The Mayan Man

Sergio and I sipped coffee at my homestay house while we did a lot of bookwork with the verbs. I felt like my head was going to explode at the end. Then he drove me around on his motorcycle. It only starts if he turns it on and then we run along side of it until it gets going. We had “liquados” or fruit shakes in the market for the equivalent to $1 U.S. each. We read the Guatemalan paper, which is full of murders and people missing on just about every page. It’s a good reminder of the country that I am in.
After lunch, I went to Avivara, on the right bus. I did get off on an earlier stop and had to walk all the way through town and past where my bus was parked. I had wanted to make it to the right place this time and the bus driver told me to get off there, so I did. We both shrugged our shoulders when we saw each other because we both knew I had gotten off the bus too early.
I helped the kids at the afterschool center. At the end Gustavo had me stand up and try to say all of the students names in the class. This, I thought, was asking a bit much considering that the kids change every day, I work in Ann’s classroom most of the time, and many of the students go by several names like Juan Jose Carlos. Sometimes people call him Juan, sometimes Jose, sometimes Juan Jose Carlos. Yikes! Of course, I only knew about half of the students’ names so I had to read a book in Spanish to the kids. I told them that I was learning to read in Spanish just like them because I’m sure I said a few things a bit funny, but I think relating to them in this way helped.
Later on I met a guy in the park sitting on the bench next to me. I would guess that he was a few years younger than me, but he had led a rough life. He definitely had “working hands” and I knew he spent a lot of time doing hard labor. He had several gold teeth and looked very Mayan. I always thought that people of Mayan decent looked kind of Asian. Apparently, they are decedents of the Mongolians, hence their almond eyes. He asked me if he could read a few things in English to me because he is trying to learn English. The pamphlet that he had to learn English had several phrases with bad English grammar like “Her father go to store yesterday.” He would try to read the phrases and then I would repeat them. He seemed very pleased with himself and I knew that he had practiced these phrases quite a bit. His first language was Ketchikan, one of 22 Mayan languages spoken in Guatemala. It has a lot of clicks and deep throat sounds. He told me some things in his language and I tried to repeat them, but they were sounds I’ve never heard before. I feel like experiences like this give me a lot of insight about people who have lives so different from my own.
During the evening I arranged, through a tour company, for my English friend David and I to climb the tallest mountain here, Catenango. David is an English guy in his late 30’s with a pretty strong English accent. His accent is exactly the same in Spanish as it is in English. He calls learning Spanish “his new passion in his life” and I think it's great that he has found a new passion in life. Anyways, David really wanted to climb Acatanengo because he has done the others. Without looking much into it, I signed us up at the local tour agency.