Half Done

This weekend marks the midpoint of my Guatemalan adventure. Seven days ago, I was just arriving in Xela after a quick weekend as a tourist in Antigua, meeting my hosts and unpacking. In seven more days, I’ll be having Father’s Day dinner with my grandfather in Miami. While I’m very glad I’m here, I admit I am looking forward to going home.

The school part of my stay has been great so far. My teacher, Pablo, does a great job of talking, getting me to talk, correcting me enough that I learn but not so much that I give up in frustration, and getting in the grammatical points that are in our curriculum. He’s also a really interesting person, and we have things in common—it would be nice if we could have a conversation in a language we both spoke comfortably.

I have mixed feelings about the homestay component. On the one hand, I have two more people that I talk to every day, and they too are interesting people. And the cost of accommodation doing it this way is insanely low. Por otro lado, I don’t really have that much to say to Maria and Eduardo; we don’t have much in common. In a strange way, staying in someone’s home, but not really interacting with them except at mealtimes, is more lonely that being on my own in a hotel room. On balance, I think I’m glad I’m doing a homestay, if for no other reason than that it has forced me to interact with two more Guatemalans besides Pablo. But if I do it again, I’ll probably choose to spend a little more money for a hotel room with an internet connection.