Day 16 - Universidad Francisco Marroquin

Today (friday) we attended Dental School that, thankfully, wasn't at UNC. We attended a seminar given by one of the UNC facutly at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City, Guatemala. The campus is beautiful. The university teaches business, economics, and medicine as well as having a small dental school. Each class is roughly 25 people, so they get to know each other pretty well. In Guatemala, you start dental school right after their equivalent of high school and they go for 6 years. It's an interesting idea, but it certainly wouldn't have fit my situation!

The students were wonderful. We met several of the 6th year class (Bobbi, Soledad, Olfo, Ricky, and Berto) and every one of them went out of their way to make us feel welcome. They even took the initiative to help us plan the our time in Antigua and at Lake Atitlan. Olfo, who is their class president, took us to his house in the city. The majority of his family lives in a huge complex complete with horse stables, security guards, and house staff. The picture of the four of us is the view of Guatemala City from his grandmother's front yard. It was breathtaking. The interesting thing is that you would have never guessed that Olfo was wealthy when you met him. He was very down to earth and sincerely happy to help us take in Guatemala.

After the seminars, we got lunch at an Italian resturant in one of the extremely nice zones of Guatemala City. There were a ton more American stores and restaurants that I anticipated. After lunch, we sat in on another seminar (both were in Spanish, mind you) and said farewell to our professor. Again, the students really went out of their way. One of them lives in Antigua (about 40 mintues from Guatemala City) and gave us a ride with all of our luggage. We arrived in Antigua aroun 6:30, checked into our hotel and then had dinner at a local Thai restaurant. Afterwards, we had a few Guatemalan beers and drinks at a place called Frida's. Even in Antiqua, which is a touristy town, things are inexpensive. Rum and coke drinks were about $3 and the local Guatemalan beer (Gallo, pronounced Guy-O) was about $1.

Antigua is beautiful. It is in a valley surrounded by mountains and some active volcanos. There is a lot of history here and it is safe. The speed of life here is much slower than in Guatemala City. It looks a bit like Copan, only nicer. Guatemala in general seems to be a bit more well-off than Honduras. The students that we met were from the middle to upper class and some were exceedingly well-to-do, but none were snooty.

Tomorrow we will explore Antigua, visit the marketplace, and meet up with Soledad for lunch. It'll be nice to slow the pace down a bit and do some serious relaxing since we're closing in on 1 week until school starts back. It's hard to believe that we've been in Central America for over two weeks!!