11-18-05
I made it to Antigua and found a place that my friend Bill used last year to go to school and study Spanish. It is a small school not far from a church square on a main street through this small town. The road is all cobble stone and they have seemed to make it as rough as possible. It is really funny to hear the cars and trucks go down it. The newer ones go down it just fine but the older ones really make a racket with the shocks banging and loose parts flapping.
The school is called Probigua and I will give the address here in case anyone else coming down this way wants to take a week or two of classes.
Probigua
6A Avenda Norte No 41B
La Antigua, Guatemala

The deal is that I am taking four hours of one on one lessons for a week and I stay with a family just down the street and eat three meals a day with them. On Sunday I am on my own for food but I will be able to stay here. I have my own room with nice bed and electrical plug in which makes it nice to have, to run the little damn computer. There is a shower and toilet just down the hall. The place is really cool look inside a home here. It is essentially a building along one wall that is open on the other side. It has sort of a porch effect with bedrooms along the wall with open space that is roofed partly. The table is at one end and there is a door arrangement that leads to the kitchen and toilet area at the far end. I looked out back and there is a little garden back there. I might try to take a photo as I find this is really hard to write a description of it. It is ‘the photo is worth a thousand words’. I have a key to get into the front door and a key for a small wooden box in my room that I can have my important stuff in. in a way it is funny as someone who wanted to take important stuff could just take the box but it is here for my sense of comfort that the people who live here wont go through my stuff. I certainly am not worried about that as they are really nice people and as the guy at the school said they are all families of middle class that take in their boarders. I have my passport and some money in it now. I guess I could have it in my saddlebags on the bike too but the bike will be locked up for the weekend in the building and I wont be able to get in to it.
I had to go down to the main square, which is about four blocks away where the banks are to get some money to pay for the school. They were ready to take US dollars too and the price was $100 for the school at four hours a day and $65 for the board and room / week. It worked out to 1275 or something like that in their units of currency, which are Quetzals. I was having a hell of a time trying to get the atm machine to accept my card when I noticed that a woman in the room that was trying to use the other machine got the guy with the machine gun to help her get hers going. I asked him too and he pushed the card in and gave it a hard push then and sure enough it popped up. I made a mistake right away and had to do it again but I finally got the cash. Dang thing didn’t read in English like some do and you have to guess. I found it interesting that it would pay me in dollars or the quetzals. I understand that these machines give the best exchange rate but they do take a fee for the transaction so I think a person needs to take large enough amounts to make it worthwhile. I tried a bank in Mexico when I first got there and only got about five bucks and it probably cost me two or three dollars to get it, in \fees but at least I learned that it did work in Mexico as I didn’t want to get down too far and find out that it didn’t work. I have other cash stashed in other places and only hope I am able to find it if needed. I think I do remember where I stashed my credit card and other debit card. Having to worry about keeping track of passport, title, credit and all the border stuff is really frustrating and somewhat scary when you realize you are really screwed if you loose it.

I spent the first day in class today and I can tell you that I feel like I am going to fail big time on this project. I cant seem to remember anything even after I look at it written. I sure hope I get better at it as it goes along. Everyone is saying that one week is a good start but a person really needs two weeks. But then again those that are saying it are getting money from the other week too. I’ll just have to see how I feel about it in a week. I think I did notice it was slightly easier to understand the words that she was saying. The lady’s name I have for a teacher is Myrna and I think she pronounces it mean-ya. It is really hard for me to hear the inflection of the words with a female voice as well as the foreign language. I had asked if there was one of the teachers that was male which might help me but they said that all the teachers are female.
It is really interesting when in the morning we all showed up for class. There was a group of Anglo looking people standing around the hot water pot with coffee and tea available and the Guatemalan women teachers all gathered together. When I walked up to the Anglo group they almost avoided me and completely ignored me. When I see Anglos on the street I get the same reaction and I finally figured out that I am just not that scary looking and the reason is that they are all city folk and they are trained to not make eye contact and stay away from strangers. I finally forced myself on one poor bastard and said ‘como se llamo’ or what’s your name. He did answer me and he did so in very halting Spanish and then switched to English with a foreign accent. It turns out he is German and I think is with another student who is a woman. He sure didn’t want to talk so I guess I am going to be forced to talk only with my teacher who speaks some English.