Mis palabras favorites...

My favorite word that I have come across so far has been¨chispitas¨, most commonly used in the expression ¨chispitas de chocolate¨: chocolate chips. I like it because its in the diminuative form, so it sounds so cute. I´m pretty into all words in the diminuative form--like when another student, David, who is 18 moved into my house, my host parents, Danny, and I started to refer to him as mi hermonito (my little brother...hermano is brother, which you all may know already from Arrested Development). Another great example is when a taxi driver offered us a ride home for only 20 ¨quetzalitas¨: 20 little quetzales. Awww, how sweet. (a Quetzal is Guatemala´s currency. Currently, Q 7.7 = $1 US. Q20 is standard for a taxi ride home from the center of town).

Tonight I´m going to a meeting to learn about a coffee plantation (Finca la Florida) that was taken over by workers after the owner went bankrupt. The government gave the workers´collective a loan to buy the property and now they still live in poverty but are working to improve their revenue generating activities (like doing more processing n the finca rather than selling the beans at an earlier stage) and develop their ecotourism. Some other coffee collectives have been pretty successful bringing in ecotourism in the form of tours and paying volunteers. It should be pretty interesting.