It is currently absolutely POURING rain. We were out buying cell phones when it started. Needless to say, we arrived home drenched. Chase has one phone and we have the other, since we are staying at separate houses. The American group that is staying at Chase's house, and that has been watching over him, is leaving this weekend. We now have an easy way to communicate. Very good.

Today I thought I heard my teacher say that he is "indigena" (indigenous). In Xela there are many indigenous, Mayan people. The women still wear traditional dress. Many of the families are farmers or work in the market and don't have enough money to send their kids to school. When I later asked him, "did you say you are indigenous?" he just looked at me like I was crazy! It took lots of practice speaking to later figure out that, in fact, he is not indigenous. What he said is that he is an "ingeniero" (engineer). We all thought it was hilarious and got a good laugh out of that.

Today, the third day of school, was the first day that I felt like I could speak with my teacher without being too self-conscious. It is hard to not care about making mistakes! However, I know self-consciousness will ONLY slow down learning. As a result of the "confident" day, when I walked into the office to return something, the words, "Where does this go?" in Spanish slipped out of my mouth without a thought! What a terrific feeling!

Thanks to our host mother, Charles and Daniel will be attending a private school next week (with Guatemalan children). They will attend the same school as Andres, our host mother's grandson. We think Daniel will be much happier with other children. He likes his teacher at Casa Xelaju, but is missing interactions with other kids. We're not sure how Charles will do in the school, but we figured trying it out for one week can't hurt. He can always come back to Casa Xelaju.