All Centro Maya Xela families are carefully selected to ensure they meet our and therefore your requirements.

Before being invited to join our program all families are visited by the staff to ensure these standards will be met.

We work with middle class ladino (non-indigenous or mestizo) families who live in the city of Quetzaltenango. These families offer the comforts of their own home, create a pleasant family atmosphere, and provide the student with the opportunity to practice his or her Spanish through friendly family interactions. The distance between the school and the family is between 100 and 600 meters (between .06 and .37 miles), which means walking 3 to 15 minutes.

• Stay with the family includes:
  
  An individual room (with your own key as well as a key to the main door).
• Bedclothes (except towels and soap).
• Hot water for bathing.
• Three meals a day during the week (A week starts with Sunday and ends with Saturday night).
• Pure water for drinking.
• The opportunity to live with kids and/or pets or without them.
• Vegetarian food for those who request it

For those students who are learning a Mayan language, we can offer them the opportunity to live with a family that speaks the language they are studying, but the standard of living may be different than those of the families that live in the city. For example:

• Lower social class.
• Families live in rural areas 45 minutes away from the city by bus.
• Usually a student will not have an individual room, but instead will share his or her living space with the family.
• Latrine type bathrooms.
• With kids and pets.

If you are traveling as a couple or as a family you can be placed with the same family if you wish or we can arrange for each individual to be placed in separate families who live near each other, please specify which you would prefer on your reservation form.

We will not know who your family are until a few days before you arrive, this is because students often stay longer than initially planned, if you wish to bring gifts for your family bring things that can be enjoyed by everyone. Traditionally Guatemalan families are large with many extended members - grandparents etc..

Tea, Towels, flags, pens , pencils any thing with the name of your country or state are always received with great interest and are appreciated by all members of the family.