Mini-Trips, Here & There...

Two weeks ago was my roommate's birthday. I decided to get tickets to a concert of one of her current favorite groups, and in doing so, take the opportunity to go on a mini-trip for the weekend.

On Friday after Alicia finished school, we took off for Granada. We arrived at our fancy, shmancy hotel which had an exact replica copy of the Arab Baths of the Alhambra! We wandered around the center for a bit, visiting the Albayzin, the small streets that still embody their Moorish past. The barrio is filled with little shops and tea rooms. We stopped in one of them and drank Moroccan tea while listening to the beautiful sounds that make you feel all the more like you have stepped into medieval Al-Andalus. Later on we met up with my good friend Marta. In Granada when you order a drink, they give you a free tapa to go along with it. (Good idea? No. Excellent idea!!) Ali, Marta and I went "bar-hopping" (if you can call it that), eating different types of tapas. Quite yummy if I do say so myself! The next morning Ali and I hit the Arab Baths; we decided on the Arab Circuit which follows this order: temperate water, hot water, freezing cold water, the Turkish steam room, and finally a rubdown with ice. It was excellent so we decided to do the circuit again. After the second round we sat in a dark, candle-lit room and drank delicious tea. We had such a great time that we decided we should return in another two weeks.

We left Granada around 2pm and headed to Alicante. While on the way, we saw all sorts of weather, and terrain: from tall, green trees covered in snow to big, beautiful white clouds in the bright blue skies. We stopped for a coffee in an enchanting little pueblo called Velez-Rubio. We continued on and stopped in Murcia for a quick visit with one of Ali's friends. He took us into the center of Murcia to see the Cathedral which has a magnificent facade. As the story goes, Alfonso X El Sabio went to Murcia and fell in love with the city. He requested that upon his death, his heart be buried in the Cathedral of Murcia.

From Murcia we continued to Santa Pola, a town about 30 minutes from Alicante capital. We ate delicious paella in a very local restaurant and later went to the Supersubmarina concert. The concert was awesome, loads of fun, and Ali had a good time. Mission Accomplished. The next day we headed to Alicante. The weather could not have been better! The sky was blue and the clouds, a stunning white. The water in Alicante was much more blue than here in Fuengirola, making the city even more picture-perfect. We started by heading up to Castillo de Santa Barbara, which is one of the biggest medieval fortresses in Spain. It's in excellent condition and provides views of the entire city. After many photos we turned our attention to our stomachs. We found a great little restaurant and ate fresh fish and paella. Yum! After our meal we wandered the streets of the old quarter and eventually found Barrio Santa Cruz. Absolutely precious! It's set up into the hill so you have to climb up the stairs to arrive at the top - no cars, only pedestrians. The "streets" are lined with painted pots and the flowers contrast with the stark white of the houses. As you walk higher and higher, there are ceramic tiles with poetic odes to the climb, to the Virgin, to Semana Santa. I can't imagine how difficult it must be to bring the Virgin down the stairs for Semana Santa or any other occasion... It was truly one of the most breathtaking neighborhoods I have seen in Spain. If you ever get the chance to go, Alicante is definitely worth a visit.

Race in Spain

This past Saturday, we went to see Hairspray, a musical that has made its way from Broadway to the big screen and now to local stages around the world, including Fuengirola, Spain. Set in 1962 Baltimore, the play is about a teenage girl, Tracy, who dreams of dancing on the Corky Collins Show. She faces adversity from her peers because of her weight, and ends up in detention with many of the Black students of her school. It is there she learns new dance moves that get finally catch the attention of Corky Collins. When Tracy gets a chance to be on the show, she decides her dream shouldn't just stop with her. Tracy believes that both Blacks and Whites should be allowed to dance on the TV, and, after ending up in jail, achieves her goal and dances along with her Black friends on the show. Not extremely original, but it's a good story and has good musical numbers. Nothing too extreme... right?

Wrong. I should have known better before I went.

My excitement about seeing the musical went from 100 to 0 in about a second, as soon as I saw the black-faced Spaniards, dressed in clothes from America of the 1960's, come on to the stage. Blackface. It's something that one very, very rarely sees in the United States (and when such an incident occurs, it usually makes national news coverage, or at least there is conversation about it), but here in Spain there is an insensitivity to the issue. Their explanation is, "But that's what they look like," and it is very hard for them to understand our construction of race, the historical struggles that took place (and are taking place) in the United States and did not unfold in the same way in Spain. Saturday's production wasn't the first time I've seen blackface in Spain: I still remember being shocked beyond words when I saw a group of about twelve girls dressed as Mammies during Carnival two years ago, with their faces painted black, not brown, black. Last time I checked there weren't any people who existed on Earth whose skin was actually black... Another common time to see black-face is on the Epiphany with the Three Kings, or Reyes Magos, come. One of the three is black, and along with the one black-faced Spaniard comes his entourage or other black-faced Spaniards... Just thinking about it makes me feel extremely upset. What upset me so much about seeing the black-face this weekend in Hairspray was that the mother did not just have her face/body painted brown, but she wore bright red lipstick and blue eyeshadow. UGH!! REALLY?!?!?! I couldn't exactly leave the theater, so I closed my eyes, breathed slowly to stay calm, and tried to not focus too much on the characters who caused me so much internal friction. I made it to the end of the performance in one piece, consoled by the fact that I knew I was going to go home and blog about it.

There is currently a debate about this going on in the United States, about blackface and theater, and how to represent people of different races when they are portrayed by actors of a different race. While I understand how perhaps this could cause managers to become perplexed, it also angers me that another solution could not be found. I remember going to a production when I was about eleven years old which was set on a plantation during slavery. I still remember very clearly the way in which race was portrayed: each cast members, despite the color of their skin, wore a felt patch on their cheek to tell the audience what race the person they were portraying was. In fact, the slave owner was a Black boy who wore a peach-colored patch on his cheek. In other words, the director cast his actors according to their talent, not to their skin color. It made the production all the more beautiful, knowing that the Black boy could be cast as the protagonist and not just a slave based on the color of his skin.

For a little information about the historical significance of Blackface, click here.

De vuelta de nuevo

Hola once again from the sunny Costa del Sol!

Coming back to the warm weather makes it almost seem like Christmas break didn't even happen! But, indeed, it did happen. I spent all three weeks at home, mostly with my family and just a couple of friends. On Christmas Eve my Grannie got pneumonia, which really weakened her as she has liver cancer and tumors in her airway... :( But, my Grannie, being her strong, stubborn self, is starting to make a comeback, albeit with new modifications to the daily routine. I spent most of my time practicing my intrinsic nursing skills, which according to my Nonno, would have been a much better path for me. For now all we can do is pray, hope for the best, and be thankful for the many, many blessings we have received in life, as well as the time we have enjoyed together over the years.

Three Generations: Grannie, Mom & Me

I also finished my grad school applications while I was home, so that is great. Done! I am going to reapply to the program I am currently in, just in case I decide to defer on grad school/don't get in. Yikes, now that would be scary.

So here I am, back to my weekly routine of classes at school and private lessons/babysitting in the afternoon. No real changes as of yet (except that one of my vertebrae decided it wanted to pop out of my spine a bit -ouch). I'm looking forward to the next five months, and already starting to make plans, or at least deciding where I want to go before my time here is up. So far we've got Berlin, Morocco, Granada, Nerja, La Coruna (Galicia), Alicante, Valencia, Cordoba, Sevilla.... And maybe a trip to the UK, France and/or Italy. So many places to see! I want to try to see as much of Spain as is possible, and really see Andalucia in its entirety.

That's all for now. Stay well, stay happy, and keep smiling.

Home for the Holidays

I suppose I owe you all an update on the many things that have been going on since I last wrote. Time just slips away here, and once again I have found myself very behind in blog updates. I will just write about a few of the highlights so as not to overwhelm you with details of my life.

Thanksgiving:

In preparation for Thanksgiving, my co-worker Nandi and I decided to do a whole-school project. We made a tree and cut out leafs for every student from 2-6 grade. Each student received a leaf and on it wrote, "I am thankful for..." and something they are thankful for. We taped the leafs to our tree in the hallway for the whole school to see. The 3-5 year olds and first graders made turkey hands. It was a huge hit!

Nandi showing off her leafs.

Me with my tree

To celebrate Thanksgiving, I had not one, but two dinners! The first one was in Cordoba with a group of Mount Holyoke girls: my friend Tilly (who came to visit from Germany), Liz (who works in Cordoba), Carmen (we celebrated at her house), and Stephanie (who was studying abroad in Sevilla). I cooked a turkey and we had the whole Thanksgiving works! See below:

Thanksgiving Round 1: Cordoba

Then I celebrated Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola with Rachel, my roommate Alicia, and our friends Carlos and Xavi. Rachel and I cooked for hours to give them a taste of a real Thankgiving (turkey, cranberry sauce, grave, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, biscuits, pumpkin bread, apple pie...) and it turned out to be delicious!

Thanksgiving Round 2 in Fuengirola: Me and Rachel preparing dinner

Portugal

As soon as Thanksgiving had come and gone, it was time for a trip to Portugal! In Spain we have almost a whole week off for different holidays. Rachel and I decided to take advantage of the "puente" (literally bridge, meaning long weekend) and started to plan our adventure to the other Iberian country. Our group grew to three and then four. My friend Caitlin who lives in Sevilla and my Sevillana friend Silvia joined on, and we soon had a fantastic travel group! We rented a car and left Friday morning for Lagos, in the Algarve region in the south of Portugal. We traveled to Cabo de Sao Vicente at the very tip of the country, once thought to be the end of the world, for sunset - and boy, what a sunset! We spent the night in Lagos and then headed to Lisbon mid-morning on Saturday. Meanwhile, back in Spain there were huge strikes and many, many flights were canceled. My roommate had planned to fly to Galicia to visit her best friend, but since her flight was canceled, she changed her plans. She drove from Malaga to Lisbon and met her best friend, Ruky, there. The two additions to our trip made it even more fun, filled with even more laughs, and more memories. The six of us rocked Lisbon, despite the rain. We visited the old monastery in Belem, saw the views from Sao Jorge Castle and ate loads of Portuguese pastries. Yum! On Tuesday we went to Sintra for a few hours. Sintra is about 45 minutes away from Lisbon and is famous for its many castles. It was completely foggy (apparently the sun didn't like us too much) so we couldn't fully appreciate the supposedly magnificent colors of the buildings, but it made for a very fairy-tale like experience. I felt like I was walking through a book, or something that was a creation of the imagination. Quite magical indeed! Later that day we headed to Evora, a town situated more in the center of the country. Evora was named a World Heritage site by UNESCO, and it sure does deserve the title: it's a city surrounded by the original city walls, complete with an aqueduct, Roman theater, and a chapel made entirely of human bones. Definitely worth a visit. After our day in Evora, we headed back to Spain to end our trip. It was one of my favorite trips I have taken and I will be back for more sometime soon!

Caitlin, Silvia, Me and Rachel at Cabo de Sao Vicente during sunset

A taste of the magic of Sintra

Our whole group (starting with me, counter-clockwise): Me, Rachel, Ruky, Alicia, Silvia and Caitlin

Me with my roommate Alicia in Portugal

See more photos of my Portugal trip here: The Best Long Bridge Ever: Roadtrip to Portugal for December Puente 2010


Home

I arrived home on Sunday night, just in time for tortellini-making with Nonno and presepio building with my aunt and cousin, with my Grannie's supervision, of course. It's nice to be home, although I had quite a bout with jet-lag. Thankfully I am almost back to Pacific Coast time. Linguistically I am still adjusting; there are some things that just come to me easier in Spanish or sound better in Spanish. I can only imagine what coming home this summer is going to be like.

I am still in the midst of graduate school applications. I need to get them done this week though because they are due very soon. While it'll be a bit stressful the next few days, I am looking forward to having them all completed and submitted. Then the big wait comes, as well as the obligatory biannual life crisis, which will, of course, work itself out and everything will turn out just as amazingly as it always does in the end. Maybe Dr. Seuss said it better:

You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.

And will you succeed?

Yes! You will, indeed!

(98 and ¾ percent guaranteed.)

Becoming an Educator

A few moments I would like to share with you:

1) Teaching is a rewarding thing.

In addition to working at the school four days a week, I am giving private lessons Monday-Wednesday to three girls who are cousins, all eleven to twelve years old. I had always imagined that tutoring and working one on one with a student in English would be very difficult and I thought it would be something I wouldn't enjoy, but I am finding the experience to be completely the opposite! Two of the girls I work with are at a high level. Learning English is something they enjoy and get excited about, which makes me all the more enthusiastic about their progress. While at times I find it difficult to explain our crazy grammar to them, it makes it all worth the while when I see that change in their facial expression, the moment when they go from confusion to the "Ah-ha!" moment. The third girl I work with seems to be a little slow. She struggles in English, doesn't like to study, and it doesn't seem that she is a strong student in any subject, really. Last week I quizzed her on eight vocabulary words (which she had "studied") and she only got two right. (The words were: who, what, where, when, why, how, whose, and which.) It was incredibly frustrating for me because my working with her is dependent on her studying during the week as well. This week she seemed to have made progress. not only did she know the eight words, but it was evident that she studied the verbs she was learning as well. Yes!! In sum, tutoring is going well and is definitely more enjoyable and rewarding then I ever could have imagined it to be.

2) What the students will remember most are not the facts you teach them, it's the way you make them feel.

About two weeks ago a girl in my fifth grade class came up to me with a very serious face and handed me a piece of paper all folded up. I thought maybe it was a note about her someone had written, but instead it was a note from her to me! Written in English, or at least attempted English, I had to laugh at the Halloween poem she had crafted and the letter that followed:

Halloween
Night Halloween is chilling.
A ghost walk night to ask for candies
and more sweets. Fear will. Phantom says
Candy will give you, fear you will spend it.
there are ghosts and witches at night.

For Emma Seño
I give this letter seño.
If you are a good teacher, I had to
have this letter with the help, but
that is not important. I wish you
a good course.

De Esther: Mi name is Esther

Tell me you didn't laugh, too? Frankly, later on, I didn't know how to react and I felt extremely awkward walking into class the next day. Today after class had ended, it became apparent that this child might be in need of a friend. From what I can tell, she hangs out alone most of the time and is probably the girl who is on the quiet side and super nice, but all the other girls don't want to be friends with her. She spends reccess alone and often eats lunch alone in the cafeteria. In hushed voices the girls argued with one another and eventually caught the attention of the rest of the class. The main teacher went over to Esther and talked to her, like a self-esteem boost, but also for the whole class to learn a lesson. It was one of those moments that, while watching, I realized would be one that she will remember forever. I could see it on her face that she needed to hear those things. I had to applaud the teacher for the way she handled the situation because everyone left smiling and talking nicely to one another, and a huge group of girls, including Esther, stayed after school for about ten minutes talking with the teacher and laughing together. I can remember moments like that from when I was about ten years old, and I hope Esther remembers that moment as well.

3) Never doubt that a young child might know more than an adult.

While walking home from tutoring today I saw an English couple asking a Spaniard (about eighteen to twenty years old) for directions. His English apparently didn't seem to do the trick and the couple had a confused look upon their faces. He stuttered and tried to explain the location in complete Spanglish, and then he turned to his younger brother, who was about eight or nine years old, and asked him, Cómo se dice 'al lado' en inglés? (How do you say 'next to' in English?). The younger brother looked up and said in a very cute accent, "next to," and then continued to chat with his friend. I smiled knowing that the younger brother had learned this in school, perhaps from an auxiliar, like myself. Although I did not know the boy, I was proud that he could translate for his older brother. Maybe that fuzzy feeling is the feeling all teachers get when they see a student excel.

NO8DO: No me ha dejado. Sevilla, No TE he dejado

This past weekend I went to Sevilla, where I studied abroad two years ago. The first day felt very odd... To be there, to have lived somewhere and to return... It's as if I held a key to Sevilla (knowing where to go, what to do, how the city functions), but not a key that would unlock a door to home. I was a tourist in a place I once lived in. I stayed at a hostel with people who had never been to Spain before. I ran into CIEE students who have no idea what this year has in store for them, who still had these crazy notions about Sevilla, who hadn't yet realized the complexity of the place. They are still in their honeymoon stage, idealizing every moment, telling me unrealistic goals they have for this semester or year. I walked down Calle Asunción, which is now pedestrian only, and at first felt out of place, but soon felt like I had never left. I went to visit my host mom and she answered the door in her bathroom and her hair half done. Some things never change, I guess.

Me and my friend Caitlin in front of the Triana Bridge.
We studied abroad together 2008-2009 and now she is living in Sevilla
while doing the same program as I am doing in a high school in Jaen.

I was able to get breakfast with Maria Jose, one of my professors with whom I have kept in contact. She was excited to see me, and we talked about my senior year of college, plans for the future, and current situation in Fuengirola. I was also able to visit the Palacio where I used to go to school and see all the people who work there. It was so wonderful to visit with them. While speaking with them I realized how much I missed Sevilla and how much it felt so normal and natural for me to walk around the streets. Sure the people have changed a bit, there are new stores and restaurants, but that's just the evolution and life of a city. Just like any place. The whole weekend I started to feel as if I was unlucky to be in Fuengirola, and how much I would have preferred to live in Sevilla... But upon my return to Fuengirola, I felt a sense of going home, to a place I belonged in at this moment. I was once a part of Sevilla, but that is not where I am supposed to be right now. I can visit on the weekends, remember it fondly, but being in Fuengirola is almost redeeming all the aspects of Sevilla I didn't like... It seems silly, but during my year there I seemed to at sometimes be lost and almost in pain from the lack of diversity in the city. We always talk about what a multicultural Spain would look like, whose faces would we see, what languages would we hear, what food would we eat... Well, here it is! This is it. That's not to say it's perfect or functions well, but Fuengirola is what we have been talking about. It's a total cultural mess, but at the same time that's what makes it beautiful.

Only in Spain

In light of the last post, I decided that I would keep an ongoing list entitled, "Only in Spain". This is a collaborative effort based on the experiences of some of the other auxiliares. I will continue to update it as the year progresses.

ONLY IN SPAIN...

1. Is it acceptable for the teachers at your school to pull out a liter of CruzCampo beer during recreo at noon before heading back to the classroom.

2. Is it normal to hear a professor say "shut up" to a student (a literal translation of cállate).

3. Do you have to dodge dog poop every step (it seems it's taboo that dogs actually have to poop - wow, really? No me digas!!)

4. Does te llamo ahora (literal translation: I'll call you now) mean that you can expect to receive a call sometime in the coming week... or not.

5. Does the man at the ticket window (whose job it is to sell tickets - claro) not know which bus is going to La Linea and therefore tells you to go ask every bus driver if their bus is going there. (Rachel)

6. Does hasta ahora, doesn't really mean until now, but rather, I'm leaving and I will return sometime in the "near" future. And just F.Y.I. "near" is all relative. (Rachel)

7. Can you really "make a night of it" - go out at 9pm and return home at 9am. :) (Nandi)

8. Can you buy half a dozen eggs, a huge loaf of amazing bread, three delicious tomatoes, parmesan cheese and an onion for under $5.

9. Does the following occur: "When I went to the doctor yesterday I asked her if I had a fever, and she said, 'I don't know? You don't have a thermometer at home? You should buy one...' and never took my temperature." (Caitlin)

10. Only in Spain would you go to the post office five times to figure out where your packages are, only to be told that it is not their responsibility to know, and then when you say you want to file a complaint, they reply that they want to file a complaint against you because you are so annoying. (Liz)