Saturday, February 27, 2010

The Home-stay


As previously mentioned, we split up after the church service and went home with our adoptive families. We went in pairs, so after the service was over me and Steve jumped into the back of a pickup and headed to our home for the night.


The above photo, you may have guessed, is me with the family - from right to left in the photo: Maria Helena Hernandez de Cifuentez, Mario Cifuentez holding little Kendrick, 5 year old Diana, me, and Mario's mother who arrived in the morning right as we were about to take the pictures - she may not look happy, but she was smiling and friendly most of the time.


The family (whose names I hope I spelled right) were great, we arrived and all sat together on the bed and talked, quite successfully, seeing as me and Steve (Steve and I?) did not really speak any Spanish and Mario barely spoke any English. But we were able to communicate very well regardless, and we showed pictures and explained where we were from (with the help of a map of Canada) and generally had a great little chat, all sitting together on the bed.


We rose early the next morning and were given a fast paced tour of the house by Diana (who does everything at super-speed) which included the chicken coop they have in their backyard. We ate a traditional Guatemalan breakfast of Beans, cheese (really good cheese) and a fried Plantain rolled in sugar with thick cream - the latter may not be a usual addition, and I doubt little Diana's teachers appreciated the extra sugar when she got to school, but it was a very good breakfast. After eating I showed Diana a little hand puppet thing I learned who-knows-where and then we proceeded to play games until it was time to leave.


We returned to the church and dropped Diana off at school across the street, then Mario went to work when the rest of our group began to arrive and we toured the pre-school next to the church, where the 3 year old sang us some songs and we did our best at 'head and shoulders knees and toes' for them. We then had a quick look in the main school for the older kids (all 800 of them), this was quick out of necessity, since our presence created a greater disturbance the longer we were there, and so we had to leave before all sense of order had completely dissolved.


We then returned to La Fraternidad to do our last bit of construction and say our goodbyes.

3 comments:

  1. I get so excited reading and thinking about the school! Sounds like they are a bunch of livewires and lots to handle when the numbers are that high!
    Do they learn any English there, or is it strictly all Spanish?

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  2. Great picture of you, and everyone. Glad you got to experience Native hospitality and food. Such a wonderful, non-touristy, kind of experience. :)

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  3. The school is all Apanish as far as I know - I think english is required in University, but if it is they forget it right away, because almost no one can speak it.

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