Travel Guatemala – The Real Thing

By Kayla Allen
When I got on the plane to Guatemala, I really had no idea what to expect. I felt the same way when I had been packing the night before and any time I had thought about my trip in the preceding weeks. I knew I would be staying with a host family and learning Spanish. I had done some reading in guidebooks and had done tons of internet searches but still, sitting on the plane I felt pretty clueless; what would it be like?
After landing, Guatemala quickly took shape. The first person I met was Jorge, the driver that would pick me up at the airport in Guatemala City and take me to my host family in Antigua. He put me immediately at ease. He was friendly, quick to laugh and genuinely trying to understand my small talk in broken and I'm sure almost completely indecipherable Spanish. We talked and I laughed a lot because I'm sure I sounded like an idiot and we were quickly in Antigua, in the middle of a Semana Santa procession in fact, and I was in love.
Yes I admit I fell quickly for Antigua, but I had every reason to. From the sights and sounds of the street, to my host family, the teachers, my fellow students and the staff of the school, everyone was so welcoming and communicative, I quickly felt at home.
I was taking 4 hours of private Spanish classes a day. Four hours of almost anything can start getting boring but when you're having interesting in-depth discussions about religion, gender roles, politics, poverty, racism and also finding things to make each other laugh, the time goes by almost too quickly. And it was probably to my benefit that my side of the conversation was slightly limited by my Spanish level because it afforded me the opportunity to learn how to listen both for language comprehension but also to what my teachers were saying. They were really amazing people who had led very interesting and varied lives and I felt very lucky to get to talk to them. Learning Spanish was my focus but it also became a happy side effect to some good conversation.
The same was true for my host mother. At every meal but especially at dinner we'd sit and talk for an hour or so after eating, she being so patient and waiting for me to put my slow sentences together and use every word and verb I'd learned in class that day correctly. It's amazing how much can be communicated using simple sentences and gestures. It was nice to be able to converse, if haltingly, with someone other than an English speaker, to see and hear the world from another perspective. The most surprising part to me was how familiar people can seem in such a short time and how very different lives can lead very different people to very similar conclusions about the world.
I didn't just talk the whole time though. I went dancing a few times with people I met at the school and a group of us also took an unforgettable trip to Tikal. We climbed the Temples, took walking tours with really knowledgeable tour guides and saw the sunset and sunrise in the jungle with howler monkeys, toucans and various jungle creatures close enough to see. It was an amazing experience and I had great impromptu traveling companions to share it with. At school you can't help but meet people. There are so many activities and many students have their lessons outside so everyone becomes familiar and you can very quickly become friends.
In retrospect I think I know why I felt so clueless before leaving. For me what makes a place come alive are the people you meet, the conversations you have with them, their faces and their lives and those things can be difficult to get a sense of before you hop on a plane but probably the most rewarding. Guatemala is a place I will definitely be visiting again. I've got more Spanish to learn and more people to meet.