G4: Celas Maya

Celas Maya is a wonderful school to learn spanish with skillful teachers and a pleasant atmosphere. It is seriously, well organized with lesson plans, homework, and scheduled optional lectures and outings. The 8 t0 1pm day can be a little long but the daily 10:30am pan dolce and and coffee/tea break help to keep the creeping lack of focus at bay. Isabel's daily homemade specialities offered us a chance to taste regional snacks like tamales with greens, empanadas, and chicken pastillas for about 1 Q a piece so that's about 10cents. Talk about a deal! (This also helps stave off hunger pains from smaller than expected host meals.)

Some of the outings included a trip to San Andreas, a mayan town with a large garish yellow church, a chocolateria tasting and demo, and an opportunity to spend an afternoon with some orphans. (I did this though there is some dispute as to whether they were really orphans or wards of the state because their parents cannot or would not take care of them due to their disabilities or mental capability. It was kinda like craft time and snack time at a VBS.)

My teacher for the week was Monica. She was so lovely and patient. I discovered that my spanish speaking ability was fairly good and the grammar and verb conjugation review was very helpful. We talked about everything from cooking foods at thanksgiving to gang activity and what I do at Lawndale. I agreed to send her a packet of stove top stuffing, as stuffing is such an american food. Quite fun trying to describe that in spanish! In the end my last lesson was replaced with a cooking demo: A typical guatemalan meal.

I was hoping to learn to make Monica's special seafood tamales, but her mom said the prep time would exceed our lesson time. So we walked to the Democracio market with Kathy, a fellow student and new friend from Arizona, and her teacher to pick up the needed grocery items. Then they taught us how to make chicken empanadas with fresh salsa and fried platains and a sweet summer fruit soup. I contributed a lesson on how to saute asparagus with garlic and lime and we had limonata(club soda and limes) as our summery beverage. It turned out wonderfully! We also fed an additional 20 ppl or so as we made about 50 some empanadas. All of the teachers were especially impressed with the asparagus as they had never known how to cook it before--though they often saw it at the market. When I return to chicago we will have an fiesta de guatemala so you can taste them too!