Week 1

My first week in Xela was educational and exciting.

Classes at Juan Sisay went well, as I began to review everything I had spent 5 years learning and 6 years forgetting! Classes run from 8am to 1pm and optional extra-curricular activities are scheduled for most afternoons and weekends.

Some highlights:

TUESDAY
Tuesday afternoon we went to a high school to speak English with the students there to provide them with an opportunity to practice their second language. The school is a technical school, so most of the boys (most of the students are boys) are training to be engineers of some sort. It was fun to speak English with them and it gave me a quick taste of what teaching English might be like...It was also a nice reprieve from practicing my Spanish all the time!

THURSDAY
Thursday afternoon we travelled to Olintepeque, a village on the outskirts of Xela, to visit Saint Pascual Bailon. A deity revered in the Mayan religion, but declared a Saint to appease the Catholic population as well....Saint Pascual Bailon is a curious thing: a miniature skeleton that was discovered in the ground (we're talking about 4 inches tall in total). Apparently it's been scientifically proven, at least by scholars from a university in Mexico, that the skeleton is indeed made of bone, and not the skeleton of any kind of animal aside from human beings...A bit hard to grasp the concept...but hey, that's religion I guess...There's a shrine inside a small church dedicated solely to Pascual Bailon. The tradition is to burn candles of various colors in order to ask Pascual Bailon for various gifts - good luck for travel, work, health, and even death. You can wish death upon someone (usually in the case that they are very ill) or pray for Pascual Bailon to guard against death. Each color candle signifies a different request. I burned a yellow one.
yellow - general well-being, particularly for women
white - health
black - death
red - love
blue - studies
light blue - travel
purple - work for prostitutes!
green - money
Once your request has been granted, you're supposed to return to the altar and dance in front of the deity.
After the visiting the Saint, we bought candies at the fair (related to the annual celebration of Pascual Bailon), played foosball and video games, and helped out some pre-med students with a survey they were taking about junk food. No doubt we skewed their data!
This picture is of the store right outside the chapel where you can purchase your candles...Of course you can notice the Pepsi refrigerator to the left!!

FRIDAY
Friday night was the weekly dinner and graduation of students at the school. We were to dress in at least one piece of traditional Guatemalan clothing....either something borrowed from a 'family member' or something we purchased. When I mentioned this 'task' to my 'mom', Lety, she got super-excited and told me I could borrow an entire outfit from our housekeeper, Miriam. That night prior to the dinner, Lety and Miriam helped me get all dressed, put makeup on me, and braided my hair. I learned that the clothing varies - in shape, color and designs - among villages and cities. There are over 300 distinct styles of dress. My clothing is from Conception Tutuapa in San Marcos. I'm wearing a cinta, or ribbon, in my hair. Other, longer cintas have 'poofballs' on the end. Worn on the right side indicates you're single, on the left, you're taken....like at home, when you wear a flower in your left or right ear. You can see women wearing outfits such as mine on a daily basis in all cities and villages in Guatemala.
....Later that night, I came home to join my family in preparing 330(!!!) tamales to take to the town fair in Olintepeque the next day.