My teacher at the Cooperative of Guatemalan Spanish Teachers in San Pedro is called Clarita, and she clearly isn´t going to take any nonsense from students with sore throats and runny noses resulting from too many late nights and strawberry dacquaris in smoky Las Vegas casinos - I already have to write twenty sentences and learn lots of vocabulary that I made the mistake of admitting I didn´t know as homework for my professora tomorrow.
Homework aside, I think my time in San Pedro studying Spanish is going to work out perfectly, particularly since I have organised my classes for the afternoons so I can spent my mornings watching all the remaining World Cup football matches. In fact, I am already thinking about extending my fortnight in San Pedro to a month, as at USD 150 a week for spanish classes plus homestay accommodation and all meals, it works out significantly cheaper than travelling, particularly when I do not have the anticipated large windfall from the Pai Gow tables of Las Vegas to fall back on as dinero gets tighter in the coming months. Heck, I may even learn some Spanish whilst I am here in San Pedro, as long as I steer clear of the many Australians that seem to be gathered in this neck of the woods/jungle of Guatemala.
Asides from falling in with English-speakers, the only real danger I foresee during my time in San Pedro is the risk of mountain landslides. Clarita told me during todays lesson that her own mother had a narrow escape in a derrumbe a few weeks ago, in which a neighbouring child lost her life, and her mother lost her kitchen.
Hearing about this did not surprise me, as the muddy scars of landslides are visible on all the steep mountains around Lago Atitlan, as were the rocks and rivers of water covering many of the mountain roads that I travelled on in the minibus, Toyota pickup truck and motorised three-wheel tuk tuk that took me the last few miles on my journey into San Pedro yesterday.
Hearing about this did not surprise me, as the muddy scars of landslides are visible on all the steep mountains around Lago Atitlan, as were the rocks and rivers of water covering many of the mountain roads that I travelled on in the minibus, Toyota pickup truck and motorised three-wheel tuk tuk that took me the last few miles on my journey into San Pedro yesterday.
San Pedro, one month after Tormenta Agatha
