Day 2 in Guatemala- First day of class

Wow so my second full day in Guatemala and first day of classes.  So much has happened and I have learned so much.  First though I want to mention something from yesterday that I forgot to write about.  In the morning, upon opening the door to leave the bedroom I found a turtle walking by, and no this was not a pet.  There is some open area right outside the door but it is still inside.  It is kind of weird but cool.  The turtle was a surprise though, but I did take a picture so I can put up later.  

Okay, as for today.  Well this morning I found out at breakfast that there is another student from our group living in the same house but in a different room.  Her name is Linda and she is from Australia.  We had a nice early breakfast and then walked to meet with our group.  Our group of 12 students consists of several people all over the US but then also someone from Holland, Australia, and two from Canada.  We are quite a mixed group.  We are made up with occupational therapy students and anthropology students.  People are in all different levels of school also.  

This morning the entire group spent about three and a half hours learning all about orientation and key concepts.  It was a lot of information to learn in a short period of time.  We then met shortly with our focus group, mine being Infant Nutrition Developmental Unit or as I will refer to as pediatrics.  With not much time we decided to meet again after Spanish lessons because we all needed to catch the bus and get back for lunch with our host families.  After a delicious lunch,
Erin, Linda and I walked to Spanish school.  My Spanish tutor is Carmen and I am with her from 2 to 5 Monday, Tuesday and Thursday for the 4 weeks I am here. (Everyone in the program does the same thing, including the directors).  It is really nice having a personal tutor.  At the beginning we talked for a while and then we broke down and started working on expressions, grammar and vocab(during everything else) at the end we did some activities.  It was very stress free and I already feel much more confident in my Spanish. 

Afterward I met with my group.  There are four of us students, one professor and the coordinator is with us.  We learned a lot, I have decided that I am probably going to be shocked tomorrow and we were told that there are good odds that when we get there the nurses will just hand us a baby and tell us to feed them.  Oh and in this unit infant can mean anywhere from baby to nine years old or so.  But we were also told that we are going in as volunteers but we keep our background of OT/anthropology to help us.  In addition, we are told that here in Guatemala there is no third party insurance, no documentation and no suing so we can do most anything.  We will see how it goes tomorrow.

When I arrived back at my host family’s home, Mishelle, who is 6 years old, followed me and asked me to play school (she only speaks Spanish).  We then played a little bit of school with her being the teacher and then she wanted me to do exercises.  She tried to get me to go down in the splits and I told her that I couldn’t (especially not in jeans), then Erin arrived home.  She was talked into joining the games also.  After more splits, jumping jacks and trying to get us to climb the wall, Mishelle switched to being models walking down the runway.  This was amusing, especially when Mishelle made Andy (Taiwan student studying Spanish) join in too.  Then it was dinner time and working on homework.  I have not been too successful, but I did read one article and study Spanish.