San Jose

After mum and dad left I caught the bus back around the lake to San Jose. The bus (either a minibus or "chicken bus") leaves from the market in Santa Elena which is the commercial centre for Flores on the other side of the causeway. A 45min-1 hour trip, it costs 5 quetzales, which is less than a dollar. On the other hand, there are usually between 20 and 25 people to a 10-15 seater minibus and the road is almost entirely unmade.
Back in San Jose, Antonio the schools owner signed me up and I was shown to my family. Ana and Noe and their three sons (plus an assortment of other family who also live in the same area) live up the hill (a very steep one at that) from the town's central square. I have a separate apartment (shanty, whatever you want to call it) out the front. It has two small bedrooms and a kind of living area with a couple of chairs, a hammock and lots of photos etc. My room has a window, a bed (if you can call it that, it's only marginally more comfortable than the floor, which would be less lumpy, but as it is earthen, rather impractical for sleeping on), a pillow (see "bed"), a fan and a table.

My Street

Ana and Noe are very nice, but a little difficult to talk to because they are reluctant to ask questions of me (this make conversations rather difficult). Ana provides me with three meals a day, two of which I generally end up eating by myself. Only the men in the family eat in the dining room and except for dinner they keep different hours than I. For the most part I have been having some kind of corn cereal with hot powdered (and very sweet) milk and either fresh fruit or juice for breakfast. For lunch and dinner it is generally chicken with either rice, beans or cabbage (or some combination of the above), plus tortillas by the bucket load. By the time I return home I think I will run at the site of corn or any derivative thereof!!

My House

I start classes at 8am (except Sunday, my day off), and the school is literally on the other side of town (ironically I live right next door to San Jose's other Spanish school). My fifteen minute walk to school takes me down the steep hill to the centre of town, along the beach front and back steeply up the other side of town. Even at 8am in the morning I am generally sweating heavily by the time I get there, it is constantly humid here. My teacher is Antonio, the school's owner. He is very conscientious and knows enough English to make the learning a little easier (he can't string words together but can translate the basic verbs). In my first two days I covered almost everything that I have covered in all my other courses combined.

My Room (pieced together)

esterday we took a break and managed to make conversation for almost an hour with not too much difficulty. Each afternoon I have had an activity organised by the school. At the current point in time the school only has three students, two Norwegian girls and myself. Nonetheless Antonio organises activities for us. On Thursday Emilio, the school's tour coordinator) walked us up to San Jose's botanical gardens. They were established by a collective of the town's women (the town's population is predominantly Mayan, Emilio included), who now market the garden's medicinal crops. Emilio demonstrated not only an excellent knowledge of the uses of all the plants and trees, but managed to convey this information to we who understand very little Spanish.

The "sitting room"

On Friday we rode the schools bikes 4 kilometres out of town to the ruins of the Mayan of Mortul. The ruins are almost entirely unexcavated, but the plazas and some of the larger temples have been cleared and some of the stellaes unearthed. Once again Emilio demonstrated an excellent knowledge and expert delivery, making the trip most interesting. Yesterday Saturday, we hopped on the bus back to Santa Elena and walked to the Ac'tun Ka caves on the outside of the village. Emilio explained how some of the features had come to get their names and how the Maya used each of the chambers.

The View

The other event of note was the 15th birthday of Ana's niece yesterday. Fifteen is the significant number for girls who go from being Niñas to being Señoritas, its kind of a coming of age. On Friday night Ana came and warned me that due to the birthday celebrations they may let off firecrackers at 6 or 7 in the morning. Oh, very early I said, but no problem. No matter I thought to myself, my bladder has usually woken me up by then anyway and it was nice of her to warn me so I didn't think my house was being invaded. The next morning I awoke to the voices of people outside my bedroom. It was still dark and I rolled back over to go to sleep figuring the firecrackers would wake me before breakfast time. Just as I dozed back off the firecrackers started up. Despite the fact I was expecting them I still nearly jumped clean out of my bed. I looked at my clock to discover the party had started early - it was ten to four. For about ten minutes the firecrackers continued to nearly deafen me until they stopped and I figured they were out. Just as I was dozing off a second surprise awoke me. This time it was a stereo playing vocal birthday music accompanied by accordion as loud as the stereo would go. In my opinion the accordion has very little place in today's world during daylight hours, at four am it has no place whatsoever! To make matters worse whoever was in charge of the stereo favoured only three songs, which were played over and over. At a couple of points the stereo stopped and people sang (those three songs) instead. Each time the music quietened and I started to doze off once again, more firecrackers were let loose and I was brought violently back to consciousness. As I got up to shower at quarter to seven the music stopped!

I spent most of the day at school and visiting the caves, but it was clear that Ana and Noe were expecting many guests. On Thursday two large pigs had been slaughtered and on Friday they were butchered and set to marinate. The butchering was done outside my room, but much to my surprise/relief it didn't smell anywhere near as bad as I expected it to. When I returned home around dinnertime the same three songs were being repeated over and over, every time someone changed the music, the same songs were quickly put back on. Thankfully the party made up in part for its early beginning by coming to a conclusion early enough for me to catch up on some sleep. This morning I hopped on the bus once again (with 23 other people) and bumped into Santa Elena. I wandered around the market for about an hour. It is quite an impressive size, probably bigger than the Queen Vic, but it is difficult to tell because it winds through tiny passageways that often come to dead ends or emerge into obscure back streets. The array of goods on offer is dazzling, including an assortment of food, much of which I don't recognise (in many cases this may be because it doesn't even have a name in English). Also on offer is every personal and household good imaginable as well as a dazzling assortment of imitation American brand clothing for about 0.50c apiece. Despite the fact Antonio is an excellent teacher and San Jose is a beautiful town I think I will leave on Wednesday or Thursday. I am finding it a little lonely only having people to talk to during class (due to my difficulty extracting conversation from Noe and Ana) and the humidity is starting to wear on me. I have a syllabus and approval for credit from Melbourne Uni for a school in Quetzaltenango (Xela), which is in the highlands about 14hours bus ride from here. I've read that a lot of the Spanish schools in Xela contribute to community clean water supply programs so I think I'll investigate that. The weather there is supposed to be a little more pleasant and, probably to the detriment of my Spanish, there will be more gringos to talk to!