In lieu of
having a brief blogging break, I have not had a break from the chaos of
relocating abroad. Though the chaos has
been a mix of good and bad things, I am burnt out on the most basic of issues
that I am continually facing here. The
fact that every time I try to change the water bill into my name I am faced
with Spanish speakers on the phone who, upon being told that my Spanish is not
great, will only speak FASTER (because that obviously will help me to
understand what is being said). And this
catapults into my landlord –who I did not realize lives in COLUMBIA- spewing
into the phone nonsense about the water bill not being in my name (even when I
repeatedly ask for him to email me, because, I can’t speak fucking Spanish on
the phone!). All the while, attempting to deal with all of this while having
ZERO access to Internet except for the shitty data I have on my phone
here. I think in a past life I must have
upset the internet gods because I am constantly dealing with an alarming amount
of bullshit from companies who claim to have great customer rapport and speedy
service (Comcast and Orange, this ones for you). Despite setting my Internet up 3 weeks ago, I
have yet to have a visit from a technician.
And of course, this technician literally plugs in the router that I’ve
had sitting on my floor for almost a month, and then calls Orange and says,
“Ok, turn on the service!” Why I can’t do this myself is baffling. And every time I call I get an identical
response of, “Looks like the deadline for getting it set up is approaching so
you can expect a call soon!” Clearly the
word “deadline” has a looser translation in Spanish than it does in
English. Luckily (luckily?), I’ve had a
lot of other chaos to distract me from these daily life annoyances. Since my last post I settled into my new
apartment, took an amazing weekend trip to San Sebastian, started working in a
bilingual Spanish school, and went on my first date with a Spanish guy.
First off,
VACATION! From the vacation I was already having… My Madrileña friend Rocio had
invited me to go to San Sebastian with her the last week in September, and then
about 30 friends that are also working as Auxiliars in Madrid invited me to do
the same. So, YAHTZEE! I could say yes to both! The trip started off with my
train buddy missing our 8am departure, and ended with the same friend losing
her phone and us then tracking it through the not-so-scenic areas of the city,
where we promptly found it ditched in a trash can next to a guy who had been the
blinking dot on our map… The middle part though was unreal. The scenic views, the pintxos, the sandy
beaches, the WINE, and of course, the company.
We spent our days sunbathing, touring, and hiking, and our nights drinking
with our toes either in the sand or in heels dancing to our hearts
content. Coming home from this trip was
hard because it marked not only the end of a beautiful getaway, but also the
end of spending our days together having fun. It meant the beginning of our
jobs in schools scattered in an hour radius around Madrid. Nonetheless, we had to start this chapter
eventually.
On October 1, I
officially started my career as an Auxiliar, aka an English Language and
Culture Assistant. Though I only work 16
hours of classes/week, my schedule is Tuesday-Friday from 9am-4pm (talk about a
long lunch…). I woke up on my first day, headed out of my apartment bright and
early at 7:30am, boarded a nearly empty metro, and made my first (of what will
be many) 1-hour commutes to work. Due to
the fact that the sunrises around 8/8:30am now, I like to consider my hour
commute to be another hour of sleep, and when I stagger out of the metro at
8:30am, my day is actually starting.
With literally no idea of what I was walking into, I wandered into a
familiar feeling school surrounded by palm trees, murals, and hoards of children
screaming and giggling in a slur of Spanish and laughter. I found myself in the teacher’s lounge where
I met another American auxiliar who had worked in this school the year
prior. Shortly thereafter, we were
joined by a third Irish auxiliar, and finally, by our director, Pat. Within 30 seconds of meeting her, I knew I
would grow to love her and the English team at the school. She let us know that the fourth auxiliar was
having surgery and wouldn’t arrive until November at the earliest, and for that
reason our schedules would be jumbled for the first month. So I’ve been wishing on shooting stars,
sleeping with a spoon under my pillow, and learning to pray, so that I might
not have such a wonky day full of breaks that are far too long. My lunches range from 2-3 hours in length and
are followed by one 45-minute class before I can go home. And some mornings I teach for an hour, then
have an hour and a half break before one more hour of teaching, followed by 2
hours lunch. The term “condensed
schedule” has the equivalent of winning the jackpot to an auxiliar, and of
course, I don’t tend to ever have the lottery-winning kind of luck that some of
my friends are blessed with.
Regardless of
the not-so-desirable schedule, I lucked out with two awesome teachers to work
with. I spend about two-thirds of my
time with Miss Mary-Jo (the English version of her Spanish name, Maria Jose) in
two third grade classrooms, and the other third of my time with Miss Africa in
two fifth grade classrooms. Mary-Jo
reminds me of teachers I have had in the past, who laugh and smile and throw
their hands on their hips when they’re annoyed.
She plays games, is patient, and seems very human, which is sometimes a
hard quality to find in a teacher.
Africa is young (I think younger than me) and brings a fresh vibe to her
classroom. She uses a lot of the
teaching techniques that I remember learning in school. I was impressed by the energy both of them,
along with the other English teachers, bring to the school. After hearing countless stories of teachers
who only work out of the textbook, it was refreshing to see teachers who cared
about their students. Alongside my
teachers, I teach the students language arts, science, and art, all in
English. The array of children is
shockingly similar to those I’ve taught in the states: they are kind, witty,
curious, mischievous, funny, and unique. Some need more help than others, and
some need more work than others. The
kids who finish first and those plotted to finish last are equally likely to
become a distraction to those in the middle.
I’ll be excited to see what the teachers decide to implement for
behavior control in the classroom and how much I’ll get to experiment with from
my work at home. All in all, I have an
interesting year ahead.
Back to the home
front, I settled nicely into my new apartment.
All it took was two exhausting trips to Ikea, several visits to Chinos
that were crammed with junk (Chino is the, I SWEAR, official term for shops
that are the equivalent to a 7-Eleven or Rite-Aid back home), and a few stops
into the funky shops on my street that I’ve already grown to love (Hema, Tiger,
Høsten, and so many more). With a minimally furnished apartment, a terrace
above a wood fired pizza oven (hello to never needing air fresheners!), a
handful of friends living within a 3 block radius, and internet (hopefully) on
the way, I’m starting to feel a lot more at home in this far-from-home place.
Now, onto what
you’ve all been actually reading for: my first Spanish date. The week before
leaving for San Sebastian, my friends and I all felt that it was utterly
necessary to go out every night as a final hurrah in Madrid before school
started. Our first stop of the week was
Independance, a Madrid club that hosts a weekly event called “Fuckin’
Mondays.” The name should have been a
warning enough that the night might take on a mind of its own, but we paid our
5€ anyways. Inside there was a lovely
pit for dancing that was covered in broken glass, and two bars with lines that
were far too long. Alongside my friend who was equally smitten with Spanish
men, I elbowed myself to the front of the bar.
Within moments we were both pounced on by Argentinian men. Overwhelmed
by their slurred Spanish and the strong drink in my hand, I backed off and
motioned over towards a safe corner of the bar. In my recluse I sipped on my
vodka-something, laughed at the drunken dance moves in the pit, and tried to
decide what to make of the night. Enter
David (dah-veed): tall, quiet, and
seemingly innocuous. Feeling the effects
from my mystery drink, I was given an entirely new Spanish confidence. I was suddenly fluent (or so I thought). In
hindsight, I think he was laughing because I was making zero sense, and not
because I was correctly conjugating verbs into witty jokes. We chatted for either 5 minutes or 30, still
not sure. All I remember is suddenly
realizing how late it was and how tired I had become. I gave him my number, hopped into a cab
alongside my friend, and slept until noon.
I awoke to an entirely Spanish text, which roughly translated to, “are
you who I am looking for? I spoke to a girl last night and I want to see her
again.” Uhhhh, maybe? Sure? I should also admit here that I didn’t know his
name, and I wouldn’t find it out until we had already been on 2 dates and I
texted to ask how he spelled his name.
Due to the fact that he isn’t an idiot and his name is fucking DAVID, he
caught on immediately to the fact that the issue was not the spelling, and was
actually my lack of memory from god damn stupid fuckin’ Mondays. Back to the good stuff… We met up two days
later, and shockingly, did not recognize each other immediately. This was either because we were drunk when we
met, because I had a quarter life crisis and dyed my hair brown the next day,
or a combination of the two. Likely the
latter. We spoke primarily in Spanish,
with spurts of English, or better yet, Spanglish. I learned that he grew up near Santander (the
northern coast of Spain) in a pueblo with around 30 people. I found out that his shaggy hair used to be a
ponytail that matched his parents and siblings, but being a “city boy” he was
the first to cut it off. I realized we
were both fans of cold weather and low-key nights. And I also came to the realization that
communication is infinitely harder when your native language isn’t shared. After two dates, I don’t know that we will be
able to navigate this cross-cultural relationship, but my god, is it fun to
figure out. The number of things that
were lost in translation, or perdido en traducción, was staggering, but the
number of constants between languages and countries was surprising. David has promised a picture the next time we
meet that will either be the first of many or the one reminder of my first
Spanish date. Either way, entwining my life in every aspect of Spanish life has
been a rollercoaster and I’ve only been here one month.
So, for a corny
ending to a post that started in a sour rant, here’s a little Mark Twain…
