Not all I expected..

So here´s an end to my first week in Xela. For a variety of reasons, it wasn´t really a great one. Perhaps I had too high of expectations, or my experience in San Pedro was too good in comparison. In part it may be that I´m not really enjoying being in a city. My host family wasn´t all that great either, and my teacher this week wasn´t too impressive. But, I´m changing teachers (they rotate every week) and I´m switching families today as well. The family was a couple, and a friend of theirs who was renting a room in their place...it was literally right next to the school, but it was just a weird dynamic, and there were a few odd things, like the husband told me on Friday night to be back home by 10 for his peace of mind (he didnt feel that a 21 year old girl should be out that late), and their cousins were trying to make me read their religious literature... My teacher was the oldest at the school, seemed bored most of the time, and was up to go to the bathroom or get coffee every 10 minutes, haha. It was amusing but not so conducive to learning Spanish. There are also a whole lot more students at this school, and I´ve found myself speaking more English than Spanish... The activities here are all translated too, which is slightly frustrating, and really leaves me wishing for more immersion. I know the experience is what you make of it, but I think that if rural Guatemala is calling my name, I might as well go where I feel I´ll be learning the most Spanish...

I have done some neat things at the school...they have weekly soccer games with the teachers which was a blast, and yesterday we climbed up to Chicabal, a crater-lake on top of a volcano that is used for many Mam-Mayan rituals. We also went to some hotsprings at Chicovix, but they were a little old..just tubs you´d fill up in private rooms, haha

So, I´m currently in the process of re-vamping my itinerary. I plan to go back to study in San Pedro, because I feel I made a lot of progress there. But in the meantime, I do need to see other parts of Guatemala. There are a few schools I had booked for later in the trip, but since I´m leaving Xela 2 weeks early, I´ll have to see what spots they have open.

But I´ll be here in Xela another week, then heading up to the Escuela de las Montañas for two weeks...after that, I have no idea..

Also, I plan on calling a bunch of family and friends, but for some reason I can´t find any internet cafes here which have Skype and a headset that works