Antigua, Guatemala - Spanish language training

The blogger Tioga & George,  T&G  writes about boondocking and not staying in campgrounds. He spends the winter in Mexico and summers along the US Pacific coast. He boondocks in places like gas stations, roadsides, industrial parks, friends places and many others.  He has quite a following and does real well with adsense (those ads on blog pages, if people click, he receives a small amount of money for each click).

At the present time George is in Guatemala and touring around the country staying in hotels rather than his camper. I think that is a good move for him since out of the way hotels are very cheap for an individual. Gasoline is $4.70 a gallon down there and it isn't safe to boondock in out of the way places in Guatemala.

His blog brought back many pleasant memories of the time I spent in Antigua, Guatemala for Spanish language training at the Proyecto Linguistico Francsisco Marroquin in their total immersion program.  PLFM At the time I was a US Foreign Service Officer stationed in Costa Rica and needed to improve my Spanish speaking ability fast. In 1987 the cost was $100/week for 8 hours of one-on-one teaching with a local Spanish teacher. For an additional fee you could live with a local family, eat with them and participate in their daily living routine. I wasn't interested in doing that so I rented a room at the Casa El Patio which was on the corner next to the La Merced church.

Casa El Patio, last house on the right.

My first day in class consisted of speaking Spanish to the teacher who didn't/wouldn't speak any English. It sounds impossible, but it worked. I had learned a few words of Spanish before the class but wasn't able to converse in Spanish. I did know how to ask for a cerveza bien fria (cold beer) and a few other absolutely necessary phrases. The teacher was assigned to you for the week and were relentless in getting you up to speed. Over the course of the time I was there I had good, great and lousy teachers. One week I asked to have my teacher switched since she was impossible to deal with. One other male teacher only wanted to talk about soccer and that got old very quickly.

Spanish teachers at PLFM

I did have one favorite teacher who knew more about happenings in the world and we were able to discuss different topics. One topic that was off limits for discussion was the Guatemalan government and military. This teacher would discuss it but it was evident she was scared to do so. There was a civil war going on at the time and people who spoke out against the government tended to disappear.

Most of the female teachers talked about daily life there, mothers-in-law ( not always good reports), cooking, children, etc. At first it was interesting, but quickly I picked up on that and wanted to move on. There was an almost universal dislike of the mothers-in-law interfering in the daily life of these women. There were eyes and busybodies all over town and the teachers were afraid to be seen outside the school talking to the students. Lot of social pressure was put on the females.

In any case, I put in my time studying Spanish and left there with a basic understanding of the language. It wasn't enough for me to pass my required speaking level of Spanish, but enough to get me started on my more serious study of the language. But that is another story.

Gerry joined me in Antigua for 4 weeks and also attended the language school.  While she was there we took weekend trips to various places like Chichicastenango, Panajachel, Tikal Mayan ruins, Flores, Guatemala City, Soloa and other places.  I will write more about these places in the future.   It was an interesting and dangerous country to be in 1987 with the civil war going on in full swing.