Spanish and People

With all of the fun excursions I’ve been taking the time to have while in Guatemala, I’ve received a few emails asking if I’ve even been succeeding in learning Spanish (which was, after all, my motive for going to Central America in the first place). Well, my Spanish learning went very well – largely, I believe, in thanks to the syntactical similarities of the Spanish language to French, and thanks to my acute auditory learning skills, honed from spending the last two years learning the orally communicated local languages of Togo. By the end of my first week, I was able to understand the gist of stories my host mom would tell me over meals. By the end of my second week I was able to respond to such stories, ask questions about them, and hold basic conversations with people in the streets. And by the end of my fourth week, I felt comfortable navigating the city on my own, and my school assessed my level of Spanish to be at the intermediate level. Personally I think that was a very generous estimation, but I certainly feel as if I gained a good grasp of the basics of the language – enough, at least, to allow me to continue to learn at a fairly rapid rate if I have continued exposure to the language. In this sense, I definitely feel as if the trip was a success. I have to say... it felt pretty good to be able to explain a whole customs form to a Spanish speaker who didn't speak a lick of English on the airplane back to the States!

I am also grateful for this trip for the very dear friends I made while on it. As I mentioned in a previous entry, one of my favorite parts of traveling is meeting people from all over the world. On this particular trip to Guatemala, my closest friends ended up being from countries including Guatemala, Germany, Belgium, England, Norway, and Canada. How neat to leave a foreign country with invitations to visit other ones!
My dear Spanish teacher, Amanda
My good friend from Germany, Sanne, with whom I went on most of my hikes
My friends from Belgium
My good friends from Norway - who I will be meeting up with in New York next week - and then maybe in Norway in January!
Me and my kids at the orphanage for children affected by cerebral palsy, where I volunteered
My host mom, Chiqui, and her granddaughter Sophie

In sum, I had a fantastic month. Now I just have to figure out when I can travel next! I’m thinking Haiti....