Agua

Any student of Spanish probably knows that agua means water…well, not exactly in Guatemala.

If you go into a tienda and ask for un agua, the employee will ask you if you want Pepsi, Coke or Fanta. Aguas are sodas in Guatemala. To get water, you have to ask for agua pura (pure water).

But agua pura does not necessarily mean pure water. If I were visiting one of my friends in an aldea and I asked for an agua pura (not that I would ever do that), I would get a glass filled up with water from the chorro, which is anything but pure. Agua potable (drinking water) straight out of the faucet doesn’t exist here (maybe in some fancy neighborhoods in the capital or Antigua?). But fortunately that isn’t much of an annoyance for me since my beverage intake mainly consists of aguas.