Our Host Family & Home

I am very frustrated that we cannot post pictures on the blog for some reason! If anyone is familiar with blogs and knows what we can do to fix this problem, please let us know!

Telling you about where we are staying would be so much better with pictures, but words will have to suffice for now. We are staying with a couple -- Roberto and Sandra who have been married for 23 years and have four sons: David (21), Roberto (18), Samuel (15), and Miguel (11). Roberto works in Guatemala City in some form of business administration. Sandra hosts students for extra income and is studying on weekends to become a lawyer. They are a very sweet Christian family and have been very welcoming to us. However, it will be so much better when we can actually communicate with them! Right now, it is rather lonely in the home and awkward at meal times.

It is common in Guatemala for extended family to live together. Our home is divided into small apartments. Sandra's mother, brother & his family, sister & her family, and nephew and his family live on the lower level. There is also a small medical clinic that the family operates on the lower level. Sandra's father was a OB/GYN, her brother is a pediatrician and her niece is a dentist. On the upper level, other family members have apartments and then Sandra and her family have an apartment. When you climb the stairs, you enter into the living room/kitchen. There are three bedrooms off of this main room -- one for two boys, one for the other two boys, and one for Sandra and Roberto. Past the kitchen is a small open-air patio. Our bedroom is off of this room and we have our own small private bathroom.

We have a large window, which looks out onto the patio area, and runs the length of our bedroom. It does not close so it seems like we can hear everything in the house! The patio area is a popular place for doing laundry and playing soccer, so we certainly do not have a lot of quiet time in the room. I also find myself whispering all the time because I think they can hear us. Of course, they probably wouldn't understand what I was saying anyway!

We really like our family and the location of their home is very convenient. It is only 4 blocks from our school and 1 block from the central park. Last night, we went for a walk in the park after dinner and people-watched from a bench for a long time. After complaining to Daniel about how frustrating it is not to understand what is going on around me, a group of English-speaking college students sat down next to us and taught me a valuable lesson. As they discussed in extremely inappropriate language their drugs, drinking, and upcoming parties, I was reminded that not being able to understand the conversations around me is not always a bad thing! Possibly it is a blessing!