1st night in Guatemala City

I arrived in Guatemala City around 8pm and the trip to San Salvador was pretty incredible being completely surrounded by a culture so different than my own. My short stay in Salvador gave a little taste of how diverse my experience really will be since no one was speaking English. Excitement was mounting as I stepped onto plane and took the 30 min trip from Salvador to G-City. I wasn't sure how to feel about going to G-City a day before anyone else from the program was going to be there, since I had no linguistic skills in spanish and pretty much would have to wait and hope that the driver from hostel volcanes would arrive and pick me up. Leaving the airport was a crazy experience as there are hundreds of people asking whether or not you want a taxi. Since I didn't know any spanish I had to continually tell people no no no thank you. Luckily, I was able to catch the sign and found the driver who took me to the hostel, along with another girl Staci who was also a pre-med student who had come to take spanish lessons. She had taken two years off from medical school to do americorps and told me she loved the experience but wished that she had done the peace corps like I am planning to.
The picture above was my hostel room that was 25 bucks and had two beds, talk about jawsome. I opted to get a room that locks since I really didnt know anyone yet or how the situation was going to be. I went to bed super exhausted from my trip and woke up the next morning to make a new friend, a girl from holland named floo. Eating breakfast with Floo and Staci, I was able to chat about our individual travels and our expectations about our time in guatemala. Unfortunately, the two of them left for san pedro that morning and I am unsure if I will ever see them again.
My next experience was one of the most incredible ones so far in Guatemala. I saw a little boy sitting and helping his mother since she was the house keeper of the hostel and I noticed he had a futbol jersey on. Not understanding spanish I went up to him and said "futbol" and did a very basic simplistic version of air juggling. That moment I saw his light up and it was like I lit up his whole day. From that moment on he came up to me doing a funny rendition of my air juggle and smiled and ran off, only to come back and poke me and imitate the motion again. I want to play futbol and figured out how to ask where we could buy a ball. He nodded in understanding and went to ask him mom. He then took my hand and led me down the street saying vomos and laughing the whole way.
He led me to a small shop with bars on the entrance. I guess that is how the owners protect themself from being robbed. At that same time, I thought oh man if the shop keepers are like that it must be pretty dangerous, and I looked around making sure no one could run up behind me.
The boy's name was Jose, and he got the ball and I purchased it, then we ran back to the hostel to play some futbol. We ended up playing for 2.5 hours ahah, it was incredible. The imagination he had was very fun. We pretended as though we were in the world cup and we were in a PK shoot out for the championship. He had a very good foot for a lil guy and very accurate. I thought geeze this lil dude must play all the time. I asked him if he played with other kids his age and he sadly shook his head no. All i could think was I wish this guy could play with some other kids he has such a bright bubbly attitude and was laughing and similing all the time.

I must run Ill finish this story soon.!!