Greetings From Sky City

I am finally settled into Xela, or as settled as I can be considering I can barely communicate. Xela is 7,000 miles above sea level and unlike anywhere I've ever been.  The city is a nest of tiny colorful buildings and streets barely wide enough for one car. It is surrounded by steaming volcanoes, though since we're in what seems like a perpetual cloud the tops of the mountains are always in mist, so the city kind of disintegrates at the edges into whitness.  This afternoon in the break from class it actually was sunny and hot, and then an hour later the skies erupted and the whole town was DRENCHED.  I found out why so many of the streets have arches that reach from the sidewalks with stairs.  The roads flood in many places, I saw a couple that had two feet of muddy water that cars were plowing through. I can't wait to put pictures to upload here but it's drizzling and I don't want to get my camera wet. 

My class is five hours of one on one instruction every day from 8am to 1 pm.  Gaby is my professor and I feel abolutely awful for her, she asks me all these questions that I stumble and plow my way through and as much as I want to be able to chat I know I'm boring her. I also seem to have forgotten most of what I learned in early Spanish classes, I had more trouble with numbers than anything else. And though she is very kind, I can tell she's wondering if I'm operating on all my cylinders when I confuse fifty for five hundred ten times in a row.  I almost didn't take the classes because I figured I'd get better gradually, but now I'm realizing how much time that would take.  The school also has activites in the afternoon - this evening they're playing futbol.  When I declined they were bewildered and I didn't know how to explain that after a morning of humiliating myself verbally there was no way in hell I was going to voluntarily humiliate myself physically too. 

None of the women I'm working with speak any english either.  Rachel, my fellow intern, is off doing work and Tony, the other guy living at the house is really nice but doesn't know any Spanish - he's filming a documentary and is on his own schedule.  I'm trying to get up the nerve to go get food, I can't understand anyone and my ego has taken enough of a beating.  This experience has already been extremely humbling and I have the feeling it will only continue. 

Note: Mom, Dad, you will be happy to know that Tony was in the military special forces for six years, a cop for four, and a fireman for fifteen. He's a huge black dude with dreadlocks halfway down his back. He says since there are no black people in Guatemala people are scared of him.  I am in safe hands, trust me. 

I really want to descibe my house, which is BEAUTIFUL, but I'll wait until after I eat and take some pictures.  And maybe someone will tell me what I'm supposed to be doing....