Follow the Lion!!

Well, my first day of class went well. It was mostly conversing in Spanish for all four hours, but I seemed to have that initial rush of adrenaline and beginners luck and mysteriously was able to recall a lot of Spanish. So, I didn’t sound too hesitant speaking it…I just jumped right back in to it. But, as my instructors were kind enough to point out, there are some things we need to review. So, today, we started a thorough review of the main past tense of Spanish verbs.

My instructors this week are Ety and Aura whom I have learned are both two of the best teachers in the school…and they really are…they have lots of patience in correcting all of my numerous grammatical and vocabulary mistakes (especially when I pull out words from my “Spanglish” dictionary). It seems to me that they are also very adept at keeping up my confidence level despite my own frustrations when I can’t remember something. That’s invaluable!

Yesterday I finished reading (actually read the last 80% of) Prince Caspian from the Chronicles of Narnia. I probably shouldn’t have read that much in English in one day while I’m in school to learn Spanish, but I had the book and once the story got going, it was hard to stop. (Yes, kids, always follow the lion!...read the story if you don’t understand this). My instructors were not too upset at me this morning when they asked me to explain what I did yesterday (which is a common teaching method for the first part of class to generate discussion in Spanish). At least I made good use of it when I explained parts of the story to them in Spanish. They were happier about that.

Some observations on Antigua: As I mentioned earlier, this is somewhat a time of celebration around Antigua for Corpus Christi. The lighter side of this is how Antiguans celebrate. Pretty much at all hours of the day you can hear an occasional mortar type firework going off somewhere in the city. Today, right below our school in the building next door, someone set off a series of bottle rocket firecrackers which were exploding just above the level of our school building. A few minutes later, they set off a string of cohetes (which are actually Fr. Mike Denk’s favorite things here in Antigua…at least they were before he was ordained). These are the type of firecrackers you just light on the ground outside in the street and they go off in a rapid series of pops and booms for about 30 or 40 seconds. It scares the heck out of everyone around and usually sets off a few car alarms. Anyway, that happened during class this morning so there was a little excitement mid-morning.

Mom would be shocked to learn that I have been getting up at 6:00AM. Breakfast here is around 7:00AM and so I’d have to be up that early anyway, but I’m up at six in part because my homestay is situated on the middle of a street between two churches. They both have real bell towers and they both start using them at 6:00AM for the Angelus and then to warn people that there’s ½ hour to go before the 6:30AM Mass. I think it’s great because I don’t even need my alarm clock. If the bells weren’t enough, then the dogs barking and birds chirping & squawking, and the trucks coming into the market, etc. at this hour would also do the trick. I’ve noticed that Antigua is probably louder at 6:00AM than it is right after lunch because people here do make use of the siesta! In my opinion, all cultures should have a siesta hour (or at least ½ hour)…that should be no surprise coming from a seminarian.

Well, there’s not much coming up this week. No plans at the moment for the weekend. I think all four of us from Cleveland have signed up to learn how to make a traditional Guatemalan dish. This little cooking lesson is scheduled for tomorrow. On Thursday, we’re all going to watch a movie in Spanish about a child growing up during the civil war in Guatemala. That should be interesting.

The only other thing I can mention at the moment is my awe of David DeJesus’ ability to get around Antigua. David keeps buying bread from Doña Luisa’s and today made a record run there and back during our short mid-morning break today! As a result of this and other such food operations, David has become the best friend of the school’s security/maintenance man because he keeps giving him all of his extra snacks.