This time it's personal

It is interesting when you spend 30 hours a week with someone for a few weeks and their job is to make you talk and listen.  You wind up talking about the things interesting to you, your girlfriend, your life, your political views and in a few weeks, this person knows everything about you.  And, you wind up knowing lots about them and their kids and spouse and issues and trials.  She has a chipper daughter that is smart, but probably has ADD, a son who is struggling to become an Electrical Engineer, or electronics technician, while working a job.  If my Spanish were better I would offer to talk to the kid.  I have to say it is odd struggling to explain why you get emotionally drained by certain things and having to stop to correct your use of articles and prepositions.

My instructor is very involved in her church but is in touch with the idea that good and bad people come from all faiths.  She has struggled with life and faith and being married to someone with significant flaws.  But I suppose we all have.  I get the sense she has grown a lot in the last 20 years with the help of some people in the church.  I get the sense she emulates that counselor demeanor which strives to show concern but not judgment.  Or perhaps it is just the somber, pensive state a Guatemalan woman gets to when considering the problems of her family and country.

I haven’t spent such a concentrated time getting to know someone in a long time.  She doesn’t really speak English and I am not yet at the first grade level in Spanish, which makes it all that much more incredible.  Extended one on one instruction is certainly more personal, than the group classes I took in Buenos Aires.  But then again, it may just be the individuals.  Most of the other Spanish “Maestro’s” and “Estudientes” are much younger than she and I.

I was able to sneak a shot of one of the guys using his head to cary a load.  As I said, it doesn't look as good for the posture as the Fem-Mayan method in the previous picture.