Coopertiva Spanish School

I spent two weeks at the Coopertiva Spanish school to catch up on my Spanish and to make traveling around a little easier. I did four hours a day, from 8:00-12:00.  

My teacher or Maestro as they refer to themselves was 28 year old Jose.  Jose grew up in San Pedro and has been teaching at the school for 4 years.  He had dreams of becoming a graffiti artist, but lacked the funds to go to school in either Antigua or Guatemala City.  His biggest dream was to go to school in NYC or Buenos Aires. I credit Jose with having the patience to sit with an adult speaking at the 5 year old level everyday, as I struggled through remembering the definitions and conjugating verbs and getting the masculine and feminine in the right order. 

After break we would go walk about San Pedro so I could practice Spanish with him and the locals.  Trips included walks to the market, bank, the soccer field and up to a viewpoint overlooking San Pedro.  I also helped him create a new group on Facebook for the activities youth program ICE he organized. We also went to a Coffee Plantation to learn about the process of how the bean was picked and prepared for market. 

The Coopertiva as the name suggest is a cooperative that serves several purposes. First the tuition money is shared with all of the teachers. Tuition money is also used to build homes for families in need.  One day every student and the teachers went to the housing project to help pour cement onto the roof.  There were regular workers responsible for mixing the cement and making sure it was poured correctly on the roof.  The students helped carrying bags of cement, sand and stone to the mixing area and pouring buckets of water into the mix.  When the cement was ready, we formed a chain gang about 10 yards long, passing buckets of cement along the line and up to the roof.  The empty buckets were passed back down along the other side of the line to be refilled.  Somehow I ended up in the spot where I had to pass the full bucket down the line while simultaneously receiving the empty bucket for refill. It all ran very smoothly, albeit more labor intensive than how cement is mixed and poured in the U.S. 

The house was small, maybe 400 square feet, smaller than many of our closets and 8 people would be living in the single level.  When funds become available there are plans to add a second story. 

The school also had nightly activities which included a lecture pertaining to life in Guatemala, movie night, Salsa night and finally Saturday's activity.  I went on both of the Saturday activities; hiking Las Cristilinas and Zip lining. One other event was to visit a selected poor family and drop off food for them. 

It was a great two weeks, I met lots of people from several different countries and ended up hanging out with them most nights for the two weeks. Travelers tend to bond rather quickly while sharing travel stories and we all became fast friends.

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