| interview 1
| interview 2

Let the Students Speak ...

"I have studied at Pop Wuj for the past two summers and am planning to return again this July. Last year my seventeen-year-old daughter accompanied me. My experience has been uniformly of the highest quality. The one-on-one instruction for four and a half hours daily is excellent. Both of my home stay families have been warm, welcoming, and very helpful. The co-curriculum is perhaps the school's strongest point. A weekly conferencia brings in a speaker to discuss some aspect of Guatemalan culture, history or socio-political situation. Three times a week students may participate in voluntary work projects in rural villages (I've worked with youngsters at a daycare center, helped to build concrete latrines, and constructed brick stoves, once in a village at the end of an hourlong hike through the mountains). 

"These opportunities are a natural outgrowth of the school's progressive nature and structure: for example, a portion of profits also goes to scholarships for local indigenous youth. I have found the country of Guatemala to be beautiful, hopeful, and troubled. The Western Highlands of Quetzaltenango are gorgeous, the people are lovely. The country has had a bad reputation for banditry in the American press recently, but I never met a tourist who had had trouble (and many of them were women traveling alone). I have recommended Pop Wuj to several acquaintances now, all of whom have had excellent experiences and feel quite close to the school. My daughter's two weeks in Xela pretty much changed her life; as a consequence of her time at Pop Wuj, she'll spend seven weeks this summer doing community-building work in a rural Mexican village in the Amigos de las Americas program. I'd be happy to answer further questions."  ―Craig McGarvey

“I actually just came back from Guatemala—visiting the school and traveling. I had a wonderful experience at Pop Wuj and recommend it highly. The instruction is one-on-one for 4 1/2 hours a day—which I think is about all anyone could absorb. I went speaking almost no Spanish and left after 9 weeks of study feeling very comfortable talking—we went through all the grammar, read books, and the newspaper. You really direct your studies, so whatever is most important for you to learn is what your instructor will focus on. Xela is a great city, not jammed full of foreigners like Antigua, but you will definitely see some around. The families are generlly really great, and if you get with one that you don't bond with, switching is no problem. Being veg is no problem, families are totally used to it—you could probably eat vegan or close to it .I did not do a ton of traveling, but did some day trips and spent time at Lake Atiilan which is a couple of hours by bus and incredibly beautiful. Travel is easy, buses are hectic but cheap. On the last trip I went to Tikal to see the ruins, which was super. The school has a really good community feel. It's a coop—there is some thought and ideology behind the projects, which are super and let you see a part of the country you would otherwise miss.”

"We have been to Pop Wuj three different times and like it very much. We attended for six weeks the first time (2 years ago) and spoke no Spanish before going. We have gone back twice for 2 to 3 weeks to learn more and to travel and do volunteer work in Guatemala. The reasons we like the school are multiple:  The faculty run it as a cooperative and all "profits" are put into community projects and scholarships that benefit Mayan villages and children. Students have several opportunities each week to work on one of the projects, and thus get some "rural" experience. The faculty function as a team and the students like a family during the time they are there. Like all the other language schools in Guatemala, the instruction is one-on-one for about 5 hours a day, the student has an opportunity to live with a family (you could specify that you don't want any other student withyou in a home), and cultural experiences, lectures, and occasional field trips are a part of the curriculum. You will get lots of travel tips from other students while studying there. Much of western Guatemala is accessible from Xela by local buses.You might want to plan a separate trip to Tikal and/or Belize."