Family Chapter Four: More Adventures from Theo

The Fernandez- MacGregor familia from Los Angeles visited us in May, stayed with one of our lovely Mexican-Maya host families, and fully immersed in the language e and culture. Journalist mom Hilary, screenwriter dad Jonathan and sons Theo and Benji all wrote about their experiences in travel blogs that they're keeping up as they continue an amazing adventure through South America. They’ve kindly allowed us to publish excerpts from their entries describing their experience at Na'atik and in our town, Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Below, Theo (age 12) eloquently recounts what he learned about the modern Maya.

In one day I…!

Today in Spanish school we went to a lagoon with a cenote. First we learned all the colors in Spanish. We also climbed to the top of a to

wer that was around 40 feet tall. It was open with wooden rails. In fact, it was all unpainted wood. At the top our teacher showed us the names of everything we saw (el arbol, la palma, el pajaro, el pez, etc). After we finished our work we went kayaking. We went up the lagoon to the cenote. We docked our kayaks and swam. Apparently no one knows how deep this cenote is. We did a cannonball contest and took pictures. It was very fun. The clouds were amazing.

After we went to track. We did our warm-ups (which really, really, really get you warmed up taking about a half hour) and then the coach put me in the group with high schoolers. We started off by doing sprints and walking (more sprints then walking) for about 6 minutes. Then we did stretches again, we do a lot of those (but hey, you should see how flexible the older kids were). We then did 6 100-meter sprints. Those are hard. We stretched again. After we stretched I jogged 6 laps around the basketball court. I stretched again. After I stretched the older kids tried talking to me in English. They were very good and I understood them (much better than I was in Spanish). Once we got to the edge of our knowledge they used google translate to tell me stuff. They talked and I repeated but then one of them said what I think was a swear word. I repeated it and they were trying to shush me so I didn’t say it again. They then used google translate to tell me “no tell”. I said “Si”. After we took photos with the coach. He told me that my form was good but the one thing that would make me faster was… better fitting shoes (apparently Nike shoes get bigger after you buy them). He told us (me and my family) that Nike shoes would get bigger after you bought them.

After track we went home and started to play Loteria. The neighborhood kids came and watched in the window. We (my parents mostly, but some us) invited them in to play with us. We all played and it was very fun. The neighborhood kids corrected our pronunciations (and quite a few times too, but hey, try to pronounce el violoncello: answer in the next blog). They were very interested in us probably because they had never seen kids like us. They showed us their toys: A jump rope, a really cool top that I couldn’t get to work even though they showed me a million times, and a video game system. It was not like an X-box or Playstation, it was more like a video game system you would find at an arcade. That said, they had so many games on it. We played a zombie apocalypse game. We managed to get (some) of our thoughts across and it was fun.

Random Facts • I am very proud of this even if it doesn’t sound like much. I went to the store by myself and got some water (in bottles) speaking only in Spanish. • Homework is Boring (These are random facts). • My brothers birthday is 2 days from now on Sunday, May 24. • The right Hammock is better than a bed. You can swing in it (beds don’t do that), wrap yourself up in it (or that), and it lets more cool air in it than a bed (which is nice here where it consistently is above 90 degrees fahrenheit and less often but still quite often above 100 degrees). • Tacos are quite good for breakfast.

You can read the rest of Theo's blog, here: theadventuresoftheo.wordpress.com

If you would like to read more about Mexican culture, history, cuisine and language, check out our blog page for our latest monthly articles. You can also sign up to our newsletter to receive these straight to your inbox along with the latest news about our non-profit school for local and Indigenous students in Felipe Carrillo Puerto. 

The best way to experience the Mexican lifestyle is in person, with a Na’atik Immersion experience. Not only do you live with a local Mexican-Maya family, sharing home-cooked meals and free time, but also receive expert instruction in your chosen language at our school. Best of all, every immersion experience helps fund our subsidized and free local education program, helping local students to access opportunities and make their own futures.


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Bliss' Chapter One: Adventures of a  lingblisst

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Family chapter Three: Jonathan's Magical Mexico