Americas

My Spanish classes are in the morning and my school holds cultural activities every afternoon. A favourite of all students is the visit to a family-owned artisanal chocolate maker. It's in a house only 1-2 kilometres from Antigua, but the traffic and narrow roads make it a 20 minute trip in a chicken bus. The teacher leading the tour explained that the prices here are way below market rates and begged us not to try to bargain for bulk discounts. One of the family explained (in Spanish) that chocolate comes in pods of about 40 cocoa beans. She showed us the raw beans and the much darker roasted beans, then crumbled the skin / shell off the bean and crushed it into nibs. These are apparently really nutritious and tasty when added to muesli or in cooking. I can confirm that they're quite tasty on their own because she crushed a few more and passed them around. We then saw a demonstration of the nibs being ground with water in a machine in the main room, but I assume there's a bigger machine out the back somewhere. They then added raw cane sugar and honey to the resulting chocolate paste, and explained that lots of other flavours could be used. The shop used cardamom, chilli, coffee, mint, cinnamon and even rice to flavour the chocolate. I'm not sure how it gets from the runny paste we saw to the next stage, but we were taken to another room to observe a group of people pounding about 40kg of chocolate into shape on a reed mat. They were behind glass, which I hope was to ensure a sterile environment, but the pounding was done by

I'm not in Latin America for a holiday or even just to learn Spanish. I'm here to find a new life. My dream is to find somewhere affordable to live, pick up some work that will allow me to contribute to the local society and meet people. In my experience, everyone has fascinating stories to tell, and I'd like to be able to collect those stories and share them with the world. Having lived in Australia, Asia and Europe, Latin America is my first choice for my new home, but my Spanish is nowhere close to useful, so I have come to Guatemala to correct that. Learning Spanish and staying in a homestay also provide a routine and a ready social network that reduces the anxiety I fear I'd have just turning up entirely without a plan. My plan, such as it is, involves following my instincts, letting the wind take me from town to town, focusing on learning Spanish, but keeping my senses tuned for opportunities to use my skills and for people or organisations that need help. You can imagine how happy I was to stumble across a flyer for an NGO presentation in Cafe Rainbow, a great local café, in my first week. The presentation was by New Dawn to generate support for a Mayan community who are trying to improve education for their kids and to preserve the local Mayan dialect and dances. The children performed a number of traditional dances, which included activities such as making tortillas, sneaking away for trysts at the water hole and ceremonies honouring the cardinal directions. I spent some time after the presentation talking to Vicky from New Dawn, who was extremely welcoming, inviting

Driving off the bitumen main road into Antigua is like stepping back in time. Antigua means 'old' and it was the capital of Guatemala before Guatemala City. As a UNESCO site, Antigua has kept the traditional feel, right down to cobblestone streets and Mayan colour scheme, which is based on natural elements. The town square is almost dead centre and the streets run north-south (avenidas) and east-west (calles) throughout most of the town, with tall, narrow footpaths on each side. The cobblestones are treacherous under foot, and extend the time it takes me to walk to class each morning, but they add bolsas (bags) of charm to the place, and when they're drowning under the deluge of the afternoon rain, the sight is truly special. The local churches are largely still being restored from a ruinous state so the facades are much more impressive than the interiors, but the Iglesia de San Francisco and the Iglesia de Merced are well on the way to completion. My hosts are actively involved in the church of San Francisco, and I attended on my first Sunday in town to hear them sing with the choir. I've also found Amanda, who runs the homestay, with the churches ledgers spread out over the dining table, making sure everything is in order. Looking beyond the town, you'll quickly see volcanoes in every direction, and some of them are very active. I plan to climb Acatenango next weekend. From the top you can watch Fuego spewing lava that quickly settles on the sides. Others who have already done the trip tell me it's the best thing they've ever done. It will have to be spectacular to beat Cappadocia, but I'm hoping

I've always wanted to speak five languages. It's an arbitrary number, but if you include English and Japanese, which I already speak, Spanish and perhaps Arabic and Mandarin, you could go almost anywhere in the world and be able to converse with locals. This week, I started on the path to Spanish fluency by enrolling in classes at Antiguena Academy in Guatemala. I was recommended to start in Guatemala because the people speak slowly and clearly compared to other Latin American countries, and Antigua because it's such a quaint, friendly city. I'm not sure whether Antiguena is the best school, but it's cheap, they arrange daily cultural activities on top of the lessons, and my teacher makes the classes interesting. In one week, we've covered all present tense verb forms and a number of useful phrases. That may be fast because I've studied Spanish before (then lost it learning French while living in Belgium), but it seems to be the standard curriculum. Best of all, the classes are held in a private garden on the edge of town, with fifty teacher-student pairs scattered throughout. It's ringing with laughter, yet otherwise tranquil. Tostadas and other local dishes are available very cheaply during the morning break, when students gather on the garden's lawn to catch up and plan their weekends. I plan to spend a few weeks here, but am open to studying in other towns in Guatemala or further afield. Do you know of other Spanish schools worth trying in Latin America? What's good about them?

My new home is on the northern edge of Antigua, hidden behind a metal workshop and surrounded by greenery. The open-air home is walled well enough to keep out the dust of the town, but the raised roofs allow fresh air to flow down from the rooftop patio, past the dormitory-style bedrooms to the kitchen and living spaces on the ground floor. I’m currently sharing the first floor with the owner’s brother and two other students, which leaves four free rooms. The family sleeps in similar accommodation on the ground floor. For US$85 per week, I’m provided with 3 meals a day, 6 days per week and plenty of opportunity for practising Spanish. I start lessons tomorrow, so my attempts so far have been pretty poor, but last night we worked through my story of drinking mice in Peru.