Xela

Right now we´re in the middle of the Xela portion of our trip. The sun wakes me up at around 730 every morning and by 8 katy and I are off exploring the city until noon. The city is quaint and I feel safer walking around here than in Guatemala. Everything is within walking distance, and our school is a 30 second walk from the city center, which is a beautiful park surrounded by old colonial looking museums, banks and restaurants. The winding streets are lined with strings of brightly colored houses, each distinguishing where they begin and end with crisp colors of blues, oranges, pinks, and greens. The city is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes, and on a clear day, you can see them boldly stand against a bright blue sky.

After lunch with our host families, we head back to Sakribal to begin our 5 hour long one on one Spanish classes. We speak in Spanish with our teachers who speak no english, and get subjuntivo and direct and indirect objects drilled into our conversations over and over until they seep into our brains and make our heads spin. Yesterday we took a needed break from class with our teachers to visit a weaving coop that supports the indigenous women of surrounding villages, and then we climbed to the top of a hill to overlook the city as the sun began to set.

After class finishes at 7, katy and I hussle back to our street in the dark. The twenty minute walk is the most tense part of our day, as catcalls and dark alleys cause us to quicken our steps, clutch our bags, and be alert.

We live on the same street 6 houses apart, and after dinner, I can run to Katy´s to flop on her bed and watch TV. Our families live on the same street, but seem worlds apart. My family bathes with buckets. I get fed bread and honey for breakfast, a hotdog and cucumbers for lunch, and soup for dinner. My family makes meat twice a week, and so far my hotdog has been the only meat I have tasted. My door has no lock and doesn´t close, so I have to tie it shut with a ribbon. The front door of the house also doesn´t close, and has a padlock on the inside in order to open and close it, meaning someone always has to be home to let others in or out of the house. Katy´s room has a bathroom with a shower, 3 couches, a tv, and a dvd player. She eats big delicious meals every day, and her mom makes me extra pancakes when she finds out that my breakfast was 2 tortillas and some cheese.

Overall, I love this city. It makes me nostalgic for Granada, Nicaragua and the experience I had there. I sometimes wish I could just stay here for the whole summer, or hop a plane back to Granada and live there.

This trip has been so different than anything else I have done because it comes at a time of complete transition. I have nothing holding me back right now. Nothing is on pause back home. I don´t have a job that I am taking a vacation from. I don´t have an undergraduate education to go back to. I don´t have an apartment that I am going home to. My undergraduate life has ended, and my life as a corps member has not yet begun. I can really just be here. In the moment. Living now. Everything else seems so far away. And, while I know that in a few short weeks I will be on whisked back to reality, right now I can just enjoy the fact that I am here and having an amazing experience.