What Not To Say In Spanish

Adriane: We are winding up week two. The first day or two upon arrival in Antigua I felt somewhat homesick. I was like what did I get myself into. Now, I'm feeling sad that I only have 4 weeks left. I love it here. If employment weren't an issue, I could easily live here. It would be difficult being so far away for family, but I think I could do it short term.

I'm becoming more confident in my use of Spanish. I'm by no means proficient. However, I have been inspired to continue my spanish language studies upon return to the USA. Por ejemplo, ayer, Yo decí mi hermana es a chihuahua. In other words, I said, "My sister is a chihuahua". Instead of saying, she has a chihuahua. Well, actually, I almost said this, but I caught my mistake. It didn't matter though because I had said enough to make my host family laugh...with me of course and not at me : )

Cathy and I braved the waters and volunteered to be the first to administer our first assessment with two spanish speaking individuals today at Hogar Maria. For our fellow OT's, you guys remember the COPM which is the instrument we used. For the non-OTers, this assessment determines which activities/occupations are important to the individual and whether or not they are having any difficulties participating in them. Very client-centered! And, in case you are wondering, we did not speak to them completely in Espanol. We are not that good....yet! We have an anthropologist on our team who is also fluent in Spanish and she interpreted. Thank God! She is awesome. I think we all want to be her when we grow up. She is only a few years older than Cathy and I and we are hoping to meet up with her tonight. It is Friday night afterall!

This evening we met up with our group at Cafe Rainbow. Every night they have live music. After chatting for a bit, most of us went to eat a late dinner at a restaurant owned by a host family where our friends Abby and Kaithlin are residing. Unfortunately, the food was not good...no bueno. The carne asada was extremely chewy and the horchata tasted very processed. It didn't taste like the restaurant made it. But, when you are starving, you aren't that picky, right? The bad news....I (Adriane) felt pretty sick afterwards. My sweet friend Sola rubbed my back though until I felt better. Good guy for sure!

After arriving home from dinner, I (Adriane) unlocked the door to my room, entered, and then saw a HUGE spider on the wall next to my bed. NO BUENO!!!!!!!!!!! I quickly went to Caithlin's room to ask for help. She was just as terrified of the prospect of getting anywhere near the spider, but agreed to kill it for me. However, she couldn't do it unless she listened to her ipod. She needed the music to build up her strength. The chosen song was "Have You Ever" by Incubus. LOL Afterwards, I could not fall asleep. I was paranoid that there may be more of them. Actually, I ended up killing 2 more really small spiders. But, as you can tell, I survived the night and was not carried off by any spiders.

Cathy: So, I have to admit Adriane has been doing the majority of the initiating when it comes to blog postings. So, I want to back track and give a little of the observations I made upon our first arrival. First I'm absolutely in love with the cobble-stone roads--at least the way they look, not necessarily when I have to walk on them...lol...I've come close to spraining my ankle like 3x's so far! Next, there are no rules of the road! Seriously! Here drivers don't stop for pedestrians, if the person in front is driving too slow, the next driver will just drive around them even if it's on a very tight road. They have no dea what tailgaiting is. Needless to say, all the cars have dents and scrapes, etc. Another major surprise was the motorcycles...not only do the drivers not have to wear helmets, but it is rather common to see a man driving, a woman on the back, a small child in between them, and a baby in her arms...yes, that's right. VERY different!

As for my Spanish instruction, I'm not so pleased with my progress, however I guess I should be because today when we went to drop our laundry off to be washed the lady running the business gave me applause (literally) for how fluent I was. That did make me happy! At the Spanish school, I met a friend named Benny, officially Benyel which means "son of God". He is from Israel and practices the Jewish religion. He invited me to participate in a shabat yesterday. Apparently this takes place on Friday evenings at sunset. Two of my profesoras are staying in the same place and are also Jewish. There was a lighting of the candles accompanied by a prayer from one of my profesoras, then there was a prayer read by my friend Benny over the wine, and a prayer said by my other profesora over the bread. I took this to be similar to the act of communion in my own religion. It was a first for me and I enjoyed the experience.

Today, I wanted to take in more of Antigua, study my Espanol, and write some postcards, however Adriane insisted I join her and some of the others for a hike at Volcan de Pacaya, so we are off to do that...until the next time, Adios!

Estamos muy cansadas! We have had a busy day today. We ate breakfast with our host familias at 7:15 am. Yo (Adriane) hablé casí último sin semanas con mi familia. Friday evening, we went out dancing at a local bar with two other fellow field school students, Caithlin and Lacie. We were asked to dance throughout the evening. However, I (Adriane) was the only one who accepted the offer. I learned a little salsa, but I need many more lessons which we are hoping to do for free on Mondays and Tuesdays. The next day we spent the afternoon walking around town and ended up discovering a wonderful little spot, the Rainbow cafe. The ambiance was great....walls painted with colorful murals...used books for sale...awesome food and live musica every night. The only complaint would be the constant smell of gas fumes from the street. It is beginning to take a toll. Later that evening, the four of us joined up with Abby, Kaithlin, Mario, and Sola for some more dance at the same club. This time everyone did their fair share of dancing! The club was hot! And so were a few of the hombres! I think you would break out in a sweat whether or not you were dancing. While in the club, la policia came to do routine checks for drugs and under-aged people. I would say approximately 13 or so police (mainly women) came inside with their rifles. It was crazy! Apparently this is a normal thing that takes place about 2x's per month. Unfortunately, they spoiled the mood and we left soon thereafter. I (Adriane) made a mistake of trying to wear high heals. Yo estupido. Thanks to my new friend Sola I did not have to walk the entire way home because he gave me a piggyback ride. And when he was attempting to put Adriane down, they both fell...hilarious!

After breakfast, Cathy and I went to meet our spanish teachers for private tutoring from 9-12pm. Then I (Adriane) headed home for a quick siesta before lunch at 1:00pm. We met up with fellow classmates at the spanish school to discuss our schedule and our instructor's intentions regarding our fieldwork at Hogar Maria in San Felipe. It is a board and care facility for older adults who are experiencing dementia and alzheimers among other physical disabilities. Most of them have been abandoned by their family. A few came voluntarily to the center in search of housing. The staff welcomed us with open arms.

We arrived back to Antigua (via chicken bus) around 6:00 pm. I (Adriane) had enough time to grab 2 small bananas and head over to the Bagel Cafe. Here we are going to watch a film related to the Guatemalan experience. We will tell you more after we watch it.

Bienvenidos!

Hola amigos y famila!!! Guatemala es muy bonita. Les Gustan muchos! Escriben en la Rainbow Cafe.

So, today we took a chicken bus to San Juan del Obispo for a community festival. Little did we know that we would be in the parade and the entire celebration itself. While observing the music celebration, some mimes from Clowns Without Borders approached us in hopes of talking us into joining the group in song and dance. We did our best to say "No Gracias", but they didn't take no for answer. They pouted and silently pleaded for our participation..down on their knees. After trying my best to get out of dancing on the basketball court in front of the entire town, I gave in. Cathy, however, wouldn't budge. Which you'll all be happy to know because she filmed the entire escapade on video. We are hoping to post it soon.

This first week revolved around becoming oriented to our new Guate community and our association with Familias De Esperanza (Common Hope). We spent time listening to well respected practitioners in our field of occupational therapy as well as anthropology.

We have made many new friends. Our fellow students include Caithlin, Lacie, Jessica, Mario, Sola, Josie, Laurie, Nicole, Monica, Abby, Kaithlin, and Katrina from Colorada, California, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Mexico. We are a mix of occupational therapy students as well as anthropology students. We look forward to collaborating with people from different disciplines and levels of experience. Our instructors exhibit a wealth of knowledge for us to draw upon in the areas of occupational therapy and anthropology. Monday should be our first day out in the field. This is exciting because we have no idea what treatment will look like. We are expected to be on our feet...think quick...be creative based on our client’s needs. Providing treatment impromtu with potentially limited resources as well non-western perspective will be challenging. This is what every new occupational therapist may hope for...the opportunity to provide treatment without the red tape.

Another great opportunity included with this fieldwork experience is our enrollment in Tecun Uman....a Spanish language School. We attend Spanish classes 4-5 days a week for three hours lessons. As I’m sure you can imagine, this has been both challenging and full of laughter. Our Spanish instructors are awesome! They are patient, charismatic, engaging, and appear to be interested in us personally...not just as another english speaking student trying to learn Espanol.

I, Adriane, had intended to be fluent in Spanish upon my return to the US. However, it appears that I may have been a little too optimistic. Cathy on the other hand will have a good handle on the language given her strong understanding of the language already. If you were to ask her though, she would disagree. The jury is still out...I might surprise myself. We’ll keep you posted.

Living with a Spanish speaking family is muy dificil para me (Adriane). We share three meals a day with the entire family....Jose and Karla Sanchez and their three children. I lucked out in that both Karla and Jose are also Spanish language teachers. So, every meal is a Spanish lesson! I have a love-hate relationship with this reality. I want to improve my Spanish and yet, it is exhausting trying to understand what everyone is saying and come up with a somewhat intelligent response. For example, they asked if I liked what they cooked for dinner one evening, I said in Espanol, “Si, mucho gusto”. Instead of saying, “Si, me gusta”. Instead of saying, “Yes, I like it”. I said, “Yes, nice to meet you”. We all laughed. The funny thing is I know the difference between these two phrases, but I think I was just nervous. They still continue to tease me however. I have my own room with three beds. I sleep with earplugs because there is some strange insect like sound coming from the ceiling and mosquitos buzzing around my ears. Unfortuantely, I had three days in a row in which my stomach was not working as well as I would have liked. Frequent trips to los banos and Ammonium AD (Thanks Alexis...good idea...saved me). Today is a good day though.

My (Cathy) host family is absolutely amazing! I have my own room, spacious and clean...kind of like a single room cottage across a little courtyard. It has a full-sized bed, a table and stool, a bookshelf and a 4-drawer chest for my clothes. Apparently this home has been in Clemencia’s family for decades. It is quaint and I love it! Me and one of the other girls share a bathroom. My host mother’s name is Clemencia and she lives there with her husband and their two sons (aged 10 and 5). We get three meals a day, sometimes they are “tipico de Guatemala” and other times they are more americanized meals. The pan dulce here is absolutely amazing! I am relieved because I don’t think I would be able to sleep in Adriane’s room!

We look forward to your comments and questions. There is still much to tell. But, until next time we hope this gives you a sense of our life here in Antigua.