I think right now might be the perfect opportunity to throw
out a blanket apology for the promises of communication that I made before I
left for my first year of teaching. Here’s my new promise:
I hereby swear that when the lessons are planned and the
papers are graded, a good night’s sleep has been accomplished and my body is caffeinated,
I will tell all the tales of my life in Guatemala. Should those circumstances
fail to arise (and fail to arise they will), I hereby promise to write on my
blog when I decide to blow off work and take a little while to dote on my inner
author.
Signed, sealed, delivered, done.
Now, three months of life in Guate has gone by in a blink.
Balancing seven different curriculums with no preexisting materials, well, let’s
just say that I work a lot. But I’ve always heard that you’ll spend your first
year of teaching in tears and I’ve only cried like four times so take that first year of teaching. Booyah sucka.
I’ll cover the basics for you:
1. Home base:
Antigua Guatemala is the town of misfit toys. With
cobblestone streets and colonial architecture, many an expat goes on an “eat,
pray, love” mission and end up never leaving Antigua. We still get a lot of
tourists – which means that life is a little more expensive and there’s a lot
of men who are dying to sell you a foam iguana tied to a wire string – but it
also has a pretty interesting underbelly of locals and expats. For right now,
it’s easy. My rent is cheap, the view is good, and I don’t need a car. I’m
still planning to move before the end of the school year, but the bars here are
gringo-y enough that I can catch an Auburn football game each Saturday. Which
if that isn’t enough reason to stay put for now, I don’t know what is.
2. School:
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| my classroom |
Is forty minutes away, without traffic. Hence why I’m shopping
for other residences. It’s a heck of commute. But work is good. It’s intense,
but good. I feel really lucky that I’m in a profession that I like straight out
of college because I know that isn’t the case with everyone. But even when the
days are absurdly long and the work never seems to have a stopping point, I
still really like it. That being said, I have picked up some TERRIBLE habits
here. Like, never be able to get a job in the States kind of habits. (don’t
worry Mom, I’m planning on breaking those habits eventually!) My favorite form
of classroom management is to take of my shoe and throw it at the wall behind
the head of a student who won’t stop talking. I find that it’s a really
effective form of keeping them quiet. Taping mouths shut works well too. The
kids have taken really well to my affectionate nickname: “frittatas” - which is
a euphemism for something a lot less nice than a French egg dish. Despite that
nonsense, we have fun. And (I hope) learn a lot. I do my best to push the kids
hard, which was my explicit instruction from my superiors. It makes me pretty
unpopular sometimes – i.e. on Friday when I locked some of my seniors outside
of my class because they couldn't be bothered to make it back to class for the
second half of our test in a timely manner – but I’m hoping that it’ll make
them a little more prepared for the system shock that is their first semester
of university.
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| Susan and me in our Halloween best |
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| kite festival shenanigans |
3. Friends:
Yes, I’ve made friends. Making friends outside of college is
not the easiest of things to do, but it’s also not terribly hard. It takes a
decent amount of sticking your neck out and hoping that your new “friend” isn’t
a serial killer. So far I’m 0 and 4 on the serial killer front – which isn’t
too bad if I say so myself.
With the exception of Susan, who I met through the old
roomie, my closest friends are the girls that I work with. By the grace of
Jesus (not using that in a sarcastic tone – seriously, He did me a solid on
this one) there are three other girls at CAS who are all American, from a
reasonable proximity to the Old South, and have very compatible personalities
with my own. In fact, we’re so
compatible, we balance each other out entirely. Gloria and I are the erm, “spitfire,
loudmouths” while Jessica and Chelsea keep us level with their calm and nice
personalities. Jessica and I laugh that we could not be two more opposite
people but get along like two peas in a pod. Go figure.
5. Free time:
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| Okay, maybe I do get out of the house... |
Ha! That’s a good one. Most of my Saturdays are spent
catching up on sleep, grading, and planning. As a very basic white girl, I have
found my niche sitting at the table underneath the far window in Café Barista
(Guatemalan Starbucks). It’s not the most culturally amazing thing I’ve ever
done. But the internet is good and they let me sit and work hours after I’ve
finished my coffee. Plus, I can people watch when I get bored of typing. Which
mostly works for me, except when men in colonial outfits walk by blowing a conch
“Lord of the Flies” style. I think they’re promoting a theme restaurant, either
way it’s real life and quite annoying.
6. The threes:
The threes are a real thing. Also, I think I made that name
up, so let me explain. When you move to a different country or are visiting
long term, especially if you’re on your own, everyone experiences what I’ve
(and maybe other people call it this too, I don’t know) affectionately named, “the
threes”. Three weeks into being gone is when you start to realize that you’re
really gone. You’re no longer on vacation, you’re just gone. It’s also about
the time when it hits you that life at home has moved on without you. And it
stings. Then at the three month mark, you’ve gotten used to life in whatever
country you’ve moved to and have gotten just comfortable enough to get really
irritated at how inefficiently this new country is run in comparison to the country
you’ve come from. Like seriously, why can we not just have reasonably spaced
aisles at the grocery store? Is it so much to ask to not have to play bumper
karts everywhere?? Luckily, after a couple days to a week of frustration the
threes pass and life goes back to normal. And luckily for me, with the Sheridan
fam-jam coming in three (yes just three!!) days it’s easy to distract myself
from how tiny the grocery store aisles are.
7. Other important things:
Yes, I have eaten off the street – there is nothing more
delicious than ordering your fried chicken from a toothless woman at the back
of the mercado right next to the bus station (dirt lot filled with repurposed
school buses and feral dogs). No, street food hasn’t made me sick. Yes, I did
get what I think was food poisoning once, but I’m pretty sure it was from some
undercooked chicken that I ate at a restaurant earlier this week. I don’t
recommend food poisoning, it’s the worst. Yes, I do speak in Spanish. I teach
in English all day, but sometimes have to explain things in Spanish or
occasionally yell at my students in Spanish to remind them that they should be
speaking in English. And when I’m out and about I speak in Spanish almost
always.
So there you have it. I’m alive, I’m surviving, and I’m
happy.
Hasta el próximo vez. Que te vaya bien, amigos.
