1/18/09
We survived the first week of school. My mind was swimming all week and felt very vacio (empty). We came home very tired every day and took a nap after supper. Supper is the main meal of the day for us which we eat at 1:30 pm. We like our teachers and the school.
On Friday afternoon we took a tour and walked to the chocolate factory. The walk crossed town was nice but the chocolate factory tour was sort of a dud. There was no tour of the factory just videos at the chocolate café and the videos were not that great. We did get to try some chocolate which was good. Bought a few blocks of chocolate which is going fast. Its sort of like Mexican chocolate but better.
Saturday we went to central park which was nice and walked around that area looking at the people and buildings. We were not planning to buy anything but ended up buying 2 carved flutes for about $15, now we are trying to play them. We really like the native weaving and will buy some before we leave Xela.
We also walked around the central market a little bit. I want to go back and explore the market more it is so neat to see all the people and the stalls. A lot of women still wear the traditional Mayan dress with all their colors. Apparently each town has its own collar on the shirts so the locals can tell where someone is from.
Today we attended the Ward closer to us, but Alicia and Shannon had to leave earlier as Shannon is fighting a cold. This Ward was not as friendly as the other which I think is due to its size I estimated there were at least 120 adults or teens about twice as big as the other Ward. But this Ward is the closest about 13 minutes away.
We are tiring to get mentally ready for the coming week. I keep telling the kids to think one day at a time, that’s how I will get through the Spanish school. Its not easy. I have enough problems with English especially grammar. They talk about verbs and nouns and after that I really don’t know what they are talking about..
John