La escuela de la Montaña

Dear Debbie,

I spent my first week of language school up in the rural mountains at a school on an old Coffee Finca. Today I am headed back up there for two more weeks of peaceful relaxing study. Es muy tranquilo.

Algunos photos de la escuela

This is the front porch, used for relaxing, studying and drinking beer.

These are two of the ranchitos where we have our classes outside under the little thatched huts during the afternoon rain storms.

The school is of course small and intimate. I quickly got to know the 9 other students and all 5 teachers, much more so than at the larger school in Xela. The small size of the two local communities that work with the school makes the impact of the escuela very apparent. Once a week a noche cultural is held in an old barn for the children. This basically consits of playing games involving one person being IT and trying to get someone else to be IT. Ejemplo- the first game was everyone sitting in a circle in chairs, facing in with one extra empty chair. The joven who was IT tries to sit in the empty chair but the kids in the circle keep moving one chair over, trying to fill it and so the empty chair moves around the circle. If IT manages to sit down, the person in the chair to the right is now IT. This reminds me of an inside out musical chairs. Another game we played consisted of IT secretly picking a veggie or fruit and asking people around the circle to guess it. But you don't want to be correct, because if you guess right you get a small glass of water thrown in your face and you become it. The prize that now you get to toss water on someone. The secretness of the chosen fruit gives the water holder an awful lot of power. During one round a compañero de classe guessed Piña and did not get wet but about three guesses later I heard una chica guess Piña as well, getting herself a faceful of water.

Muy divertido.

Love y Amor,

Kristin

¡Guate!

Dear Debbie,

You can all rest assured, I made it- no problems.

Different tourists stand out in their out of place outfits on every courner here. The buildings come right up to the cobble stones streets and hide ruins or beautiful little courtyards. For all that there are many people around, it doesn´t feel like walking in a crowd.

I dumped my bags at the Black Cat Hostel and just wondered around the city today, I kinda spiraled out from the central park, turning anyway I felt like and then turning again. The shops and restaurants smell like old wood when I pass the open doors. This place is for getting my feet wet. While most people at the hostel speak english, I did learn two knew words today while looking for something.

Wondering into a couple of shops, with some difficulty I managed to explain/pantimime what I was looking for. At the third shop, the young man wrote down for me that I was looking for a condado, and told me I could get it at a Ferreteria and pointed one out down the street.

The Ferreteria was closed and I had another conversation with the shop owner next door about some knitting needles. I asked if she knew about a condado and if the shop was open. She said yes its open. But it looked closed. Oh, because its 1pm, she told me. Of course they will be back later.

Now my real question: I need size 3.25mm (and size 3.75 which I have already) for my knitting project, the shop only had 3mm and 3.5 mm... do I keep looking or try up a size or down a size?

All my love,
Kristin