american pie

guatemala's supposed to be hot, right? hot like temperature, not like sexy. xela is apparently the antarctica of this lovely country.

so i have 5 hours of one on one spanish class every day with Julio Roberto, and besides being super intense and besides the fact that Roberto (as he prefers to be called) is the biggest nerd EVER, i have been learning some colloquial expressions. in English. wtf. so the one i learned yesterday is: whenever you experience something for the first time, here in guat, people say, "ooh, an american pie." apparently there is some scene in that movie that these people really took to heart. so apparently every new thing i experience is an american pie. it's a lot of sweets.

Roberto also repeats this exression every 5 seconds. "Esta claro como agua sucia?" (It's clear like dirty water). Roberto finds this very clever. Melissa feels angry.

other things worth mentioning:

1. i live with an old widow and her daughter who is bedridden with a dangerous pregnancy. also there are 2 other language students who are not in my "Somos Hermanos" program living with me. 1 is from singapore and the widow calls him Chinito which at first i found questionable but now i'm starting to embrace the non-pc-ness of this country. anyone who is slightly overweight is instantly dubbed Gordo. i'm awaiting my own nickname with eager anticipation.

2. the leaders of my program are dating, graduated from usc this past year, and are younger than me. bullshit.

3. i was robbed on my plane from panama to guatemala.

4. the food here is much tastier than that of argentina. although i do miss meat.