A Typical Day

After almost six weeks in the city, we CASAS students have developed a pretty regular daily routine. Even though I use the word regular, there are generally plenty of things that happen on a daily basis to remind me that this experience is like no other in my life thus far.

I have stopped waking up with the roosters and firecrackers, and now drag myself out of bed a few minutes after six. Learning a new language takes more mental energy than I ever could have imagined! If there is water available I shower, but if not I use the cold water out of a large basin in my family´s partially exposed sink area. My mother usually has a simple breakfast of beans, eggs, and sometimes pancakes ready for me at six thirty. After picking up the other students in my area, we are lucky to catch a factory bus a little after seven. I say lucky because when we first board the bus it is packed to the ceiling, but five blocks down the street the entire bus will empty as almost everyone on these morning buses is an employee of one of the large ¨fabricas¨in the neighborhood. After that we´re able to enjoy our own seats, which is lucky because we generally ride bus number 1 for about 40 minutes. We catch the second bus around 8 and get to CASAS around eight thirty, just in time for our first session of morning classes.

During class, Fjaere and I practice new vocabulary, reflexive verbs, indirect objects, and other grammar with our teacher Abigail. Although I'm not a huge fan of her teaching style, we get to do fun things like take trips around the city, watch movies, play games, cook, etc...all in Spanish of course. We eat lunch on site at the school after four hours of Spanish instruction. It's wonderful because everything is made from scratch on site, and we get delicious, fresh corn tortillas with almost every meal. I've really grown to love those things.

Afternoons are spent with the 9 other CASAS students either catching up in internet cafes, exploring the city, or taking little field trips to places like women´s cooperatives, museums, forensic anthropology centers, and other sites of cultural or historical importance. It´s one of my favorite parts of the program, and I feel I´m getting a very well-rounded idea of the current state of affairs in Guatemala. This program is geared almost specifically toward college students earning college credit, which sadly doesn´t apply to me at all. I think if I could do it over again I would have selected a more flexible program.

We catch the bus home around 4 or 5 in the afternoon and are lucky to get home about an hour later. I spend about an hour hanging out in the small living room of my family´s home doing homework with my little brothers. My mom usually has dinner ready around 7, and I´m generally famished. During dinner I pretty much just sit by while my family talks to each other at warp speed, but honestly after a long day of trying to speak Spanish my brain is fried. Sometimes we watch TV after dinner, usually the Guatemalan equivalent of E! or telenovelas. It´s actually really good for practice and learning sentence structure. After that it´s bedtime. Being here has kind of turned me into an old woman. Come 9 pm I can´t wait to crawl into bed. I barely even have those minutes to lay in bed and consider the day and the one to come before I´m out until 6 am.