Outtatown Site 1 Guatemala: January 2009

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Preview of things to come...

Here is a little preview of things to come that we have already done.

(And tomorrow we will go to the beach for the weekend!)

Guatemala City Dump: where people work!

Volcan Pacaya: where there are rivers of lava!

More volcanoes in the distance!

Well until next week!

Carolyn Kolm

The first week at the APPE Spanish School in San Juan was fantastic. I went from knowing how to say "Hola" and "Gracias" to conjugating verbs and describing my family in 4 days. Again the term "school" takes on a whole new meaning in Outtatown. We walk to school in the morning and slowly make our way to plastic tables and chairs on the covered porch outside. If it's cold we take our chairs and move to the lawn in the sun. This is school for us Outtatowners.

On our first day we had a level placement interview; an awkward few minutes during which one feels completely incompetent. I started counting in French by accident! But the awkwardness was worthwhile, because the students in each class are all at about the same level. With a 4 student per teacher ration the learning goes pretty fast.

I love the fact that I can now communicate more easily with the members of my family, barter at the market and buy chocolate covered bananas (in Spanish called: Choco-bananos) by myself and I know it will only get easier as time goes on!

By Emma Purser

This is the first day at APPE!

Heather, Jill and Mel enjoying the sun while learning some Spanish.

Chris, Lindsay K., Shanon and Linday M. chatting in Spanish.

One of the APPE teachers helping the girls out.

Pinata time!

An APPE teacher blindfolded Rebecca and gave her a stick to whack the Clown pinata.

There she goes!

Next Jason got a chance at breaking open the pinata!

But Marisa was the final one to spill open the candy contents!!

Meeting Host Families

It has been two weeks now since we first arrived in the beautiful country of Guatemala. Yet so much has happened. I can still remember the pre-host family gitters. The sense of excitment and anticipation continued to surmount as we gathered at the APPE Spanish School to meet our families for the first time. One by one our names were called and we were introduced to our host families. Then we each walked home with our host family to their/our house. As I walked into my room, my family had put "Bienvenido a su Casa!" My new home- what an interesting thought. And now its already been two weeks and I feel privillaged to be part of my new Guatemalan family.

By Alida Santos

The morning of the big day of meeting our host families we bused it from Camp Adulam (on the outskirts of Guatemala City) to San Juan del Obispal: our new hometown.

Mel, Jenna and Marisa.

Linday, Shanin and Nikkita.

Chris, Joel and Trevor.

There pictures are of the APPE Spanish School and Host Family Event in San Juan.

Carolyn, Steve Plett, Lillian and Benjamin.

The host families waiting for their names to be called as well as one of the students.

Heather meeting her host family.

Trevor hugging his host mom.

Darin chatting it up with his host mom.

Janine hugging her host mom.

Alida meeting her host family.

Rachael bending down to hug her host mom- and Rachael isn't even that tall!!

There photos are of the students at their new home with their host families!

Kristin and her host brother rocking out!

Elizabeth and her host sister surrounded by a beautiful garden.

Shanin and her curious little host sister.

Rebecca and her 2 host sisters hanging out together!

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More from Camp Adulam

Here are some more pictures of our group at Camp Adulam and our day trip to Anitgua.

Heather, Ethan and Jill sporting their Outtatown Guatemala Gear!

Site 1 Guatemala in Antigua, Guatemala!!!!

The lovely Site Leaders enjoying a Liquado (Fruit Smoothie). Steve Plett (our field manager in Guatemala), Lindsay Kubassek, Carolyn Kolm, Steve Allen and Chris Sones.

During our stay at Camp Adulam we had the privillage of singing some Christian Spanish songs to some Guatemala children. They kept wanting to hear more songs so we also sang some English songs too. Then we asked the children to sing some songs for us! It was awesome! It was an amazing experience and we will all remember it forever.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

2nd Semester in Guatemala!

Family, friends and everyone else- I just wanted to let you know we have safely made it to Guatemala! We have spent the last 4 days at a beautiful camp on the outskirts of Guatemala.
Carolyn

From –40 to Tiki Huts
Hey, so the second semester has finally arrived!!! On Jan. 14 most of us students met up at CMU very excited to see one another again and to travel on to Guatemala. That night we drove through the night on a very cold bus for 8 hours to Minnesota where we got on our first flight to Dallas Texas which was very exciting for us, because that’s where we met up with all our Ontario friends that flew out earlier that morning. After the very happy reunion we all got on our flight to Guatemala and arrived their safely! It was very exciting driving through the city and looking out the windows of the landscape around us. We drove to Camp Adulam where we have been staying for the past couple of days. It was lots of fun first exploring the camp the night we arrived; we were really stoked about the nice cabins. Also they have these little Tiki huts all over the place surrounded with new trees and brush that made it really obvious that we were in a new country. The next morning we woke up excited to see our new home in daylight. It was really amazing because the camp looks over a valley of little Guatemalan homes and gardens that look like something out of a movie. Everything just seemed so much more real that we were actually in Guatemala! During our time here we have been reviewing some basic Spanish and learning about the culture and about culture shock. We have been at the camp for a couple of days and we are now really stoked to go beyond our camp walls and explore this neat and different country. The only down fall so far is that it has not been as warm as we had hoped but that is supposed to change when we head to San Juan and Antigua tomorrow. But it still beats the heck out of being back in Winnipeg where it was –40. Anyways that’s all for now! Today we head for Antigua to explore and shop around. Tomorrow we meet our host families, which will be awkward but exciting, so we’ll keep ya’ll updated.
See ya!

By Trevor Bach