Getting ready for Guatemala

On Saturday I leave for Guatemala, where I will spend three weeks studying Spanish and the Latino and Mayan cultures. I received a grant through the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning (CITL) at Goshen College to be able to go. Quite honestly, I didn't know much about Guatemala before planning this trip. I like to be a responsible traveler, though, so I've done a bit of research lately. Here are some highlights:

About Guatemala (courtesy of CIA World Fact Book)
Guatemala is located in Central America, just south of Mexico. It borders both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. The overall size of the country is slightly smaller than Tennessee.

Guatemala has a very strong Mayan heritage. In addition, it was a Spanish colony for nearly 300 years, so there is also strong Spanish influence on the culture. Guatemala gained independence from Spain in 1821.
In more recent history, the country was involved in a 36-year guerilla war that finally ended in 1996.

There are 13 million people living in Guatemala and about 7 million of them live in and around the capital, Guatemala City. (The US has about 300 million citizens.) About 60% of the population are Mestizo (a mixture of Amerindian & Spanish) or European; nearly 40% are Mayan. There are 23 officially recognized Amerindian languages spoken in Guatemala. Someday I would like to learn one (or more!) of them.

About Quetzaltenango (Xela)
I will be flying in to Guatemala City on Saturday, July 5, and spending one evening at a bed & breakfast called Casa de Familia. Then on Sunday I will take a four hour bus ride to Quetzaltenango, the second largest city. This city is also called Xela (pronounced shay-la), which is what I will probably refer to it as in my blog because it's much shorter! The bus ride will be through the mountains, which I expect to be breathtaking and probably a bit nerve-wracking.

Xela is a modern town. Most homes have running water and there are coffee shops and internet cafes. The city is surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. Some of the volcanoes are active and one erupts on a daily basis. I'm hoping to climb the volcano next to it and watch it erupt! Check out some photos here. July is part of the rainy season, so it will rain every afternoon, but that also means everything will be very green. The average high temperature will be around 70 degrees and the low around 50. It will seem strange to have chilly mornings in the middle of July!

Xela is not a popular tourist destination, so there won't be many opportunities to speak English. Instead I will truly be immersed in Spanish. I will live with a local middle-class family who live close to the school. I don't know anything about them yet, which makes me pretty anxious!

About ICA Language School
I'm really excited about the language school I'm attending. It's called ICA Language School. Their motto is "Monolinguism can be cured," which makes me smile. I'll be in class each afternoon and participating in a cultural excursion each morning. Over the weekends they have day-long or overnight cultural excursions to other areas of Guatemala. I'd love to see the Pacific Ocean and the Mayan ruins in Tikal.