to our homes for lunch with our host families. Then, we came back to the school for a presentation given by one of the teachers at the Spanish school about his experience during the war. His testimony or talk was one of the most politically balanced that we have heard all semester. Talking from personal experience of how people he knew had been killed and how he avoided the mandatory military service and became a teacher. He also told us his viewpoint on the use of arms and war in general. Neither side ever has clean hands after the war is over. Which was kind of interesting, as the end of my class I sort of had an outburst of frustration about war and the purpose of it all. The context was the book, "Retrato en Sepia" by Isabel Allende, I was reading and talking about the war in Chile during the 1800s. But the frustration was universal. We talked it through but the whole idea of a justified war just is not easily processed through my mind. Nor do I think it should be.

But back to chocolate, we went after the meeting to a really neat coffee and chocolate shop for community night tonight, which is our weekly bonding time as a whole group. I got a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate, which was delicious. And to think, I once did not like chocolate! After we left, we went to this new  eclectic store slash cafe, where I got a vegan brownie with chocolate moose. I wasn´t going to get anything there but it looked so delicious!

So basically, that was my day. Not the most exciting ever, but this weekend to come will surely be worth writing home about! Details to come after the fact, for security reasons.