Spanglish!

Alyece and Erin Say:

So we´ve been truckin through Spanish school officially for one week now and it has been extremely interesante. The four hours in the morning are for packing our brains full of info, conjugating verbs and trying to figure out whether to use ´por´ or ´para´. We are really enjoying the four hours in the afternoon which is much more relaxed: We have casual conversations and lots of fun. We both have wicked afternoon teachers, Erin´s is CLAUDIA and Alyece´s is ALVARO (or ALVARITO as he prefers ´las chicas´ to call him). For the past few days we have done activites as a group of four like playing spanish scrabble, singing spanish songs (badly) and taping names of fruits, veggies and celebreties to each others foreheads and palying 20 questions in Espanol.

We´ve been trying to speak as much Spanish outside the classroom as much as possible, which often turns into a good convo of SPANGLISH. Yesterday, Erin spoke of our friends ´Salir´ and ´Almuerzo´ which in English translate to ´to go out´ and ´i eat lunch´, when in reality their names are actually SAUL and ALVARO (we think purely in spanish verbs) Anyway, it is very apparent it´s going to be a long road ahead to learn a new language....but hopefully practice will make perfect...or at least practice will make coherent.

(Alyece explaining to Alvaro that all PELIOROJA'S are the DEVIL!!)

Speaking of Saul, hes a local ´Guatemalteco´ who we have befriended and owns a restaurant/bar in town where we´ve been hanging out often .....and working at tonight ha ha. He seems to have taken quite a liking to Erin, so much so that Alyece´s morning spanish teacher noticed when he interrupted her Spanish lesson in the morning in search of Erin - and when she was teaching Alyece the verb ´to follow´ SEGUIR, she proceeded to use the example of Saul following Alyece´s amiga to explain what the word meant. Besides the language adventure we happened to be in Antigua at a super cool time. Guatemalan Independence Day is on Monday, which is a huge deal here and the celebration began yesterday. Every day until Monday all the school kids in the whole city and surrounding towns (100s upon 100s) March through the streets in marching bands and dancing...playing some of our favorites such as ´WE WILL ROCK YOU´ and ´TEQUILA!´ Super awesome! Especially on Sunday and Monday the city will be crazy with bands, activites, a ridiculous amount of fireworks, and huge crowds in celebration. Yesterday morning the first wave of school kids paraded through town along one of the main streets where our school is, so we went out and watched for half an hour while all the kids marched by...between 4 and 18 years old. It was amazing...boy can the guatemalan kids keep a BEAT! There were even tiny little boys carrying drums bigger then themselves, sweating from the heat and still hitting every note and shaking their hips. Many of the girls did dances, twirled batons, many in high heels on the brutal uneven cobblestone streets. All in all, very impressive and cool!

Last night we realized the importance of futbol in Guatemala where is seems very important to be ´MACHISIMO´D´ out. We decided to get away from the boys for a bit and proceeded to (funnily enough) head to ´REILLYS´ the Irish Pub in town in downtown Antigua where were served a huge plate of just steamed Broccoli by a bartender from Washington State. There was something really interesting about this scenerio. ha ha ha.
Our next move is to hop a bus to a beach on the coast called Montericco with 3 other students from our school for the weekend. We´re pumped for the beach and to see the baby sea turtles hatch and possibly help them make it to the Ocean.....

Wendy and Madeline..Our Two Homestay Sisters

Until next week we love you all....hope everyone´s well!