My original plan was to write up a weekly progress report to e-mail to Canada but the computer at the internet café would not co-operate so I finally gave up. Hopefully, now that I am back in the office, with help available, I will be luckier.
To begin, I had for sometime planned a lengthy visit to Guatemala to study Spanish. Why Guatemala (?) that itself is a long story, suffice to say it started in Whitehorse in 1996 where I met a young fellow who highly recommended the place also mentioning the cost of Spanish language courses to be very affordable. Subsequently, several other people recommended the country and especially the schools in the second city of Quetzaltenango. On a more practical level, a friend of a friend living in Quetzaltenango recommended three Spanish schools. I then checked them out on their websites and selected Instituto Centro America (ICA) - Escuela de Español, which was in the middle of the price range. The program included five hours of instruction daily with an individual teacher, a program of recreational and/or cultural events in the afternoons and weekends plus room and board with a family. All this for $ 200 (Canadian) per week!
To complete this introduction, I would like to mention the following facts about the place:
• The local name for Quetzaltenango is Xela: pronounced Shayla. This name is used throughout Guatemala for the City. Quetzaltenango is also the name for one of Guatemala’s 22 departments (provinces) and is normally used only in reference to this department.
• Xela is located in a high mountain valley at elevation 2,270 m (7,450 ft.) and the weather is cool at nights (down to 2° C) but very pleasant during the day (18-20o C).
• Xela is in an area where the majority of the population are Maya Indians.
• Xela has a population of about 500,000.
• Most of the tourists are Spanish language students studying at one of the 22 private language schools in the City!
• A curious practice common in Central America is to call the dry season, summer and the rainy season, winter. Therefore, summer in Guatemala lasts from November through May and winter from June through October contrary to the calendar definition for countries in the Northern Hemisphere!
I left Montreal on Saturday, January 4 at 6:00 a.m. via American Airlines to Guatemala City via Miami reaching there at 1:00 p.m. local time (CST). I was met at the airport by Hipolito and taken to Dos Lunas Guesthouse, a five-room establishment in the suburbs near the airport. Next morning, Sunday January 5, I traveled by Galgos Bus (tourist class!!) to Xela via the Pan American Highway. The trip took four hours with a half hour rest stop at a restaurant midway. The highway was in excellent condition as were all the major roads in the country. After arriving at Xela, I hiked the two blocks from the bus terminal to the school office to meet the Director, Enriquez Diaz, and he took me over to my “family” - the Lopez’s, whose house was a couple of blocks from the school and adjacent to the Xela Branch of Gallo Brewery!
The school was in a rather ordinary building with classrooms, or rather cubicles, arranged around a courtyard that was sunlit from 9:30 a.m. until 3:00 p.m. Classes were from 8:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. with a snack break at 11:00 a.m. Snacks of local delicacies were on sale most days, prepared by one or other of the teachers to earn a little extra pocket money. Lunch, the main meal of the day, would be at 1:30 p.m. and would be eaten at “home” with the student’s family. A program of cultural activities was organized in the afternoons and weekends.
During the first week, there were about nine students with numbers increasing by twos and threes for each of the following weeks. Except for the last week when a gang of about 24 students showed up from a U.S. college on a “semester abroad” program. The student body was very diverse with students from the U.S., Germany, Holland and Japan. The students were either recent grads or still studying for their degrees. Their motives for studying Spanish were almost as diverse as their origins, from learning Spanish for travel to preparing themselves for careers in law, medicine, social work, international trade or international development. Several anticipated that they would need to speak in Spanish fluently to effectively serve Hispanic clients in the U.S. They were a very fine group of young people and studying and traveling with them was one of the highlights of my experience in Guatemala.
My own program of study focused on two areas of language, learning the verbs - especially the numerous irregular verbs, and conversation/vocabulary acquisition. I had a different teacher each week, Irwin, Leyti, Miguel and Fernanda. We covered a lot of ground but still needed another week to tackle the subjunctive form of the verb! One of the clear benefits of this kind of program is that I was able to practice what I learned in class with my family in the evening. Other learning opportunities came about in negotiating ordinary daily chores such as, shopping, ordering meals in restaurants, dealing with folks in the Laundromat, the barbershop and the hardware store, etc. The hardware store caused me the biggest problem when I went to buy a tube of magic glue. I remembered the word for magic but forgot to look up the word for glue before going to the store! I finally got what I wanted but it took a while.
I will now mention some of the most interesting after hour activities. The first of these activities was an afternoon trip to Zunil a small town about 40 minutes by “chicken” bus from Xela. We visited a flourishing co-operative that produced woven produces for tourists and export. We also visited the shrine to San Simon a traditional Maya god whose personage has been incorporated in the popular (but not official) form Roman Catholicism. Syncretism is the word I think!
A novel adventure was a visit to the Prision de Mujeres (Women’s Prison). More correctly, this was a detention centre for mainly first time offenders awaiting their day in court. The school was providing support for the women during their period in the centre, which could last many months. Mostly it was an occasion for socializing and checking out their basketball skills. One short plump lady was amazing; she could hit the basket from just about anywhere on the court!
Another town we visited was Salajaca, which is a major traditional textile producing center. We visited a dyeing plant and weaving operation there. The oldest church in Central American is located in this place but was not open to the public since it was undergoing renovation.
We also visited Fuentes Georgina thermal springs about 10 km, beyond Zunil, where the warm waters are trapped in a swimming pool. This was a perfect way to recover after climbing to the top of a nearby ridge.
Another afternoon we walked from the outskirts of Xela to another thermal spring billed as a natural sauna. I went along for the walk but skipped the sauna experience.
On my first weekend I joined a group of other students on an ascent of Volcano Santa Maria. This was a major undertaking as it involved a climb (and return) of about 1200 m+, vertically to reach the top. We started at 6:00 a.m. from the school traveling by pickup to the beginning of the trail 5 km outside of town. A Canadian friend Graham (a.k. Felipe) also joined us. It was a steady climb of about five hours for me to reach the top (about one hour slower than the kids!) but I made it. Graham decided that he was not fit enough to follow us and turned back half way up. The view from the top was spectacular and well worth the effort. The elevation at the top was 3770 m (12,400 feet). This is similar to the highest points I reached in Nepal, but of course in Nepal that is where the mountains really start. Near the summit, the ground was frozen, in fact the condition of the trail in some areas, where the ground under foot was a combination of black mud and ice, was especially treacherous. I survived the worst, only to fall flat on my face in a section of track that was almost flat! We returned to the school at 5:30 p.m.
The other major expedition organized by the school was a daylong visit to Panajachel, arguably one of the most spectacular natural sights in the whole of Central America. Panajachel is the largest town on the shoreline of Lake Atitlan a lake trapped between an inland range of mountains and a coastal volcanic range. We were six (I think) including our guide Miguel. With Miguel’s assistance we rented a boat for the remainder of the day and cruised the lake visiting Santiago Atitlan, San Antonio and Sta. Caterina, in addition to Panajachel. We lunched at Sta. Caterina on freshly caught fish from the lake. We traveled by local buses also called “chicken” buses by trekkers, but there were no chickens. Travel by bus is amazingly cheap and we only spent about Q 12 (about $ 2.50) for 140 km of traveling to and fro.
Two other events at the school were also memorable, a conference by an ex guerilla fighter Comandante Tino and a folk dancing concert by young Mayan students.
I also arranged a few activities on my own, notably:
• A tour of El Canada Hydroelectric Development with Graham (Felipe) Seward. Of interest: the site investigation for this development was carried out by a friend and former colleague Dave Besaw, while Graham was previously in charge of the construction phase of the Trishuli Devighat Project in Nepal ( I was responsible for the design phase). It’s a small world indeed.
• An interview with an expert on Maya culture and language.
• A visit to Antigua, for a couple of days before leaving Guatemala. Antigua is a World heritage site and was, at its height, the capital of Spanish Central America. It was destroyed by a series of earthquakes during the 1700’s when the capital was relocated to present day Guatemala City. Antigua would have been very wealthy in its heyday and evidence of this are the numerous ruins mostly churches, some of which have been restored while restoration work is continuing on others.
I left Xela on Thursday, January 30 to Antigua, where I spent two days as a tourist. From there I continued to Guatemala City for my last night in the country, before leaving on February 2, for Nicaragua.
The finale of my adventures was a short visit to meet friends in Nicaragua. This trip was only for four days, but courtesy of ATDER (Asociation de trabajadores de desarollo rurale). I was able to see quite a bit of the country, mainly in the area northwest of Matagalpa. ATDER is an NGO working on small development projects in rural Nicaragua, mainly water supply and mini-hydro projects. I was able to visit a couple of their projects and to meet some folks involved in the hydro business there.
Overall, I had a most interesting and rewarding vacation and am very pleased with my progress in Spanish. My comprehension is good and conversation skills adequate to work in Spanish as an engineer, if the occasion should ever arise.
I am attaching a few pictures to complete this account. I hope you enjoy reading it.
Philip Helwig
April 6, 2003
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