The Spanish
Schools of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
By Ken McCormick, ksmccormick@hotmail.com
Quetzaltenango runs a rather distant second in importance
to the colonial city of Antigua as a center of Spanish language study in
Guatemala, but has grown in importance as an alternative to the overly-touristy
atmosphere of the colonial city. The
culture of Quetzaltenango is more purely Guatemalan. Quetzaltenango is also a couple of thousand feet higher than
Antigua, so the weather is noticeably cooler, if that is a favorable feature to
you.
The city of 125,000, being
cooler and wetter than Antigua, has language schools that are distinctly more
indoorsy, overall, as compared to the many Antiguan schools that center on a
patio or courtyard garden. The
surrounding area also tends to be poorer and to enjoy fewer social services, so
the Quetzaltenangan schools are even more heavily volunteer-oriented than those
of Antigua. All of the schools surveyed
have some sort of social service project involvement, be it collecting books
for libraries, funding scholarships for kids from rural areas, or programs to
place language students in remote villages to work as English teachers. For more information on this aspect of study
in Quetzaltenango, contact individual schools for details. For more general information on Spanish
study see “Choosing a Spanish School in Guatemala” at http://www.oocities.org/guatemalanspanishschools
. More detailed information on Latin
American culture and life in Guatemala is available at http://www.oocities.org/chicken_bus
. Also see http://www.xelapages.com for more links
and information on Quetzaltenango, also known as Xela.
Proyecto Lingüístico has
available a study program that places students in remote villages, and other
schools may offer other special programs such as programs for medical students
that may be important to you. If you
intend to participate in a program offered only by a particular school, you may
want to consider contacting the school to make reservations. Otherwise, you are advised to just show up
in Quetzaltenango and spend a day touring schools before selecting one.
All of the schools offer
family homestay housing at a price considerably lower than that of
Antigua. From all reports, some of the
housing can be pretty dismal. What is
normal or better than normal in Guatemala can be hard to get used to for
someone used to the accommodations of more economically advanced nations. Guatemala can provide a better understanding
of the conditions of poverty for those who have lived their lives as members of
the middle class in the wealthier nations.
Sometimes, if the housing offered is not something you
can feel comfortable with, asking the school to arrange something a little
nicer for you can produce favorable results.
A family homestay is undoubtedly the best and fastest way to improve
your Spanish. And above all, it is
cheap. Nonetheless, alternatives to
family homestay housing are noted when offered by certain schools, and hotels
are priced low enough in Guatemala as to provide a reasonable alternative.
Unless you are an old
Latin American hand, I advise splurging on a better hotel the first night or
two in town, and taking some time to go around to take a look at the cheaper
alternatives available. I’ll mention
five more or less decent hotels on the north end of the Plaza Central. All are easy to locate. My top pick is the Villa Real Plaza, 4 Calle
12-22, tel. 7616036, FAX 7616780, a reasonable ability to speak English on the
part of the staff, and written English easily understood given time. I’m going to quote prices here, but these
only give a fairly accurate picture. A
different price is quoted at most hotels each time you ask, and all prices are
to some extent negotiable. Haggle a bit
for the best price you can get. At the
Villa Real Plaza, you will probably first be shown the more luxurious rooms
priced at $26 to $30. These are
definitely nice, and are as good or better than those offered by Hotel Pension
Bonifaz on the other side of the plaza at twice the price. However, ask to see the less expensive rooms
on the second floor back. These are
priced around $16 per night for one person, and have private baths. They will discount these rooms to $15 per
night for a stay of a week or more.
These compare reasonably well to North American hotel and motel
rooms. They are quite spacious by
Guatemalan standards, have cable TV, fairly new beds and furniture, comfortable
fitted sheets, and only a few holes in the blankets. The cleanliness level is comfortable, except that the cleaning
crew never seems to put their brooms (they use brooms instead of vacuum
cleaners) up to knock the cobwebs off the ceiling. The plumbing is a little less desirable than that found in the
U.S. The sinks, like most sinks in
Guatemala, have only cold water, and the shower has a cantankerous electric
heater somewhere in the wall, so that you have to constantly tinker with the
water pressure to get it as comfortable as possible, and it is rarely as warm as
you’d like. Also, you might consider
carrying a small flashlight, as they often turn the hall lights off at night,
and the hallway will then be pitch black.
If this all sounds like not a very great hotel, bear in mind that this
is not the French Riviera that I’m describing, but Guatemala. For Guatemala, this is a good hotel, and
good value for the money.
Hotel Pension Bonifaz, 4 Calle 10 – 50,
Zona 1, tel. (502) 765 1111, Fax 763 0671, E-mail penbonifaz@hotmail.com, has 72 rooms,
so reservations should not be needed.
As already mentioned, their rooms are comparable to those of the Villa
Real Plaza, but are priced at $54 per night, with a discount to $46 for a stay
of a week or more. If you could afford
to throw around this kind of money, you probably wouldn’t be in Guatemala in
the first place, but the hotel does boast a small indoor pool and a Jacuzzi.
A cheaper alternative is Hotel Los Olivos, 13 Avenida
3 – 32 Zona 1, tel. 765 3469, Fax. 761 0216, with single, tiled rooms priced at
$15 per night, discounted to $11 per night for a stay of a week or more. The plumbing is distinctly superior to that
of the Villa Real Plaza’s cheaper rooms, with hot water coming from a hot water
heater instead of those silly electric showerhead heaters. The sink has hot water, and the shower is
nice and hot. There’s cable TV, and the
beds are newer and comfortable. Aside
from those features, the hotel is strictly Guatemalan in conception. It tends to be noisy. The staff is very friendly. The restaurant is good value for the
money. See below on that.
Casa Kaehler, across the street from Los Olivos at 13
Avenida 3-33 Zona 1, tel. 761 2091, has single rooms with private bath for
either 100 or 110 Quetzales ($13 or $14.30 U.S.), depending on whom you ask,
and will discount them to either 90 or 95 Quetzales. Casa Kaehler is an older structure with a lot of charm, but the
beds are too soft and squeaky, and there’s little privacy. Still, some people swear by it. Check it out.
Hotel Casa Florencia, at 12 Avenida 3 – 61, tel. 761
3232, Fax. 761 2326, is about on a par with Los Olivos, except that the rooms
are smaller and hot water is provided to the shower by electric showerhead
heaters. It charges 160 Quetzales per
night, or a little over $20 U. S., and will discount this to 140 Quetzales for
a stay of a week or more. Like most
Guatemalan hotels, it offers comparatively little privacy. Why you would stay here when you could have
a much nicer room at a lower price the Villa Real Plaza, I don’t know, but your
Spanish school may try to stick you here if you ask for hotel reservations,
because the Casa Florencia apparently offers bigger kickbacks to Spanish
schools than does the Villa Real Plaza.
Now, as an example of the less expensive housing
offered, there is the guest house attached to the excellent travel agency
Viajes SAP on 1st Calle, Zona 1, between 12th and 13th,
just one and a half blocks east of the Teatro Municipal. It offers single rooms with shared bath for
100 Quetzales ($13 U. S.) per week or 350 Quetzales, less than the price
of a single night at the Pension Bonifaz, per month. Rooms consist of four walls and a bed and
maybe a nightstand or table of some sort.
The partitions between rooms are paper thin, and in the words of one
long-term tenant, every time somebody breaks wind, everybody else will hear
it. There are kitchen facilities to be
shared by tenants. The sink is not in
the kitchen, but is across the patio.
It has only cold running water.
Any cleaning of communal areas must be undertaken by tenants. Tenants complain that the landlady is crazy
(an exaggeration), and that if they ask her to clean the bathroom, she’ll just
come and dump a bucket of water on the floor and leave it like that. There is a TV in a communal sitting
room. This is what you get for thirteen
bucks per week. Similar budget hotels
and guest houses are all over the city.
Upscale dining may be
found at Ristorante Piazzeta Vivace in Zone 1 at the corner of 14th
Avenida and 5th Calle, just a couple of blocks from the Parque a
Centro América, or Parque Central of Zone 1.
It serves excellent Italian food, and the service is quite good, too,
always a big surprise in Guatemala.
Lunch or dinner with a glass or two of wine will set you back ten or
fifteen dollars.
Similar prices will be
paid at the interesting Café el Arabe on 4th Calle right next to the
Villa Real Plaza. Middle Eastern fare
is the specialty.
The restaurant of the
Villa Real Plaza costs about half as much as this for lunch and dinner. Ask about the special of the day, which is
always a better value. Service is
pretty good, too. Breakfast is priced
at about twenty quetzales. (As
of the time of writing, there are eight quetzales to the dollar.) The food is well-prepared and well
presented.
The restaurant of the
Hotel Los Olivos is my favorite for cheap eats. It has good service, is reasonably clean, and the food is
plentiful. Especially recommended are
the huge breakfasts priced at fifteen to eighteen quetzales. Lunch and dinner may cost about twenty-five
or thirty quetzales.
For vegetarian fare and a
little bit of quiet nightlife, try Café Q, which is attached to the school Kie
Balam at Diagonal 12, 4-46.
Many cheaper eateries at
which lunch and dinner may be had for less than twenty quetzales may be
found around the city. The food is at
least filling if you eat tortillas with it.
There is a McDonald’s on the parque central where all the newcomers seem
to go, but the restaurants are so much better and often cheaper.
Baviera’s International
Coffee House at the corner of 13th Avenida and 5th Calle
in Zone 1 offers the best coffee in town, as well as tea, hot chocolate, milk
shakes, etc., and also offers soups, sandwiches, crepes, salads, and
desserts. The highest price on the menu
is twenty-two quetzales. This is
a favorite hangout of language students.
The best way to get service after the initial order is delivered is to
get up and go to the cash register.
If your idea of fun is nightlife
in a café which is so packed with mostly foreign language students all standing
around trying to make a big impression on each other that to cross the room,
you have to say “excuse me, pardon me, con permiso, por favor, excuse me, oh,
sorry, con permiso, perdón, excuse me, could I get by, please” a hundred times,
and it is so noisy you have to shout to be heard, then by all means go to Salon
Tecún in the three story arch Pasaje Enríquez on the northwest corner of the
park.
Schools surveyed
are listed below. All instruction is
one teacher – one student. Prices are
listed for five hours per day of instruction, either during morning hours, when
most students elect to study, or during afternoon hours. Actually, this will amount to four and
one-half hours per day of instruction, as all schools take a half-hour break in
every five-hour stretch. Five hours is
the standard time for either morning or afternoon study in Quetzaltenango,
although four hours may be arranged, and a student can study nine or ten hours
per day if he or she wishes. Some
schools may negotiate a slightly lower rate if the student commits to a longer
period of study. Contact information
and details on the individual schools are given in the section on individual
schools below the chart. Some of the
e-mail addresses and web sites will be hit-or-miss propositions. All have been purported to be correct by the
schools in question as of the time of writing, but some schools seem to think
that the best way to attract repeat business is to change one’s address
frequently.
Some schools charge registration fees of about $30 to
$75. These are for making reservations
with the school for study, and should be waived if you simply show up at the
door of the school with no reservation.
Unless you are set on a particular school at which you really want to
study, I would advise you to just go to Quetzaltenango and shop around for a
day or two. I guarantee there will be
schools which will find space for you even though you don’t have a reservation.
Different students will react differently to different
schools and different teachers. The
information below is not intended to be the sole basis for a choice of
school. Visit the web site where
possible and e-mail for more specific information. If at all possible, visit the school before making a final
choice. You can always ask to change
teachers, and you can switch schools after a week if not satisfied.
LOW SEASON PRICES
SCHOOL 25 HRS. PER WEEK 25 HRS + HOMESTAY
|
Utatlan |
$90 |
$110 |
|
Eureka |
$85 |
$110 . |
|
Ulew Tinimit |
$100 |
$130 |
|
Proyecto Lingüístico |
$105 |
$140 |
|
Centro Bilingüe
Amerindia |
$100 . |
$125 |
|
Juan Sisay |
$100 |
$135 |
|
Miguel Angel
Asturias |
$95 |
$125 |
|
Kie-Balam |
$85 |
$125 |
|
El Quetzal |
$78 |
$110 |
|
Pop Wuj |
$110 |
$140 |
|
Celas Maya |
$95 |
$125 |
|
INEPAS |
$95 |
$125 |
HIGH SEASON PRICES
(June, July, and August, except as noted)
SCHOOL 25 HRS. PER WEEK 25 HRS + HOMESTAY
|
Utatlan |
$100 |
$120 |
|
Eureka |
$85 |
$110 |
|
Ulew Tinimit |
$100 |
$130 |
|
Proyecto Lingüístico |
$130 |
$165 |
|
Centro Bilingüe
Amerindia |
$110 |
$135 |
|
Juan Sisay* |
$110 |
$145 |
|
Miguel Angel
Asturias |
$105 |
$135 |
|
Kie-Balam |
$85 |
$125 |
|
El Quetzal |
$78 |
$110 |
|
Pop Wuj* |
$130 |
$160 |
|
Celas Maya |
$105 |
$135 |
|
INEPAS* |
$115 |
$140 |
* Juan Sisay: June to
August 15
* Pop Wuj: mid-May
through August and in January, also asks a $65 donation year-
round to support its social programs.
* INEPAS: July and
August
______________________________________________________________________
Can arrange for college credit – Ulew Tinimit, Centro Bilingüe Amerindia
Most strongly centered on a patio or garden - Celas Maya,
Proyecto Lingüístico
Best garden - Celas Maya*
Best English spoken – Pop Wuj*
Most volunteer-oriented – INEPAS, Proyecto Lingüístico, Ulew Tinimit, Juan
Sisay, Pop Wuj, Celas Maya, Miguel Angel Asturias
Most like a 1970’s commune – Pop Wuj
* The only garden
* North American co-ordinator on site
______________________________________________________________________
General information: Free coffee and tea is the norm. In general, the schools with a stronger
commitment to social programs are priced somewhat higher than those which make
charitable donations from time to time.
The prospective student must balance his or her interest in social
service with the desire to simply concentrate on saving money while learning
Spanish. All schools can place
volunteers in aid programs of one kind or another, from helping to market
coffee beans to teaching the alphabet to grade school kids. Inquire at individual schools for details on
their own projects.
During the rainy season,
May through September, rain is far more likely in the afternoon than in the
morning. If you like doing things
outside in clear weather, you might therefore consider afternoon classes. Fewer people study in the afternoon, so if
crowding and noise is a problem in your school, there may be less of a problem
with this in the afternoon. If
socializing with other students is more important to you, you will have much
more contact in morning classes.
The usual schedule is:
8:00 to 1:00 – morning
classes
2:00 to 7:00 – afternoon
classes
tel. 763 0446
12 Avenida 4 – 32, 2do. nivel, Pasaje Enríquez, Zona 1
Utatlán is on the second and third floors of Pasaje Enríquez, the big
three-story arch at the northwest corner of the Parque Central. It consists of several small classrooms with
acoustics like echo chambers. This is
not a problem with one teacher and one student per room, but with two pairs per
room, chatter of the other pair could be distracting.
tel. (502) 765 1424
12 avenida 3-35
zona 1
Located in a small
building just north of the central park, Eureka also runs an Internet
café. The student gets five free hours
of Internet use per week. This is a $5
value in Quetzaltenango. Instruction
takes place in second-floor classrooms, but there is a small patio if anyone
wants to set up a table and chairs there during nice weather.
Escuela de Español Ulew Tinimit
tel. 761 6242
7a. Avenida 3 – 18, Zona 1
This school is located in
an urban house-type building with several small classrooms. College credit may be arranged with the
Universidad Rural de Guatemala for an additional $70 fee. Books are available to borrow. There is good separation of student/teacher
teams when the school is not too crowded.
The school also offers instruction in Quiche and Mam. Among many other volunteer projects, the
school uses volunteers with backgrounds in education and advanced
Spanish-speaking ability to teach in a rural school it supports. The school also seeks to place medical and
dental volunteers.
tel. (502) 763 1061
5 Calle, 2 – 40, Zona 1
Instruction is centered on
a patio full of potted plants. Students
are a bit crowded, and the chatter of other student/teacher groups is quite
audible, although it will probably be more of a general background noise of
mixed voices than at schools such as Utatlán when there is just one other
student/teacher team in a room with you.
The school sports nicer than usual bathrooms, although they are
unisex. There is a large salon which
could hold a group of about twenty students.
The director speaks good English.
Proyecto Lingüístico
offers a housing alternative to the homestay in the form of dormitories with
access to kitchen facilities for twenty-five quetzales per day. Rooms may hold one, two, or three students.
If you would like to
experience the culture of Guatemalan village life, the school offers the option
of Spanish study in a remote village with crude facilities, no Internet,
unreliable electricity, no phones, and no nightlife except what you might make
for yourself, but a good view of the night sky. Projects include art, music and English instruction in a rural school
and in Quetzaltenango on Saturdays and also work on a reforestation project.
tel. 761 5260
12 Avenida 8-21, Zona 1
Apartado Postal 381
The school moved to a new location after being toured,
so no description of the physical features can be provided. When toured, the school was small. University credit is available through the
Universidad Rural de Guatemala. Lucky
(pronounced Loo – key), the co-ordinator, speaks English well enough to help
students get oriented. The school
provides an especially warm and friendly atmosphere.
tel. (502) 765 1318 / 761 1586
15 Avenida 8 – 38, Zona 1
There is a big thatch-roof
meeting room atop this urban house- style building, and sometimes students and
teachers do lessons on the roof in good weather. Most of the tables are located in a big indoor room. The tables are set close together, but are
separated by big partitions. There are
a few separate smaller rooms located around the school. The bathrooms are Guatemalan style.
Students may volunteer for
projects to teach English to Guatemalan kids.
The school also undertakes thirty-six scholarships for needy Guatemalan
kids and has a reforestation project on weekends. It seeks to place volunteers with medical or nursing interests in
a local clinic.
www.super-highway.net/users/moebius
tel. 761 1636 fax 761 0391
Diagonal 12, 4 – 46, Zona 1
Kie Balam has large indoor
areas spaced around a large patio with a few plants. The degree of separation will depend largely on how busy the
season is for the school. The acoustics
of the rooms aren’t all that great.
There are a couple of dormitory rooms which consist mainly of beds with
four walls for those who don’t want a hotel or a homestay. Kitchen facilities are available for those
students. The price for this
arrangement is twenty-five dollars per week.
Laundry facilities may be used once per week by students.
In addition to the usual
excursions, Kie Balam offers yoga classes.
The director speaks excellent English.
The school’s primary social service project is aiding libraries.
tel. (502) 763-0091
15 avenida 1 -22 zona 1
This
school is ranged around a large patio with many indoor rooms also. It is large enough that the chatter of other
students and teachers should not be a distraction. No English is spoken by the administration, so the student should
be prepared to arrange for classes in either Spanish or sign language.
The school
has dorm rooms with kitchen facilities priced at twenty quetzales, or
about two dollars and sixty cents, per night.
They consist of rooms with partitions for mattresses thrown on the
floor. They have a typical frat house
or guys’ college dorm smell of dirty laundry about them. When I was a college student, this would
have been the right place at the right price, and lots of fun. Go look and judge for yourself. The kitchen facilities are relatively
civilized.
tel. 765 3707 fax 761 6242
U.S. tel. 510 525 2685
8a. Calle 16 – 23, Zona 1
This school is located in nice
offices on the second story of a two-story commercial building. Separate rooms make for good separation of
student/teacher teams as long as the school is not too crowded, but during
June, July, and August may be a little noisy.
There are two rooftop areas on which students sometimes take
lessons. These are outdoors, but are
just bare urban spaces, not patios.
The school caters to
medical students and personnel who need to learn Spanish appropriate to medical
situations in addition to the more general sort of Spanish student. Students can, if they wish, arrange for
classes from 9:00 ‘til 2:00 on Saturdays.
Volunteer opportunities
range from teaching English to high school kids to helping to harvest coffee
beans.
tel. (502) 761 8286
Primera Calle, 17-72, Zona 1
Pop Wuj asks a donation of $65 at the time of
application to support its community activities such as building more efficient
wood stoves for Guatemalan villagers (this is more important than it sounds,
because deforestation due to fuel demands and respiratory disease due to smoky
kitchens are major problems in Guatemala).
It also provides scholarships to poor kids and builds latrines.
The school is on the
second floor of an urban house. There
are lots of separate rooms available for lessons, but with a large enrollment,
these will not be private rooms, so the distraction of the chatter of other students
and teachers could be a factor. Pop Wuj
is run by Guatemalans, but it tries to always keep a North American or other
fluent speaker of English on the staff as “cultural liaison officer.” This makes it easier for people with very
limited Spanish-speaking ability to get oriented. The only outdoor lesson availability is on the flat roof of the
building. It is outdoors, but it’s just
a city house roof – it’s not some sort of idyllic setting. There is Internet access available at five quetzales
per hour.
502-761-4342
6a Calle 14-55, Zona 1
This
is the only school reviewed that centers on a garden, as so many Antiguan
schools do. Tables are ranged under a
porch roof that surrounds the open area.
If the school were crowded, the chatter of other students could be a
mild factor, but most people seem to get used to such distractions. There is an Internet café attached to the
school. The school also sports a
ping-pong table. Instruction in the
Quiche language is also offered.
INEPAS (Instituto de
Estudios de Español y Participación en Ayuda Social)
tel. (502) 765 1308 fax (502) 765 25 84
15 Avenida 5 Calle, Zona 1
This
is a small school that centers on a patio and also has a couple of indoor
rooms. It undertakes the same sort of
social service programs as many other schools.
In addition to the school’s program of standard Spanish instruction, it has a “Service Learning” program for
those who are interested, have at least an intermediate level of Spanish
ability, can commit to at least four weeks at the school, and are interested in
three hours per day of volunteer work in addition to five hours of Spanish
study. It is a sort of mini-Peace
Corps-type program which would include a week-long orientation phase in which
the prospective student/volunteer would be introduced to various projects,
would select one, and would receive appropriate instruction for aiding whatever
project was selected.
For More Information:
The reader is advised to
read “Choosing a Spanish School in Guatemala” for more general information on
Spanish study. It may be accessed at http://www.oocities.org/guatemalanspanishschools
. More detailed information on Latin
American culture and life in Guatemala is available at http://www.oocities.org/chicken_bus
.
Cool Links:
Cheap travel adventures: http://geocities.com/rough_living
Backpacker discussion
group: http://groups.msn.com/BackpackersOnFoot