Spring

Villafafilla- Bird Sanctuary near Benavente

As my longest day of the week came to an end I felt…happy. It was a day well spent learning how to identify and deduce the meanings of slang from various English-speaking countries; the students as well as myself. Every day I become more comfortable in front of the class. My diffidence melts away and my ability to think up a lesson on the spot is improving rapidly. An average day starts with me seeing my fellow teachers in the hall, passing by they say, “We’re talking about American slang, modal verbs and the Saxon genitive, I’ll send the students to the lab.” Next I rush to figure out what the hell the Saxon genitive is. The teachers look at me as if I’m lying. “You have never heard of the Saxon Genitive before?” They ask with suspicion. The implied message being, but you use it so well! If I have time, I search out some activities on the internet before the students show up, worst case scenario we work out of the book and I try not to looked panic when I don’t know what “grouse” means in Australian slang.

My students at the high school are as intractable and apathetic as ever. I’ve learned through time though that they tire out much faster than I do, and if you just keep trying they are, in the end, quite harmless. At times the 50 minute classes (more like 45 minutes since teachers never arrive on time) creep slowly by. Other days I arrive at school with unmatched alacrity to get up in front of the class and force English into their brains. Some classes keep your spirits high. From time to time I watch the teachers and wonder how they continue year after year being underpaid, working far from home, driving over an hour each way to show up. They tell me it’s because they love teaching yet every so often their looks of exhaustion and exacerbation make me doubt it. Then Marta will run into the class, our latest lesson a success.

Her eyes were glowing, still feeding off the excitement of her students. This week, as we practice the simple future tense “will”, we asked the students in three classes to design a tv, car, or cell phone of the future. We spent the morning watching groups present their future cars with a level of enthusiasm matching that of taking the trash out when it’s raining. Then the next class arrived dressed in skirts and ties to present their visions of the future televisions. I missed the class but I could deduce how well it went from the excitement in Marta’s eyes. I won’t lie. I was jealous.

Moments like this make me fall in love with Spain a little more every day. The people are what make Spain great. What they lack in customer service, mail service and public restrooms, they make up for with their cheerful and contagious outlook on life. It’s the people you meet along the way that make these adventures worth it.

I recall a very important day. One of my first weeks in Benavente, I was looking for extra work. I walked up the stairs to the language academy practicing in my head, “Hola, alguien me dijo que quizas necesitais una profesora de ingles. Es verdad? Porque busco un puesto.” I walked into an office with three of the most talkative women I have ever met. There I was, Spanish coming at me from three sides. I must have looked like a deer in the head lights as I tried to pretend I was following them. Little did I know that this encounter would shape my stay in Benavente.

In the end I got a job teaching adult conversation classes and helping out in after-school classes for students. These classes have been by far the most challenging for me. No structure and no note to hang over the little ones, I find that my hours there are a constant battle. They have taught me the importance of changing perspective sometimes. I replaced the dread I used to feel as I walked to the classes with an excitement. It’s simply another challenge every week.

My Conversation Class mid-lesson

I love my adult class. They have the English, they just need to refine it and use it. That’s where I come in. I show up with a vague idea of what we’ll talk about and they take it and start talking. I am more of a catalyst and dictionary than anything else. This class has also taught me everything I know about Benavente. Through class discussions of the town or class outings to the bars I have learned about Benavente’s history, nightlife, surroundings and people.

Urueña- Fortified city near Benavente

And I met that person, I feel like she was life’s sign to me that I’m where I should be right now. The signs that Coelho talks about in The Alchemist (which is a good book by the way). I had no idea when I tried to follow her rapid words that she would become very important to me in Spain. Her, let’s call her MJ, and her husband have been all over the world, including Africa, and they host young boys from Africa together. I find them completely fascinating. They have helped me adjust to life in Spain and have taken my visitors and I on unforgettable adventures, to interesting places only reachable by car, the Whiskey Museum and their own wine cave which looks more like a hobbit hole. They have invited me into their lives to experience the Spanish culture more in depth. In all they have really shaped my time here in Spain, and I am very lucky that I did not run out of the office that first day.

As the world begins to thaw and spring weather creeps in I can’t help but get lost in thoughts of my first few weeks in Benavente when the weather was very similar, but Benavente seemed like a different world from the comfortable little city I know now. Benavente was still a large unknown to be discovered. Now it has become a familiar home to me, and soon instead of my hello it will be time for good-byes.

Wine caves in Pobladura about 10 k outside of Benavente. We are standing on top of MJ's cave.

Spain in Fiesta!

CARNAVAL

A little while back my good friend Matt came out to visit. We go way back. Well to CSU at least and what better reunion with an old college buddy than one of the big traditional Spanish party. This rational is what got us right in the middle of Carnaval 2010. We didn’t settle for a Carnaval festival which can be found, parades, costumes and all, throughout over Spain. We went to THE Carnaval down on the coast of southern Spain. Cadiz, labeled as one of the oldest cities in Western Europe. Cadiz was a charming city. Right on the beach, filled with castles, churches, old roman walls and hints of its history hidden down small side streets and twisting alleys, but we weren’t there for the historic charm.

Ingredients:

1. Chirigotes- Spanish groups that sing satirical songs. Despite our less than perfect, or nonexistent, knowledge of the Spanish language we saw some of the chirigote performances under a circus tent.

2. Timing- Overly eager on our first night in Cadiz we headed out only slightly after the supposed start of the planned activities. We found the roads practically deserted and not a costume in sight. After getting lost we suddenly came around a corner to find a plaza filled with costumed people packed in shoulder to shoulder. Lesson learned. The next night, the night of the big party we headed out much later, meeting up with a group of hippies from Cordoba. I am somewhat ashamed to admit that I don’t have much of the Spanish blood in me. After asking a Storm Trooper for the rest of his pizza around 1 I decided to walk home. Matt, much more a Spaniard than myself stayed out as the crowds grew more dense, the streets more littered with…everything. I awoke the next morning around 10 only to hear the party still going.

3. Costumes- The people in Cadiz proved to be far more creative than your average American and they have mastered dressing up in groups. We spotted Pac Man hanging out with his ghosts twice, the whole cast of Mario Bros, bull fighters complete with beer-cooler bull, police, pigs, pirate, hippies, and so many more colorful costumes.

The best part about Carnaval was the duel nature of it. Daylight hours were filled with children frolicking down the streets as princesses and super heroes (it’s not as dark as our Halloween), the streets are frequented by parades, and littered with confetti, then as the day turns to night it becomes the party for the adults. The people you see casual walking down the streets in ridiculous clothing gradually become older.

SEMANA SANTA

Semana Santa, or Holy week is Carnaval’s somber cousin. By far one of the most unique holidays that I have seen, Semana Santa is a mixture of traditions. Semana Santa is the Spanish Easter, though while we only focus on Easter Sunday, they celebrate every day between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday, not to mention we get 2 weeks off of school. Semana Santa in Spain is focused around processions, when people dress up in colorful outfits, a possible inspiration for the KKK uniform, and walk down the streets while the costaleros or "sack men" carry large, heavy, historic statues, weighing up to 5 metric tons, on their heads. For more information Wikipedia is always there for you.

Having my two weeks of vacation from school I met up with a good friend in Madrid and we headed down to Sevilla, known for having some of the best Semana Santa processions in the world. But the processions happen in many parts of Spain. By far my favorite procession was the Palm Sunday procession I got to see before leaving Benavente. As I watched Jesus on his donkey being slowly carried up the hill that is Benavente I spotted one of my students under the burden, it made it more personal. I went with the other American Teachers and we had a great time rocking our Americanness. We went into the first café in Benavente that makes caramel lattes, wait it gets better, to go! They told us that the lattes wouldn’t be very good to go. We insisted, after all we practically invented the caramel latte to go! We sipped on our not-full to go cups as we watched Jesus and his donkey go through the doors of the cathedral. It was not the most exciting experiences in Spain but it was one of the most moving.

The processions of Sevilla were not any more exciting. I squealed with excitement when I saw the first few people dressed up for the procession walk down the street, but the actual procession is a very slow and popular event. So you get crammed into a large inescapable crowd and could potentially watch a large statue move at a pace or, well the pace you would walk if you had a 5 ton statue on your head. There are many variations to this traditional procession; including the Drunken Procession in Zamora and the race between a Jesus and Mary statue. However, we only caught the traditional ones, beautiful and fascinating but not quite as much sparkle.

After a whirlwind trip through Andalucia the home of the Spanish Stereotype. We raced through Cordoba, Granada and Malaga then headed north to Barcelona, a very unique Spanish city. Each with its own charm. But more on those later. Let’s stick to Spain in fiesta for now.

LA VEGUILLA

As my time in Benavente goes by, the little things begin to come together and the little details become more apparent. For example, I have noticed over the past few days that there are a lot of shops called “La Veguilla”. La Veguilla is a Benavente holiday when the youth get drunk and the population of Benavente gathers at the Main Plaza to ask the Mayor for the bull festival in June. To an outsider it seems silly. They get the bull every year. Although I do think it would be amusing to see the Mayor say no once, just to mix it up a bit. They take this all very seriously. On Benavente tv they have a scroll at the bottom of the screen stating the bull’s name and weight so that we can get to know him very well before we taunt him and serve him for dinner.

Paris, Je t'aime

Paris. Ah Paris. It was my first time in alone in a non-English speaking country, what I had been preparing for in school for years and years. I still remember shaking with anticipation and nerves as I stood in line to board the plane from London to Paris. Goodbye English! I arrived only to discover, to my dismay, that it is extremely difficult to speak French in Paris. My first morning I went in search of the Eiffel Tower; finally gazing breathlessly with tear-filled eyes when I saw it peak above the tall buildings that line the streets of Paris.

I soon befriended fellow tourists and together we discovered much more of Paris both day and night. I fell in love with Paris, falling as so many before me have; the famous monuments sticking out in the skyline, the small churches, beauty and Parisness around every corner. Oh the cheese, the pastries, the CREPES! I enticed others to come along and fall with me. One after another I was able to show some of my best friends the city with which I was enamored. Every visit symbolized something new. Visit 1: Freedom. Visit 2: Bonding with a good friend. Visit 3: A brief glimpse back into the developed world after over a year in Africa. Visit 3 consisting mainly of eating anything I could get my hands on. American food, French food, Japanese food, chocolate, fresh fruit, ice cream you name it. Forever the city to visit never a place I could live. Then Visit 4 happened this past New Years. If I had to give Visit 4 a label it would be “disappointment”.

I arrived with Marina ready to ring in this New Year, and what could be better than Paris at New Years? Alot apparently aside of course being with Marina. With the utter entrapment it seems to have over everyone, Paris decided to keep New Years low-key, meaning nothing as mind-blowingly spectacular as one would expect. Metros broke down on us and tourists filled the charming alleys and famous landmarks. It seemed at some points that for every truly French person you saw 3 tourists. Then there was the day we went nowhere. If you are going to have a flight delayed or canceled hope that it is not at Charles de Gaulle.

First we paced back and forth looking for our gate. It was written quite clearly that our gate was number 13. And the signs up to this point had said “to 10-18”. Yet there we stood between gate 12 and 14 and could not find the invisible gate. Taking a clue from Harry Potter I recommended that Marina try running at the wall between the two gates but I just couldn’t talk her into it. The invisible gate turned out to be the least of our problems when our flight was cancelled due to snow in Dublin. We had to go back to check in and get new tickets. To do this we had to go out of security thus getting stamped BACK into Paris. When we giggled at the fact that we'd have a page of stamps from Paris for the same day the security guard accused us of making fun of him. It didn’t help that he must be the only person in Paris hat speaks no English, and they put him at the non-EU citizens line?? We were the first to show up and he looked bewildered as our entire flight lined up behind us. I had to talk our way out of that. Then we had to go up two floors to get our checked bags, bring them down, wait 4 hours and then check them back in. So we paid the ridiculous prices to eat at the two restaurants we could find. We went back through security and waited for our flight. And waited and waited and waited. They are tricky in Paris. No one from the airline was around to question unless we wanted go out of security and customs again. And we didn't. Finally four hours later our flight arrives to pick us up! Making it a total of 12 hours, 2 meals and 5 stamps in and out of Paris. So this year did not start off so well. Then Marina and I stared in horror at the layer of snow in Dublin that did not even cover the grass. That was really why we were stuck in Paris all day???

Dublin did make up for the heartache it caused us. It is by far the most American European city I have visited. I found that I understood how everything worked in Dublin without much thought. Dublin made up for everything that had gone wrong in our trip. We not only found items we had been shopping for across Europe, we found them on SALE! Our hostel was great. I even had a chance to speak French since I couldn’t in Paris. We stuck to the basic tourist track, not having much time to stray from it. The benefit of spending a mind-numbing 12 hours in CDG with extremely limited entertainment and not a single affordable activity was the bonding we did with fellow stranded travelers including some people from Dublin who gave us great tips.

We learned how Guinness turns water into gold, poured the perfect pint of Guinness and ran into a girl we had seen not once but twice on our trip. Once in ever country we had been to, small world sometimes. I learned where my family name came from, Dusseldorf, and learned why the doors are all different colors.

Yet it was with a light heart that we arrived back in Madrid. For the first time I realized just how much I had come to love Spain. But more on that next time…