I am a GIANT

We're back in Guatemala. This time we're in Xela, about 4 hours west of Guatemala City. One of the first things you'd notice as an American is that, even if you're short in America, you're really TALL here. I'd guess the average height for men is 5'4", and women... maybe 4'10".

You become particularly aware of this if you try to use the toilet. At least, at our Spanish school, the stall door is exactly 1 foot from the end of the toilet. That means there is no room for your knees, let alone to stand... and your feet hang out the door.

I was thinking about seeing if I could join the Guate national basketball team. Not that I can play basketball, or that I even would understand what the other players are saying... but I feel like what Manute Bol (really tall basketball player) must have felt like in the U.S.

We came back primarily to get in some good language time. Xela is much more indigenous and less touristy than Antigua, Guate was. So we're forced to speak Spanish much more. Our school is really good, and we're both doing 5 hours of 1:1 learning with a native speaker each week. We are s...l...o...w...l...y making progress.

The Spanish family we're living with is really nice, and much better than our previous family we bailed from living with in Antigua. You can also see how tall I am in the picture to the left. The mother spends so much time cooking every day. We like the food, though the amount of pan fried cooking is tough on our stomachs at times. Speaking of tough on our stomachs, we got our first case of "traveller's sickness" last week. I'll let you imagine what that means... but suffice to say we were both in bed for 24 hours.

The culture here is very machismo. Around the house where we're living, the mother is up around 6:30 every morning, and spends the entire morning, day, and evening cooking and cleaning, mostly everything by hand. The men come in and sit down for meals, but never help with preparation of food, cleaning dishes, or anything. This is a little disturbing to me and Lisa, so we help out with dishes and clearing the table, and Lisa has even helped with cooking. The mother of the house is so kind spirited, so welcoming, as is the husband and their boys. But she is really special to us because of how much she does with such a positive attitude.

We like it enough that we're gonna stay here for another week, even though we have to share a bathroom with 8 people and we found bugs in our bed this morning.