Day Two: Must… Learn… Spanish…

Breakfast was at 7am and my Volunteer Orientation was at 8am – so I got up at around 6:15am to take a shower and get ready.

Had breakfast – fresh fruit - with the housemates – with one new addition who arrived around 11:30pm last evening.  Chelsea, 31, a half-Philippian half-American PhD student from the DC Area came here to go to Spanish school to become (more) fluent.  She was already the most fluent out of all the volunteers in the house, which she said she learned all from the last time she stayed in Guatemala for 1 month.

Then it was time to take a shower – where it took me a few minutes to figure out how to get a warm-enough shower.  They use shower heads that heat the water as it flows through it – so the faster you make the water flow, the colder it gets.  I pretty much had to set the water to almost trickle before I was comfortable with the warmth of the water coming out of the shower head.

Next, it was time for the orientation at the Maximo office – which was being led by Corinne, a girl from Ireland who just took her job with Maximo a few months ago after volunteering with them at the childcare just less than a year ago.  There I met 2 new volunteers starting the same day as myself.  Noga, a 19-year old girl (who guessed my age to be 30) from Israel, who was going to volunteer at the same childcare center as myself, and Alexis, an early-twenty-something old girl from Canada who was going to volunteer at a medical clinic.

During orientation, we learned about the shower heads, the dangers around the area, to not drink the tap water (whoops – drank half a glass last night and this morning), to not flush toilet paper down the toilet because of the low water pressure (whoops), the suggestion to wear pants that cover up your knees, and the location for Noga and I to volunteer was going to be at “Niños con Benedicion” in San Antonio every day at 2pm – 5pm, a 30-minute bus ride away from Antigua - in addition to myself confirming my minimal Spanish language skills from a test – to which I could not finish/answer more than 10-20% of the answers. 

After deciding to sign up for private 1-hour daily Spanish lessons for the week (for just US$50!), we started today’s lesson almost immediately.  My teacher, Sandra, was an older lady who was very friendly and giggly.  At one point, she asked if I was married, and I said divorced, and she did a “happy dance” – wasn’t sure how to handle that one… but I was very appreciative of her adamant personal suggestion that I do not keep anything in my back pockets, and avoid carrying valuables in my backpack (as Corinne had her backpack cut and stolen right off her back when she volunteered less than 1 year ago).

After my lessons, I knew I had to go to the super market to at least buy bottled water for drinking, as well as shampoo and soap (which I assumed would be included at the stay, but was not) and also get some cash exchanged into local currency at a bank.  During orientation, Corinne walked us around the area near the office and pointed out the “safe” banks and “safe” ATMs, the “better-than-KFC” chain, the street market area, and a super market, among others – so I knew where to go for the bank and super market.  Oddly, every single bank had long lines coming out the door.  I later learned that it was because of people, who didn’t have a bank account, cashing their paychecks at the banks on the first of the month.  So I then decided to just try the next day, and moved onto the super market where I knew they would take credit cards.

After picking up a bottled water, shampoo, and soap, I learned that the store did not accept Discovercard (the cashier looked at it funny; Discover does not have foreign transaction fees!) so I had to use my Visa – where they also asked to see my ID.

I took my time walking back to the host home to drop off the items, realizing it was another beautiful warm day in the 70s.  Antigua is a very nice town with cobblestone roads and many ruins.

After getting back to the host home, I joined my housemates for lunch at 1pm.  An old lady neighbor, a full-time massage therapist named Deet, stopped by to introduce herself to me (others had already met her at some point) – I think she was originally from the United States, but she had been living in Guatemala for 22 years so she also was fluent in Spanish.  Then I needed to leave to get back to the Maximo office by 1:50pm to meet Noga and Corinne to go visit the Childcare center in San Antonio by bus. 

 

A few things I learned from this bus ride: 1. Sellers of things – cake, candy, jewelry, cloth, etc – come onto the bus trying to sell you things before the bus leaves, 2. People will stand up giving a speech and ask for donations 3. They drive with the door completely open 4. There are stray dogs everywhere.

The childcare facility was started by a couple – Lesvi and “Tino” (Juventino) – in their back yard.  We got to meet the one and only other volunteer there - Dorothy, a mid-to-late-20s girl from Tennessee.  Since this was off-school season (school ends in October and starts back up in January), only half of the usual kids were there (approx 15 instead of 30).  The kids’ ages ranged from 4-16.

We had an opportunity to get a tour from Corinne (who had previously volunteered there before working full-time for Maximo and knew most of the kids) and also stuck around and tried to interact with the children for about an hour.  This is when my language barrier was very limiting to my abilities – since the children were doing math, there was not much I can do without knowing Spanish and it was very difficult for me to be able to squeeze in.  In some ways, it might have helped, as the kids were laughing at my strange Spanish words (and my strange name) – but as I talked more to a few of the kids, a girl had asked if I know Japanese.  Once the kids realized I can speak and (somewhat) write Japanese, they showed interest – asking me how to say certain words in Japanese, and many of them asking me to write their name in Japanese (and embarrassingly, I had forgotten how to write 2 alphabet letters!).  That got the ball rolling with the kids and I felt bad that many of them were moving away from Noga (who was fluently speaking Spanish to them, helping them with their math) and towards me.  Eventually, Noga and I decided to team up when we started teaching English – as her Spanish was fluent, and her English was her second language (although still fluent), her spelling skills were not so good (she misspelled “lollipop”).  At one point, Lesvi also noticed in my “info sheet” that I was a “Computer Engineer” (Couldn’t find a better term in Spanish) and asked if I would help the kids tomorrow with the computers – to which I obviously agreed. I also learned that none of the kids were orphans – most of them have single parents who can’t afford much, and some of them live with grand parents or another foster parent.  These are the kids you see on TV commercials that have/need sponsors.

Before we left around 4pm, a few of the kids were comfortable showing some affection, and we all got hugs from a few before leaving back to Antigua.  That was a good sign to me that the kids were warming up, even to the guy who can barely understand them!

Noga and I later talked about possible curriculum and game ideas at the Maximo office after getting back.  I plan on incorporating teaching Japanese to the kids since they seemed so interested.

What have I learned today?  1. I’m frustrated that my Spanish is not good – I can tell that my experience (and ability to give back) would be significantly better if my Spanish was better – my un-comfort comes largely from the language barrier, and  2. I get the vibe that I am going to enjoy the kids – and that I’ll want to come back to do the same thing, except next time with much better Spanish abilities.

Bed time.  Breakfast at 7am.  Private Spanish lessons at 9-10am tomorrow.  Need to somehow get cash from the bank or ATM for the bus.  Then “full-time” volunteer work at the childcare from 2-5pm starting tomorrow!  I had to ask Olga if she could move lunch time to 12 or 12:30pm because I had to get to the bus stop around 1:30pm for my volunteer work.  I think that was the first time I attempted to speak a full Spanish sentence to her, but she understood and agreed.  I think.  We’ll see.