Our apologies for not writing sooner - the past few days have been hectic ones as we settle into life here in Guatemala.Our adventure began last Saturday, January 12th. After a long day of travelling - up at 5 am, to L.A. for lunch, then Mexico City for a brief dinner - we finally arrived in Guatemala City around 11:45 pm. We were both a bit nervous disembarking from the airplane because it has been quite some time since either of us travelled internationally, but our bags came sailing down the carousel without a hitch (a major fear of yours truly) and we easily caught a taxi to our hostel. The following morning, after a quick breakfast, we called a taxi to take us to the bus station, where we would catch a bus to Quetzaltenango (Xela).The drive through the streets of Guatemala City was an experience in and of itself - with armed soldiers on every street corner - and the bus station turned out to be a one room waiting area with a large, rather decrepit bus sitting out front. And we were splurging on a first class ticket!

The four hour bus ride was also an experience - watching the countryside fly past as we drove on the curvy roads. The terrain was much dryer and dustier than we expected - Xela is high above sea level and so does not have the lush rainforest of Costa Rica, or even other parts of Guatemala. After arriving in Xela we made the ill advised decision of walking with our packs to the language school, El Proyecto Linguisto, which turned into a sweaty 30 minute trip. Despite our sweaty - and no doubt smelly - arrival, Carlos, the school manager, greeted us with a warm smile.

We soon found ourselves walking through the streets of Xela with our new host family. Sonia, our host mother, Tita (age 6) and Erica and Sophia (twins age 5) all walked us to their home about 5 minutes away from the school. Todd began speaking fairly comfortably with the family immediately, while Christina relied mostly on smiles and a lot of ''gracias'', ''esta bien'' and ''bueno''. When we arrived at their home, we were shown into a front room, where we helped Sonia put sheets on the bed. The sheets were thread-bare and we had only one pillow between us, but everything was clean and the generosity of the family was immediatley apparent. All five family members are now sleeping in the room beside ours so that we can have a room to ourselves. The girls eagerly showed us through the rest of the house, pointing out a prized nativity still out since Christmas, and the view from the roof of the house, where the clothes lines hang to dry. In back of the house is a small courtyard and the bathroom is across this open space - a cold trip in the middle of the night. The bathroom is very simple and our visions of cold showers have come true, but the warmth of the family is striking, and the generosity with which they are sharing the little they have with us, two strangers, is very moving. The girls are incredibly interested and curious about us and would happily spend all of their time sitting in our laps, playing futbol with Todd, and drawing pictures with Christina. For this reason, studying or finding time by yourself is practically impossible in the house and we may eventually move to a hostel nearby. But for now, we are enjoying the experience and practicing our Spanish with the family as much as possible... although they seem to think Christina is incredibly quiet and shy due to the fact that Todd has to do most of the talking for both of us. Little do they know!

On Monday morning we arrived at El Proyecto at 8 AM for orientation where the school´s international student coordinator did an exceptional job summarizing the troubling history of Guatemala. El Proyecto is actually a not for profit school with a very strong social justice and awareness philosophy. Most of the teachers were connected in some way to the guerilla cause during the Guatemalan civil war and therefore are committed to educating their foreign students about the history as well as the language of their country. After orientation one of the teachers reviewed the week´s optional activities including lectures, films, day trips, weekend trips, dance lessons and even futbol Thursdays, for the 30 to 40 of us foreign students. We then launched into our first one on one language session with our assigned teachers. We survived our first day fumbling through with our very rusty Spanish. Both of our teachers were very nice but seemed to be a little underwhelmed by our level of Spanish. Day one ended with a wonderful farewell dinner with Eileen (a friend of Christina´s from Seattle and a former student at El Proyecto) and some of the friends that she has made during her time in Xela. We were so happy to have overlapped with her - if only for one day!

Day two we continued our one-on-one sessions with our instructors and continued to feel rather dense and awkward with the language. We both decided to attend a lecture about Guatemalan immigration to the United States in the late morning, thus breaking up our 5 hours of one on one class session. We are now in day four and are beginning to feel a bit more comfortable with the language, although Christina has yet to successfully complete even one sentence. We are unsure what lies in store for us in the days and weeks ahead, but hope to see a bit more of Guatemala on the weekends while improving our Spanish during the weeks. We will keep you all informed of our process and promise that future posts will be far shorter! We miss you all and send our love and thoughts your way.