3. Back at School
Day 41. Sorry for the silent treatment. Many people were asking what’s going on … The answer is simple, nada, I am busy. One of my few plans for this trip was to learn Spanish. All the countries I want to visit are Spanish speaking. I think it would be a good idea to learn few words to get me started so I don’t look like a total gringo. I did quite a bit of research where to study and Guatemala came on top. There are few reasons for that. Guatemala is a beautiful country and city of Antigua in particular. Another reason is price. Compare to for example to Mexico City, this is a steal. But main reason is that Guatemalan Spanish is well understood in all Latin and South American countries. I had the school and my place to stay here set up a few months before I started this trip.
The cost. No matter how you look at it, the school is not expensive, IMO. The cost depends how many hours per day you want to study and what time of the day. Mornings are more expensive then afternoons. Most if not all students study in week segments. School is Monday to Friday with some afternoon free activities. The cost for one week of classes 4 hrs / day is USD$115. 5 hrs cost $135 and 6 hrs is $175. That’s about $8/hr in Canadian pesos. Not bad when you consider that all the classes are 1 on 1. One teacher per student. The teacher stay with the student through the entire stay or you can change them if you wish. My class is 4 hours as I don’t want to get overloaded and I need some time to digest everything. My cost for the ENTIRE month is less then CAD$700.
The class starts at 8 in the morning. There is a break at 10. You can buy some food at that time. A lady from the next door cooks meals every day and brings it to the school. It usually consists of different kinds of tortillas or bread with eggs and all kinds of other yummy stuff. It is fresh, very tasty and very cheap. A big sandwich cost Q10 = CAD$1.70. For comparison a mocha @ *bucks here costs Q43 = $7.40 🙈 A free coffee is available in the school all day. I need it … The classes end at noon. I live very close to the school. Literarily 200m = 3 minutes. Awesome, no commute or a long walk.
The classrooms are not traditional as we know it. The whole “school” is situated in a huge garden. There are many places and paths with tables and chairs where you study. It is all open air concept in the middle of the dense tropical forrest. Some portions are covered but there no windows or walls. Everybody has lots of space so you don’t hear anybody around you. I quite like it. The weather is very pleasant right now. It is nice and cool in the morning and gets cloudy after lunch with guaranteed rain late afternoon and evening. It gets very hot very quickly in the dry season which starts in November. But the best thing about this whole setup is 1:1 ratio. They need lots of teachers with this scenario. There are around 30 students there right now. That means they need 30 teachers. The number of students changes every week. Teachers are getting paid only when they have a student. No student = no money. They get about 40-50% from what I pay. It is not much … The life is MUCH simpler here, not frills. Only basic stuff but people seem to be happy here.
Needless to say, it is very intense studying. I can’t hide in the last row in the classroom as I did my entire life 🤭. You are on the spot the entire time. Different teachers have different methods to put the info across. My teacher, Aurora, is very organized and likes to use different colours for different items. Just the way I like it. But it is very intense learning. There is no slacking here. My head is spinning all the time. There is lots of grammar, OMG and even more conversation practise. And it is all en Español. My teacher speaks Spanish 90% of the time. I hope that some of it will get stuck in my head. Some teachers give their students homework. I have homework at least 2-3 hours every day. There is no school on weekends but I was at it both afternoons for few hours. It is hard to judge my progress but I can put together few sentences already in a “pidgeon” Spanish. Even in proper Spanish some times 😉. I will be here for 5 weeks. I have 4 weeks of classes to go. That should give me the bases and then I have one year to practise.
And that’s my school. If anybody has any question regarding studying Spanish, let me know. Now you have to excuse me, I have homework to do 🤯.