As Antigua is to Santa Fe, Xela is to the Meadowlands-come-Back Bay of Boston. A dirty, smoggy centerfuge of animals, people, dustbowls and machines amongst tight colonial streets, that I´m growing to love.

The walk to school is pleasant enough, as sort of frogger experience: hurdle crippled dogs, elude the jousting bicycles, weave through the cars that don´t care to see you, and still take time to notice the women balancing firewood and baked goods on their heads. But there´s no time to act numb, as they are serious about learning, ugh, at the language school.

The instructors are decent enough, though at times it seems like our non existent Spanish is better than their English. No matter, after just two five hour classes I already know more than two years of high school and another college gave me. Perhaps we are paying more attention, or rather, we are showing up for class and wanton for communication with more than gringos.

The east coast flair doesn´t hold up in Xela, pronounced shay la, when it comes to the climate. Northern California all the way. Mornings smoke the breath from you and the day scalds your scalp, by 5 though we´re sporting our wool hats and crawling under piles of covers for slumber. It´s the dry season now, so dry in fact our eyelids hurt to close.
Our Guatemalan family is awesome, more than we ever expected and at this point, we´d be happy living here for the next year. We have our own room, bathroom and the insistent love of an ancient Rotweiller named Dolly. Malda cooks us up three massive Guatemalan meals a day, we don't cook or clean, and if she sees us studying after lunch she orders us to take a siesta- perfecto!