Cooperativa Spanish School! :)

to say that my time in Guatemala was AMAAAAZING would be a pretty dull understatement...  it WAS all kinds of amazing - thanks maybe initially to the beautiful lake, mountains and sunshine surrounding me that made me wake up with a smile every day, and eventually, because of the wonderful people and quaint Tz'utijil Mayan culture I got to know... but most of all because of this awesome little hidden-treasure of a Spanish School called Cooperativa!

a grass-thatched hut in a beautifully-kept Mayan garden overlooking glittery water with a bluey distant-mountain backdrop and a cool breeze, aka.. "my classroom". conducive to learning? i'll say!

"paraiso" (paradise) was one of the very first Spanish words i picked in San Pedro. :)

all the wonderful teachers at the school...

and this is Flory - my Spanish teacher-turned-friend-turned-confidant :)

5 weeks of 6 hours a day of a lot of  talking and talking (the best way to learn a language!), you get to know someone pretty well. i was in the habit of being up at 6am from Costa Rica and couldn't wait every morning for 8am to roll around every morning so my classes with Flory would begin. and the day would just fly by! she was an awesome teacher in knowing how to teach well, but also became a great friend as we talked and shared and laughed about everything together. almost every day we'd be rolling out of our chairs laughing together, and somehow (well, not "some"how, it was because Flory was a great teacher!), in 5 weeks, we'd gotten through all the grammar and sentence structures etc there is to know in Spanish i was pretty much fluent.

okay, maybe it wasn't all just talking. i liked books. the other teachers always laughed (i'd gotten to know them, it's okay) when me and Flory would gather up our mountain of books every morning to head to our study-hut. i think a lot of other students liked the more informal learning, playing games, using flash cards, just talking, etc. and Cooperativa's really flexible in catering to students' preferred ways of learning. and for me, i really liked 'em books! :)

but definitely not just books... i did a lot with Flory... like this little walking trip up the road to the town morning market!

here's Flory buying an avocado and some tomatoes

and this is how live crabs are sold! don't need to worry about getting pinched! :)

lots of adventures with Flory and with Cooperativa.... more to come  :)

but for now, i can just say if anyone ever wants to learn Spanish (and wants to do it faster, funner, better and cheaper than taking a university course or getting lessons somehow in Canada) - go to San Pedro!! :)  pretty much the best instruction you could ask for, one-on-one, for $3/hour! i wrote a review a while ago on an online site for Spanish Schools abroad - if you scroll down to "ArcoIris" (my name in Spanish) you can see my post there. ask me for more details if you want :)

and here's Mynor, one of the other teachers, chilling out in the hammock at the school. this is where all the students meet in the morning (before heading to the study huts) and have a tea-time break with snacks every day...and catch a little sunshine on the open patio. not bad, eh?? :)

xo