photo explanation

from bottom to top
1. laguna san chicobal in the crater of a volcano
2. my street from about six blocks up from our house
3. central xela from the roof of a friend's house
4. halloween party - masked guy is gabriel
5. me as a tacky tourist and sarah from quebec as a cat
6. my room
7. on the hike up to the banos de vapor
8. same
9. oops, same as number 3.
10. market at chicchicestenango
11. outside the market, in front of an infamous chicken bus
hope that does it for now!
mer

check this

este fin de semana ultimo fue muy bueno. El viernes en la noche, hicimos una fiesta de Haloween. fui una tacky turista por que el disfraz fue muy facil. todos los estudiantes y los maestros se pusieron los disfrazes. algunos fueron muy imaginitivos. tambien, necesitamos preparar una pocion. el sabado en la manana fui a un clase de yogo. fue un buena clase y me sinti bien de hacer algo de ejercicio. Despues de este, un chico de australia se llama mick y yo caminamos a los banos de vapor pero nosotros no usamos. solo quisimos caminar porque el dia fue muy soleado y templado. en la noche, la mayoria de los otros estudiantes fueron a un juego futbal aqui vi hace dos semanas. En lugar de este, yo mire una pelicula de mexico en espanol con sutitulos en ingles. talvez, entendi cuatro o cinco palabras de espanol en toda la pelicula pero peor es nada. el domingo fuimos a chicchicestenango porque cada domingo hay un mercado muy grande. fue muy interesante y lleno de color. no tengo espacio para muchas cosas porque voy a viajar por un largo tiempo pero peinso gue es imposible no comprar nada. entonces, compre varias cosas como un cinturon, una balsa y dos bufandas. almorze algunos bananos con tortillas pero pienso que nadie agui come esto. nosotros estuvimos muy cansados despues de comprar y caminar por todo el dia. ayer en la noche, necisite estudiar el preterito mucho por que hay mucho verbos iregulares. yuck.
check that shit, ALL in spanish.
hasta luega amigos
mer
ps. translation is possible via babelfish.
i promise i won´t do this all the time i was just feeling cool that i can now speak in past tense somewhat.

paso a paso

hola amigos, como estan? the title of this blog is what my house mother says to me every time i get frustrated with my spanish...step by step. at least i think that is what it means, well i know that is what it means by i am not sure that is how it is spelled. well, another week or so gone by...definitely settling into things now. last weekend a few of us went and hiked up a smaller volcano nearby that has a supposedly spectacular lake in the crater which you can hike down into. trust our luck though, we hiked directly into a cloud and could not see the lake until it was literally at our feet. however, it was really nice to get out and do something after all of the studying that we do. the next day was great too...we had heard of some steam rooms up the mountain in town here and so set out to see if we could find them. they were really nice...natural steam from inside the mountain combined with fresh eucalyptus leaves on the floor. once again i apologise for the lack of photos...there's big pressure though! lol, just kidding. however, i do have a few photos and plan on having quite a few more after this weekend's excursions around and about, so i will try and post some on monday or tuesday. this week i changed teachers. my new teacher's name is lucky, pronounced loocky, and she is great. really thorough and structured. i am sure that is now how everyone would want to learn spanish however for me it is working better than gabriel's quite laidback approach. plus, gabriel and i get along a lot better at home when we don't have to stare at each other for five hours everyday while we both get frustrated. lucky also has a panderia, which is a bakery, so i went there for class on thursday because her 12 yr. old daughter couldn't be there for the morning. it was really fun...i got to help her put all the bread out and see how much work she does before and after she usually comes to teach. it's insane. most of the customers who come in do so everyday too, so lucky refers to them more as clients than customers. they were all very interested in meeting me and valiantly attempted conversation.
a whole bunch of students left last week, including amy, who lived in our house. she had a much nicer room than i, so i also changed rooms after she left this week. i have my own door outside now and do not have to tramp through the kitchen and past miriam's bedroom everytime i come home late.
i talked to gabriel today about how much longer he thinks i should teach for and he says that i should do what i initially intended to do (six weeks) and then think about whether i want to do more or not. in other words, he told me to stop thinking about it. i actually think that is quite good advice, as simple as it sounds. so, it's at least three more weeks of this for me and hopefully a whole lot more spanish! people keep telling me that there is some kind of moment when the fog lifts somewhat and the words aren't so painful coming out...i can only hope they are not just trying to make me feel better and that it is somewhat true.
here's to that and my non-existent halloween costume for tonight's party and the school,
mer

and so it goes

como siempre tengo mucho tarea y estoy aqui. i apologise in advance for what i know will be some quite shocking spanish. those of you who know the mistakes that i am making can sit back and shake your heads like gabriel my teacher and say merrrrredit merrrrredit, puedes pensar muy fuerte porfa. for those of you who dont understand at all, well welcome to my world.
ah ha ha, veces buenos. on the weekend pasado we went to a big themepark east of here by the coast. i think it was by the coast. i am not entirely sure. anyway, i went with some of the teachers and students from the school and spent the day surreally riding roller coasters and watching magic shows and speaking incerdibly broken spanish with a guy from switzerland who only speaks french, well spanish too. i kind of wish i was in the same boat as him though, as he is forced to have every conversation in spanish while i am allowed to slack off and speak english most of the time.
i have decided to change teachers next week...gabriel is actually totally loco and i get so tired of it at the end of five hours. it is a bit much to live with him as well as talk to him for the majority of every day.
i also went to a big soccer game last weekend...xelaju, the very popular local team lost 2 to 1 though, so it was not such happy times in the crowd. believe it or not, we were sitting in the stands right above where the players etc. go off the field down into the changerooms and whenever they did so, mob police with those big shield things had to line up in order to protect the players of the other team, the refs, and the players of the local team after they lost from things that were being thrown at them from the people sitting around us. no joke, people were throwing full pop cans and firecrackers and metal buckets and full cups of seviche - i do not know how to spell it. it was unbelievable. furthermore, just below us there was a group of guys who had all brought their musical instruments with them so they could break out into song at any point. they must have been drunk when they first got there at eight in the morning, but they def. kept hard at her and at about ten on guy projectile vomited over about 5 people in a really impressive kind of sprinkler show. needless to say, there was no lack of stuff to watch when the soccer wasnt doing the trick.
this weekend i think i hiking a volcano nearby that has a lake in the crater and next weekend i think a group of us are hiking the steepest one around on the night of the full moon in order to be at the top - i think it is about five hours up - for sunrise. it is apparently a very cool experience.
unfortunately i am not hearing very many good things about quetzaltrekkers, the company i was thinking of volunteering for. its too complicated to write down right now, but as a result i am kind of dissapointed because i now have to really try and find ways and people who want to go hiking. weirdly, it is actually quite hard to do...nobody i have met yet is really all that keen and its a bit sketchy to go without a guide. make that quite sketchy. estonces, life goes on.
adios por a hora,
merrrredit

hoy estoy enferma

yes, it is true. i must report the inevitable. today i am quite ill. it is pretty seriously un fun. but we shall survive. i woke up feeling not one hundred percent and at ten thirty almost fainted and puked all over my books. gabriel was quite concerned, obviously, but he took me back to the casa and miriam, his mother and the guru of all things spanish student made me take antibiotics and tylenol (i had an awful fever) and put me to bed. drugs are amazing though and a few hours later i was up again and feeling mucho mejor|better. our activity today was watching the motorcycle diaries in spanish (i was actually able to understand about 20 percent of it, which is a big accomplishment, so i went and lazed on the bean bag chairs. i am feeling pretty good right now, just my stomach is doing gymnastics.
everyone here has pretty much been sick at one point or another...one new zealander actually had to go to the hospital last weekend because he started to vomit blood. they think he had salmonella poisoning. really though, absolutely anything is possible. i have no idea how i got sick...i am very careful about what i eat and drink however there is an army of bacteria waiting in even the most carefully prepared food so there really is no way around it.
saturday we are going to the biggest theme park in central america and on sunday we are going to a big soccer match in town. right now it is dinner time though and i am procrastinating and not doing my tarea|homework. i think miriam is goign to make me some soup for dinner too. there is still a massive language barrier between us however i understood perfectly well today when she kicked into you are sick and i shall make you better mode. haha, priceless.
hasta luego amigos
mer

un poco de espanol

today is day two of spanish classes and already i am feeling much better about life. but to rewind.
my house casa is great. miriam is a divorced woman who speaks no english and cooks very traditional guatemalan food. her daughter is 15 quince and also speaks no english. gabrielle is her son and as it goes also my spanish teacher. he is 29. so far so good on the homestay front. already i am able to at least say that i am having a good day or could i please have some water agua. there are two other students living in the house. amy is from colorado and it is her third week here. her spanish is enough so that she can get around. i think she is planning on staying one more week. ciprian (pronounced chiprian) is from portland oregon and is at least 6 foot five. he is great fun though and his spanish is just a week ahead of mine. in some ways it would be good to be forced to always have to speak spanish, but honestly it is nice to relax sometimes and be able to speak english with them.
a typical day (so far) looks like this:
breakfast is at 7:15 in the kitchen. the school is literally three doors down so we leave right at eight to be there on time. there are about ten students, maybe 12 at the school right now, but the number changes from week to week i understand. (the woman who runs this cafe just took huge fall and hit her head badly on the tile. i hope she is alright...people seem to be taking care of her though). so we arrive at eight and stand around chatting for awhile drinking coffee. there are a bunch of little tables set around a few rooms and eventually everyone sits down across from their teachers. today though gabrielle and i went to a cafe down the street to study for the morning because we both prefer cafe con leche (with milk). so we study from eight to ten thirty. that is a very long time. then there is a half hour break where we drink more coffee and stand around chatting more. some in english, but not all of the students speak english so there is some spanish too but really that means that i can not really talk to some of the studets except to find out their name. we then study from eleven until one. also a very long time. however, as i said, just two days and already i am feeling good about the very very basics of the language. lunch is at one thirty at mi casa, then we chill for a bit. at three there is usually an activity. yesterday was a lecture about the history and evolution of agriculture in guatemala, today is a dance class and tomorrow we are watching the motorcycle diaries. activities end at five and then starts the homework la tarea. we get a lot of it, but really that is good...we are here to learn spanish. today i think i will have about two or three hours of homework. dinner is at seven and then there is more homework. there is a bar next door so after homework it seems as if that is the general course of action. needless to say, there is not a lot of very good spanish spoken once the drinks start.
anyway, so far so good. i have not really had time yet to look around the town but yesterday i went for a bit of a walk with ciprian and he pointed out some nice cafes and bookstores. generally, it seems like a nice place...definitely a student presence around but all in all it is a very real guatemalan city.
right now i am very tired but i do really want to learn to dance so i will go and do that. maybe doing something other than studying and thinking will be good for me too, haha.
soon i will take some pictures as i said i have not really had time. plus, it has pretty much rained the whole time so far so i can not see any volcanoes because of the clouds.
hasta lluego
meredith

guatemala city - xela

hey everyone, once again i will try and keep a blog documenting my trip. i am afraid this one will not be quite as hilarious as robyn is not here to entertain me, however i will do my best. yesterday i arrived in guatemala city and today i caught a bus to quetzaltenango where i will stay for a while (possibly a long while) to learn spanish etc. it is raining today and i speak absolutely no spanish whatsover so my options are pretty limited. i moved into my house with my host family but once again, i really do not know anything about them because we cannot speak to each other. nice. tomorrow i start school and right now i feel like i want to study twenty four hours a day until i can actually open my mouth and make sense...it is so frustrating being mute. anyway, hope everyone is doing really well.
mer
ps. i will have tons of time to email and it is so cheap, so sara, it looks like you may get some emails after all, but for now, this is it. lol.