Sí, sí, todavia estoy aquí en Guatemala

So tomorrow I start classes at my new school, Pop Wuj.  It is about a mile from where I am living and it is right across the street from a chifa.  I am so psyched.  I love Chinese food in different countries and so far I have only seen one restaurant in the 15 block radius that has been my life the last month or so.  And I can never tell if it is open.  And I didn’t really like the pictures of the Chinese food on the half open door so I haven’t tried it yet.  This one looks like a proper chifa and I am soooo eating there tomorrow.  Oh yeah, I am also pretty excited about the school change.  Graduated from Celas Maya on Friday and I do think I stayed there at least a week too long.  Maybe even two.  But it was so convenient!  Oh well.  I wonder if Pop Wuj will have class bells.  Just in case one of you hasn’t already heard me say, which is highly doubtful, this is the school that has the rural stove construction project that I have been dying to work on. Every Wednesday, instead of sitting with my teacher for five hours going over all the grammatical equivalents in English I don’t remember from grade school and keep forgetting in Spanish, he/she will be using the imperative to direct me on how to build a safe stove. Yes, I am still insured.

So I have been working hard on laying out the calendar and I am pretty close to done.  The graphic theme is big, beautiful, colorful, clown close-ups, framed by funky picture frames against different textured backgrounds. I suggested that each month have a “10 years of…something” theme. Such as “10 años de la esperanza” or “10 años de activismo” and I have been selecting supporting photos and incorporating them into each design. Like October is “10 años de controversia” and it has a great photo of an overcome Tony looking past the frame of his picture at several pictures of human-sized condom muppets. Two are bent and seem to be bowing and one is dancing.  Each month has a different Proyecto Payaso initiative, but I have just been winging the themes based on what I understand about the organization, and this is something I really need Stef and Tony to decide on and definitely help with Spanish text.   

I can’t believe I didn’t blog at all last week. This always happens when I keep a journal too.  In the beginning I am gung ho and write every single day.  Then every other day, then once a week until suddenly I am home watching a rerun of something and trying to remember the name of the volcano I climbed.  Speaking of volcanoes, I almost did the Santa Maria midnight trek on Friday.  Then I heard that 20 people were going and that just turned me off.  Besides that, I just wasn’t motivated to go.  And I would like to think that I should probably should be pretty damned motivated to climb a volcano at night. Without a headlamp . I want to do this trip with Quetzaltrekkers anyway. They support a local children’s education center here in Xela with proceeds from all their hikes. 

I also learned how to curse in Spanish last week. Some real soucio stuff. We had a class one afternoon taught by Josue, Chloe’s novio and it was hysterical.  Of course, I forgot most of them but thankfully I wrote them down.

So after five weeks of studying Spanish, I can now speak crappy Spanish in many different tenses and three moods instead of just crappy Spanish in the first person, present indicative. Yes, I am still speaking like a two-year old, a confused two-year old with regressive vocabulary. I honestly don’t understand how I know so many Guatemalans and why they keep inviting me out and want to talk to me when I continually butcher their language.   Okay, granted, sometimes I blurt out a whole fantastic sentence.  And if I were to take a written test on everything I learned I would probably ace it.  On Thursday and Friday, when we were starting the subjunctive, right after conjugating irregular verbs, I was writing complete, correct sentences using two different moods.  Now, if I had to orally construct those sentences, lord knows what would come out of my mouth! 

Going to study a little before going to bed. He estudiado español por las últimas cinco semanas y quiero que aprende más durante las proximas dos semanas. Now that is a pretty good sentence I think.  And I wrote it quite naturally and quickly, almost the way I would in English. And if someone said that to me, I would understand it.  But if I were attempting to say it to someone, who knows which of the three indicative past tenses would come out, that is, if I miraculously didn’t choose the present tense. Does anyone know any effective speaking exercises for learning another language?