Antigua, Guatemala: Total Immersion!

I’m really stoked right now because I had a great weekend hanging out in the park, and also because I actually managed to survive my first week of Spanish immersion school! Now, when I say immersion, I mean total immersion! That means zero English, in class, and at home!! The past week has been really intense, in and outside of class, so here’s a recap of what’s been going on…

Let’s rewind to the beginning shall we? Before I left the US I signed up for 2 months of instruction at PLFM, which is short for Fundacion Proyecto Linguistico Francisco Marroquin. PLFM is the oldest Spanish language school here in Antigua, and is a non profit where all the revenue supports Myan language literacy projects. The program at PLFM is a total immersion program, which means that you have intensive individual Spanish instruction one-on-one with an instructor during the day, and then you room and board with a Spanish speaking family at night for the duration of the program. In both cases there is little to no English spoken, hence; total immersion.

One of my good friends once told me that the key to learning Spanish is to get your ear accustomed to hearing the language, and I remember the total culture shock that I experienced last March in Buenos Aires when I got off of the plane and heard all the people speaking Spanish. It was a kind of an “oh shit, I’m screwed” feeling because I couldn’t make out a single word and I was going to be there for 2 weeks! When people spoke to me it seemed as if all the words were running together, and I might as well have been listening to static on the radio, as opposed to listening to someone trying to speak to me in Spanish. So I was a little apprehensive when I arrived last week in Antigua, not to mention, delirious from not sleeping a wink on the flight.

When I arrived at my new home I was greeted by Yolanda, Javier, and their grandson Jerson. They welcomed me in and then immediately ushered me into the kitchen where I was served some amazing pollo con arroz (chicken with rice). I thanked them for the meal in my best Spanish, and tried as best I could to explain to them where I was from, and that I hadn’t slept since the prior morning. Even though they spoke no English and my Spanish was absolutely horrible, we seemed to laugh and have a good time over dinner regardless. It’s really great because they are such nice people, and it turns out that they have many different kinds of students that stay at the house. I ended up crashing out after I ate and got some of the best sleep of my life that night…LOL.

The next day I met Lluven and Ices. They are two really nice girls, both 17 and 16 years old, who are on a work program with their schools. They come into Antigua and stay here at the house during the week and work in some small offices during the day to get some business experience, and then they go back home for the weekends. The girls are really nice and they love to help me with my Spanish. They are totally my new amigas!!

Their grandson Jerson is also really cool. He’s 12 and knows just a few English words. We had a really fun time the other night at the table. I came in and he was watching wresting. It turns out he’s a huge WWE fan, just like I was when I was his age. I was telling him all about my favorite wrestlers back in the day like Hulk Hogan and The Ultimate Warrior, and we had a great time laughing and watching guys get body slammed left and right. BTW, if you’ve never watched Mexican wrestling, those guys are seriously bad ass! I saw a guy jump completely out of the ring and do a triple back flip right onto another guys face!! Siiick!

Anyway, despite being a little apprehensive at first about staying with a family and being totally immersed in Spanish every second of the day, looking back, I’m really glad that I did it. I’m starting to pick a lot of things up and I’m beginning to be able to have real basic conversations with people. It’s kind of crazy how it works, because you start to get better at the language with out even being aware that you’re making progress. For example, Yolanda’s brother came over Friday night and I talked to him for about 3 minutes in Spanish with out even thinking about it. Then, when I went back into my room it hit me… I think I just talked to that guy with out using any English, did that actually just happen? Crazy!!!

Pics to match the post…