Hola desde Quetzaltenango, Guatemala,

I’m sure this is more detail than most of you care to read, but before you hit delete, scroll down and read about the chicken buses. Especially fellow Texas-Exes, who may be reminded of the old UT shuttle buses.

Upon arrival, everything was very easy. In Guatemala City, the hotel had someone waiting for me at the airport. I stayed in the hotel as planned, where they gave me breakfast (eggs, toast, & coffee), took me to the bus station, purchased my ticket for me & waived goodbye. After a four hour ride twisting and turning up and down the mountains, we got to Quetzaltenango. For the most part the roads were pretty good, two lanes with blacktop shoulders and even an extra passing lane on some of the steeper parts. In the towns, the roads are cobblestone and sometimes pavestone.

I experienced only one small hick-up on the bus, an old greyhound with only a few broken windows. A man got on at one of the stops and sold us chili relleno tortas – stuffed pepper sandwiches. They were 10 Quetzales ($1.20) with a small orange juice, but I only had a 100Q bill that I had traded with a girl at the hotel who was on her way home (100Q = $12). He took my 100Q, gave me my torta, and said he’d return with change after he finished serving the rest of the bus. I finished my sandwich, and he came back and kept on telling me that he didn’t have change. I didn’t either, so there was nothing I could do since the sandwich was already gone. He asked the other bus riders, but no one would give him change. Finally, he unhappily took two US dollars, and he got off our bus to catch one in the other direction. He goes back and forth all day until he sells out, giving the driver an orange or soda or something in order to be able to ride.

After the bus arrived in Quetzaltenango, I didn't know that they would have someone waiting for me at the bus station so I had already gotten into a cab when a guy came up and asked if I was Vicente. He got in the cab with me and we went to the school. I took a quick quiz and then they showed me around the school and introduced me to my teacher. A few minutes later a man showed up, and they told me that he was part of the family I'm staying with. I followed him to his house. We could only talk a very little because he doesn't know any English. At the house, a lady (I assumed his wife) showed me around. My room is big and has a good lock on the door. I share the bathroom downstairs.

The family is feeding me very well and with better variety than I was warned to expect. For breakfast, I’ve had fried eggs with pico de gallo, scrambled eggs, and a sort of milky oatmeal soup called mush. With breakfast, she’s also given me refried beans, cheese, and either thick, corn tortillas or tamalitos. The tamalitos are like tamales, but they’re empty -- just corn meal cooked inside a husk. For lunch today, I had a delicious soup that tasted like enchilada sauce, rice, a small chunk of roast beef, and peas in a great chili sauce.

I think that this is a great opportunity to learn a lot of Spanish. I spend from 8am to 1pm with only a half hour break at 10:30 learning and practicing one-on-one with my teacher. Then at 3pm most days, there is a group activity. On the weekends, I’m free to explore.

The family, a husband and wife, probably in their late 60s or 70s, is very nice and talk with me for at least 10-15 minutes at each meal. We talk about my profession, my family, traditions, or what activity I did with the school today. It does get frustrating when I can’t communicate what I want to say, but they are very patient and help me. They have been hosting students for eight years so they’ve become very good at making simple conversation. Each day, I’ve found that I’m able to use some words from class that I couldn’t have said the day before.

Tuesday’s activity was to take ¨El Bus Pollo¨ to a nearby town with the first church in Central America. The town wasn’t very much, but the bus ride was crazy. So-called chicken buses appear to be the primary form of transportation in the country (second is small 80s Toyota pick-up trucks). They buy old US school buses deck them out with a luggage rack and ladder to the roof, a really loud stereo, a banner across the top of the windshield with a religious slogan such as Dios es Amor, an air horn, and then usually paint them wildly with bright colors and pictures of birds. It takes three men or boys to operate the bus, and a bus is never full. We sat three to a seat - and remember that children’s school buses don’t have all that much leg room to begin with - and the isles were crammed with people standing. One man drives, one is in charge of loading and unloading luggage from the roof, and the third hangs out the door yelling our destination to potential riders as we speed by them. At some of the larger stops he jumps out of the moving bus to solicit customers and then runs to get back on. When there is a minute between stops, he shoves through the bus to collect a quetzal, about 13 cents, from each rider.

On the trip, I saw the nearest thing to someone being killed by a vehicle as I’ve seen in my life. We were racing down a narrow street with buildings right up to the curb of the road, another bus was heading towards us in the opposite direction. A lady with a baby on her back and her two children tried to run across the road. They got to the middle of the road when our bus was blowing its air horn, and she realized that she couldn’t make it past our bus nor get back to the other side in front of the opposite bus. She stopped in the middle of the street and miraculously no one was hit as the two buses passed on either side of them. Everyone on our bus was watching in shock with our horn blasting, and then just kind of laughed as we sped on down the road!

While I find it interesting, it is still dirty and polluted, and not a place I would care to stay long. But to learn Spanish on the cheap and to see a different culture, it’s great. Internet cafés are everywhere and they’re very cheap as well – 6 quetzals per hour, about 80 cents, and they serve free coffee.

On Thursday, my school activity was to visit a local cooperative outlet where local women and those from nearby towns who weave at home bring their goods to sell on consignment. The Maya women wear spectacularly colored, heavy blouses and skirts. On the bus ride from Guatemala City to Quetzaltenango, I saw them working in the fields always in their full traditional dress (ropas tipicas) and often with a baby on their back.

Then, on Friday, we took the chicken bus to the town of San Francisco el Alto, which supposedly has the largest market in the Central America. Each city or pueblo in Guatemala has a Mercado on a specific day of the week. In San Francisco, there were thousands of people shoving their way through blocks and blocks of flea market type booths. You can buy very literally anything. People bring home-made textiles, clothes, pottery, and furniture. You can buy butchered meat, chicken, even crocodile!, and fruits and vegetables of all sorts. They also sell cats, dogs, and live pigs, sheep, ducks, doves, cows, etc. Others are selling household products and factory made clothing and shoes.

When I got here, there was only one other student in my school, Rick from Nebraska, and he had already decided to change schools so Wednesday was his last day there, and now I’m the only student in my school. The ¨headmaster¨ told me that 4 more students are starting on Monday, but if not, I may change schools as well. My teacher seems to be pretty good; although I’m sure I can do as well at one of the other couple dozen schools in town. A couple days ago, Rick and I went to a local bar where many touristas hang out. This weekend, I may go with his new school for a trip to the beach, or I may take a trip with a group of hikers up into one of the nearby volcanoes.

Hasta luego,

Vicente (pronounced Bee-SENT-eigh)