¿Tu quieres morir?

(I think I just threatened to kill our host mother!)

After that first day of unfortunate experiences, things have already started to turn around.

We had Wednesday morning to get settled into our new surroundings before starting classes in the afternoon. We took a nice walk through Parque Central in the brisk morning air (more on this later) before making our way to a bookstore. Well stocked and connected to a cute cafe, we loaded up on some fundamentals: a new Lonely Planet guidebook to Central America (yes, the same one we left in the states), a used book on Guatemalan history and culture, two notebooks for class, and a few stacks of flashcards. It was only 11am and the day was going well!

We walked back through the park and saw that the infamous cafe was finally open. We entered with our prepared statement...

Encontras una toalla ayer? (Do you find a towel yesterday? We haven´t made it to past tense yet.)

Of course, our question prompted a response. We understood little, but nodded along incessantly after hearing "black" bag thrown in at some point. We looked desperate and threw in some charades to show where we´d been sitting the day before. It seemed to be working! The nice woman went behind the counter and made a quick telephone call, then returned with our lost black bag. Minnie was found!

On to school...

Classes are Monday - Friday of one-on-one instruction for five hours per day. Because the school was maxed out in the mornings with over 50 students, we had afternoon classes from 2-7pm for the first two days. They have been excellent so far, and they certainly weren´t kidding when they billed this as an immersion experience. Both of our teachers are extremely nice and welcoming, but they don´t speak a lick of English! If I understood my teacher, Carmen, correctly on that first day (not a certainty) , the school intentionally seeks teachers that do NOT speak English. It was a bit shocking on the first day, but we have come to appreciate it more and more. It´s truly amazing how far we have come after only three days.

But let´s make sure to put this in context...

We´ve only been here THREE DAYS and we had virtually no Spanish background (none at all for Liz and only 3 touch college semesters for me years ago). So learning even the most basic round of questions and key vocabulary has helped immensely, particularly with mealtime conversations. But we are also still relegated to the present tense, our pronunciation needs serious work, and clearly we need to spend more time with the flashcards. Hence, the title of the post.

As our vocabulary and comfort levels increase, we use our mealtime conversations with Martha (reminder: she doesn´t speak English either) as testing ground for our new material. So today, after spending some time with the flashcards in the morning, we decided we were ready to bring out our photo album after lunch. It went something like this...

Roberto: Nosotros tenemos pictures (in my best Spanish accent)
Martha: (blank look)
Roberto & Liz: (switching into charades mode, start pointing at pictures on the wall) Picture? ... Picture?
Martha: Ah, fotos!
Roberto: Si. Si. Fotos! Lo siento. Nosotros tenemos fotos de nuestra casa y familias en el cuarto. (We have pictures of our house and families in our bedroom.)
Martha: Ah, bueno!
(Success! But then Disaster...)
Roberto: Tu quieres morir?
Martha: (brilliantly blue shadowed eyes grow large with look of concern) Morir?!?
Liz: No! No! No morir, mirar!
Roberto: Lo siento! Lo siento! Tu quieres mirar?

mirar = to see
morir = to die!

Whoops! I guess it´s time to study the flashcards again!

Luckily, it led to a great conversation with Martha. After seeing the few pictures we had, she pulled out hundreds of family pictures to share with us. It was nice learning more about her family and her past.

All in all, we had a great afternoon...until the battles of intestinal fortitude interrupted. We´ll save that for later...