Safe and Sound in Guate-town

Hello Best Friends & Family,

I have safely arrived to Xela, Guatemala. It was not too difficult to get here, although very exhausting. I was fortunate enough to sit next to a man, on the plane to Guatemala City, who lives in California but is originally from Guatemala. He visits Guatemala often and offered for me to share his Taxi with him, since he knows his taxi driver well. This mans kindness as well as the generousity of the Taxi driver helped me to safely exit the airport and find the quickest bus to get to Xela, which still took about seven hours (3hours waiting at the bus station followed by a 4hour bus ride). The bus ride was pretty insane, but I am still alive and didn´t get car sick despite the quick twists and turns the entire way.

My host family is wonderful. There are technically four small families all living together in a small housing complex with nine total people. I have my own room and there is a pretty sweet rooftop that I can go onto during the day and read, study, or just hang out.

Today was my first day of classes. I have to be at breakfast at 7AM before classes begin at 8Am and continue until noon... I definitely did not expect early mornings like that. However, thankfully my homeworkload each night will never keep me up too late so that I can go to bed early and get some sleep. (Yes, you all heard me, I, Mathew Lane, am going to be getting plenty of sleep! This means that all of you reading this, and you know who I am talking about, need to make sure you get your rest as well and take care of yourself too).

My teachers at the school are very kind and I think I am going to learn a lot from them. I quickly realized that I remember much more Spanish than I expected, many of the other students there assumed I had learned spanish in the past... clearly my spanish accent must be good, which is understandable since I am quite the expert at accents (I hope you can detect my sarcasm). One of the other students at the school invited myself and another student to go Salsa dancing tonight. I think it is a good idea to be the "Yes Man" here so that I can experience as much as possible and try out a lot of new things here, hopefully making some friends in the process.


I have probably already rambled on too long and hopefully you all have not already stopped reading. I will try to write on the blog fairly often and will do my best to keep it as interesting as possible and to submit pictures as well so that you all know what I am talking about as I describe things.

I hope (esperanza) you are all doing really well and enjoying your spring break (if you go to SU)! Please write to me because I would love to hear how you all are doing.

Peace & Blessings to each of you!
-Mathew