Day 45 – 50 – Spanish School – San Pedro

I had signed up for Spanish School in San Pedro, Lake Atitilan for 1 week. Guatemala is amongst one of the cheapest places to learn Spanish and San Pedro is a popular spot for backpackers that want to learn but also indulge in a bustling nightlife scene. I opted for both lessons at the school and also the added extra of a ‘homestay’ where you live with with a Guatemalan family for the week and are able to further immerse yourself in the language. The homestay give you a private room to stay and also 3 meals a day; breakfast, lunch and dinner in their family home.

For 5 days of lessons (private one on one with a teacher) for 4 hours a day plus the week accomodation and all meals included the price was 1800 quetzals which is about $350 AUD. Ridiculously cheap.

I moved from my hostel in San Pedro to the homestay on Sunday where I met my Guatemalan family. Edgar and Anna were the parents of the house and they had 2 children; a daughter which helped out around the house and an elder son who I didn’t really see. Upon meeting them they started to speak to me in Spanish, assuming to gauge how much of the language I knew. It became very apparent early on that they were dealing with an Australian idiot who’s vocabulary consisted of ‘Ola’ ‘Cerveza’ and ‘Adios’. An awkward one way conversation ensued where despite them clearly knowing I couldn’t understand them, they just kept talking in Spanish to me. I smiled and awkwardly just stared at them. They laughed at me and I’m 75% sure they then took the piss out of me. They wrote my name with ‘Australia’ next to it on the whiteboard they had in their kitchen. The homestay had begun.

To my relief, I then met 3 english girls who were also doing a homestay in Anna and Edgars house. They spoke varying amounts of Spanish but all much better than mine. The thought of awkward and silent meals for a week with my Guatemalan family was saved by these English girls. They could talk to the family and I would attempt to contribute here and there where I could. 

Anna cooked 3 amazing meals everyday:

Breakfast every morning at 7:15am

Lunch every afternoon at 12:30pm

Dinner every night at 6:30pm

I opted for the morning 4 hour lessons from 8am – 12am so for the week my routine was wake up, have a cold shower (no hot water 🙁 ), eat breakfast and make the 10 minute walk to my Spanish School, ‘Community Spanish School’. 

The Spanish School was set up amazingly with all lessons occurring outside on the lake. My teacher for the week was Juan, who was a patient (a necessary trait with teaching me) and funny Guatemalan man, who was actually a school teacher himself, and was earning some extra money teaching English as it was the Guatemalan school holidays. We bonded over football and cervezas for the week.

 Let me tell you, 4 hours everyday of one on one lessons is gruelling. Unlike in my high school days where I could hide at the back and pretend to listen whilst I played games on my laptop and let the other 25 students carry the lesson, in Community Spanish School… there was nowhere to hide. It was physically exhausting. After 2.5 hours I would get a 15 minute break before returning for the last hour and a half. Those 15 minutes felt like seconds. The free coffee that the Spanish School offered every morning was abused by me. The last hour was always the hardest, by this stage I was tired and hungry and only thinking about what Mumma Anna was concocting for lunch. 

At 12pm I would walk back to my homestay for lunch. The meals were almost always really good (I think I only remember one dud meal, a vegetarian dish of course). The routine for the week after lessons was normally go to a cafe and revise what I had learnt with some of the other guys doing the Spanish school and chill in the afternoon. I would head home for dinner at 6ish and then go out for a couple of drinks in the evening before bed. It was nice having a bit of a routine for the week.

So how much Spanish did I actually learn?

Honestly quite a lot. The lessons were very fast paced and everyday was something new. The first day was basically just memorising some of the English words translated to Spanish but after that we looked at tenses, adjectives and how to ask things in full sentences. It was enjoyable but also very frustrating. Just when you think you have nailed a particular phrase or sentence, Juan would say something like ‘Ok that is normally how you say it but when the word ends in CION that is the exception and you say it differently’ for example. There were many different exceptions to the rules which felt learning things quite demoralising at times.

I definitely did learn a lot though and feel much more comfortable talking now. I definitely can’t speak in sentences really but I am able to comprehend things a lot more now. On the third night a random bloke at the bar started talking to me in very fast Spanish. Before Spanish School I would have looked at him and uttered something along the lines of ‘Yeah no idea what you’re saying mate, no Espanyol’ but just by a few hours of learning I was able to pick apart a couple of the words he said for example ‘Donde’ meaning where and ‘erres de’ = you from. I was able to make an educated guess that he was asking where I was from and was able to answer him. I felt quite accomplished after that actually. 

On the Saturday, after a week of lessons and staying in a homestay I said goodbye to my family before I ventured off to El Paredon. Anna gave me a big hug and I thanked her for everything. I was able to speak a few broken sentences to her, more than I had been able to do 6 days earlier. I think if I spent 2-3 weeks at the Lake doing lessons I would actually get quite good because you pick up things quite quickly when you are using the language all the time around the town. 

A great experience that I am thankful for and will remember for a long time 🙂 

I just realised after looking at the photos I forgot to talk about the birds!! Long story short, after lessons on one of the days me and Finn went to a different town on the Lake on the hunt for the famous Quetsal bird. This is the national animal of Guatemala and a bird that is only found in very few areas in the world. We ventured into a deep jungle with the help of a guide and did manage to get a glimpse of the bird, albeit through the help of a big binocular lens thingy. I’m by no means a bird guy but it was actually very cool.  Here’s a link of the birds which captures them much better than I could have:

https://photos.app.goo.gl/ArgewNjCUdmXxLJw9