Journal #3

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Only one more day and we will have finished our first week of clase de espanol. No one said it would be easy but I have caught on better than I thought I would. Carlos (mi maestro – my teacher) and I can carry on simple conversations using the verbs I know already. It makes you feel like you have accomplished something. I told him today all the names of my and Shelly’s family in Espanol. How about that?

Our day usually consists of getting up at 6 am, getting dressed and eating breakfast with our family at 7:15. We then pack up our bags and head to school to start class at 8 am. We finish at 12:00 noon and then take a small walk around Antigua and head back to our house for lunch at 1 pm. We have just finished lunch which consisted of rice, chicken, pudding, corn on the cob and pineapple juice. It was good. We usually spend the afternoons studying for 2 hours, emailing at our school and playing with Tristan.

Tonight we are going to a coffeehouse near our school called “Higher Grounds” for a Bible study at 6:00 pm. We shall see what that is like. Our supper will be at 7:30 pm and we usually sit around the dinner table and talk to our family in Spanish. Great practice. We head to bed around 9:00 pm to get enough sleep for the adventures of the next day. We are pretty predicable now and that makes getting used to Antigua a little better.

Antigua is a very historic city in Central America. We went to a history lesson on it two days ago and learned of all the political leaders who succeeded and failed and the beautiful historical churches, government buildings and such that have lasted well over several hundred years. The streets are made of cobblestone which makes driving seem very bumpy. They seem to manage even though there are not that many vehicles.

Tomorrow we plan to go with our school to a Macadamia nut farm just outside town. That should be interesting. It is said to be really nice out there. We learned the other day that Hollywood is shooting a movie here. It is called “Looking for Palladin.” We have seen them filming just down the street from our school. We have not seen any movie stars we recognize but we will have to wait until it comes out to see what it is about. We should recognize some of the scenery since it is in our neck of the woods.

The mosquitoes are getting better at night since we bought the coils at the supermarket. They seem to drive them out of the room. That is something we will have to deal with on a regular basis here and in Honduras. We might as well get used to it.

It has been encouraging to get so many emails from so many different people checking up on us and sharing what is going on with them. That is our entertainment for the day. We have no idea what is happening in the world right now besides us studying Espanol. If anything major happens, please let us know. We could have a major meteor heading right for us and we would be clueless. That may be a good thing.

Speaking of that, we had an earthquake last night. It is very common in Antigua due to the volcano just outside of town which is currently erupting (even though you can not tell). That’s what the professionals say. We did not feel it but it happened around 2:00 am this morning and Maria asked us if we felt it when we came to breakfast. Neither of us did. My teacher asked me about it also. The last major destructive earthquake happened in 1976 and destroyed many of the buildings here. They tore many buildings down after that and only built buildings with 2 stories. Nothing goes beyond there in the town now. I never recognized that until the history lady at school told us that fact the other day.

We are trying to put some pictures on our blog so all of you can see where we are and what our room looks like. It is giving me some problems but I will keep on trying.

Chad