Discussions with Chiqui

It's been a quiet few days after all the excitement of Holy Week. On Monday when Gene didn't feel like going out to lunch, I found a really cool little restaurant (we would call it a soda in Costa Rica) that serves tipico food. I had the "Adobado Antigüeño," which was a big slab of nicely flavored beef with a baked potato (naked), guacamol, chirmol and tortillas. Chirmol is a tiny bowl of salsa which my teacher tells me is puréed tomato, onion and salt (and maybe with some culantro). Anyhow, it was good. It was served on a wooden "plate." The entire meal cost me 25 Quetzales ($3.20 or so). The delicious licuado de melon (read refresco de melon in Costa Rica or cantaloupe smoothie in the US) cost another $1 or so. I liked the place so well that I took Gene there yesterday for lunch.
Other than the excitement of discovering a new place to eat (OK so you all know how I rate a place), the week so far has been about studying Spanish. We still have our morning classes. We had planned to switch to afternoon classes, but Saira, Gene's teacher, is only available in the mornings and he didn't want to change teachers, so we're still doing classes from 9 to 1 or so. Then we do a lot of studying the rest of the day.
The really cool thing about having a one-on-one learning situation like they do here is that we get to decide what we want to do. If we want to take a break and go for a walk to some historical site, the teachers are happy to do so. Or we can spend the entire morning doing some activity or trip, talking Spanish as we go. It's pretty much up to us. Most of the time, we feel that we get more practice studying at the apartment.
Today my teacher (Chiqui) and I decided we would go to the mercado (market). We got side-tracked when I told her I had read about a museum near where we were walking. We ended up touring the "Casa del Tejido Antiguo," a museum dedicated to the traditional Maya clothing and weaving. It is a large place with many rooms displaying the traditional syles from many villages (which are still being worn today). We also got to watch a woman doing some weaving. It is amazingly meticulous work, incredibly time-consuming. The bright colors used are beautiful, the intricate designs are incredible. For a donation of 5 Quetzales (Q7.5 = $1.00), we were given a private tour with a guide who explained the different styles from the different villages. The receptionist asked if I wanted English or Spanish and my teacher told her Spanish before I had a chance to "vote," but I was able to understand most of the explanations. It is an awesome place and I want to go back again and take Gene.
In Chiqui I feel like I have a teacher, guide, and cultural expert all rolled into one. Although we spend some time everyday going over grammer and vocabulary, we spend a lot of time discussing Guatemala, it's history and culture, it's problems today, what it needs to do in order to improve the lives of its people. It is a country of diverse culture and many languages. There are 28 indigenous languages spoken in Guatemala today - and there are many villages where few people speak Spanish. It is an election year here. Although it appears that there have been many improvements under the current administration, the prior president, Alfonso Portillo, left for Mexico the day his parliamentary immunity from prosecution ended after leaving the country virtually bankrupt, with allegations that hundreds of millions of dollars were transferred from the social security fund into Panamanian bank accounts. Apparently no one knows where he is now. It's not surprising that the people do not tend to trust governmental officials. The current president, Óscar Berger, was an enthusiastic supporter of CAFTA, which was ratified in 2005 in spite of massive opposition from the people.
Chiqui is studying to be a lawyer. She is an incredibly intelligent, strong-willed woman. I fully expect to read about her in the national news someday. For now I just feel lucky to have her as my teacher.