Or, at least you can put them on a baked potato. Andalusia is the world’s number one olive producer, so our little green friend (no, unfortunately, not that one) somehow makes it into every meal. My roommates have it at breakfast with their toast and grated tomato. Yes, they literally grate the inside of a tomato onto bread. I found the pile of emptied tomato skins alarming at first, but it seems they yield a wonderful treat. You get olives at lunch, and you can bet your ass that everything that goes in your mouth was cooked in olive oil. Hey, better than butter.
Anyway, I met the potato man, a Morrocan who sells baked potatoes out of a cart and adorns your potato with everything from ham and cheese to beets and tuna, on my way home from my weekly tutoring session with las chicas de la colina. Every Wednesday night, I spend an hour struggling to come up with ways to induce two 15 year-old girls to speak English. I have tried many topics: movies, boys, family, ideal vacations. I’ve finally put an embargo on the phrase “I don’t know.” The most I ever got them to speak was on the subject of crew, which they practice in the harbor, a concept I find hard to picture without conjuring up images of them rowing as fast as they can out of the paths of freight boats and cruise liners. Yesterday, we carved a pumpkin and discussed horror movies. I think one of the girls reached her limit on experiencing strange American practices when I told her to put her hand in the pumpkin and dig out its innards. I think I finally understand my mother’s frustration with my brother’s teenage years’ answers to every question: “yes,” “no,” and “stuff.”
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Get Out the Vote
If Europeans could vote, Obama could stop campaigning immediately. For as much as people think he’s the answer in the United States, over here they think he’s the messiah. Some are frankly tired of hearing about it, don’t know why the elections of another country have to constantly appear in their news. They already drink Coca Cola, do we need to take over their news cycle as well. Some are very emotionally invested in Obama. Not only is he a constant conversation in my classes, but people in bars, stupid sleazy boys in the street, all ask whom I’m voting for. Many don’t even know why they’ve decided they prefer Obama, but they are sure and adamant about their preference. As in all places, I encounter varying degrees of intelligence and people who are more and less informed. I had one student tell me that Obama was good because apparently it would be a positive thing to have a black man in the White House.
“It would also be great to have a woman in the White House, but Sarah Palin is a nightmare and a detestable example of feminism in the United States. I’d rather see the country run by a fork than that woman.”
I did follow this up with a slowly spoken explanation of the need for change in the US. How McCain’s not a fool, but in Bush’s wake, he’d be a disaster.
Many people have asked me if we’re actually going to elect Obama or are we too racist? The question of racism in the US is always a troubling one. I answer these questions in the affirmative. Yes, the US is racist, xenophobic, close-minded, self-congratulating, proud of its ignorance. But, we have come a long way despite the long way left we have to go. One woman was particularly insistent on the racism of my country especially compared to Spain, and I did finally lose it. Spain 89% Spanish. Málaga is the second largest city in its province. It’s known for having many different types of immigrants, yet almost everyone I see in the street is either a tourist (you can tell from the shoes) or Spanish. Even if not practicing, they’re all Catholic. Spain is currently seeing its first generation of mass immigration. It’s not like France, a country with immigrants from Africa and all over the world who are now third or fourth generation French. Spain has experienced some immigration from Latin America for decades, but recently, more and more people from Eastern Europe and North Africa are settling here. Despite my student’s assurances that “yes, we do know about the mixing of cultures. The Spanish are a mix of many, many cultures since centuries,” I felt the need to teach her not the best way to construct the sentence she was attempting to produce, but the closed mindedness of her statement.
“Yes, but what you’re talking about is the making of one people over time. What this country is about to see for the first time is different cultures coexisting rather than simply becoming one over many generations.” The United States has its problems. We are “the Empire” as one of my students pointed out. (Just as a side note, whenever someone says this to me, I can’t help but picture Bush as Darth Vader and Cheney as Emperor Palpatine. I know this is not the Empire they mean, but the picture still pops in my head each time). But, I’m hoping that Obama can help change that role for us in people’s minds.
The other thing my students get very heated about is gun control. They’ve complained that you sign your name on a piece of paper and they hand you an AK-47. I know this to be an exaggeration, but honestly, I know little about gun laws in the US after that. I find myself saying I agree with them, but the right to bear arms is not going away. It helps less when I tell them that my father owns a shotgun but only has it to shoot clay pigeons and the occasional boyfriend.
By far, my favorite two things that end up on the chalkboard are the fat American, always with an American flag, a gun, a burger and a bat and my drawing of the US. This is always my opportunity to say that there are 305 million people in the United States, and the way that I, a liberal, white Jew, raised in Los Angeles and educated in New England, explain this map will not sound the same as the way a 65 year-old man from the middle of nowhere Kentucky would do it. That it takes all kinds, and that while some Americans think Spain is in Mexico, it’s not fair to let them speak for all of us.
“It would also be great to have a woman in the White House, but Sarah Palin is a nightmare and a detestable example of feminism in the United States. I’d rather see the country run by a fork than that woman.”
I did follow this up with a slowly spoken explanation of the need for change in the US. How McCain’s not a fool, but in Bush’s wake, he’d be a disaster.
Many people have asked me if we’re actually going to elect Obama or are we too racist? The question of racism in the US is always a troubling one. I answer these questions in the affirmative. Yes, the US is racist, xenophobic, close-minded, self-congratulating, proud of its ignorance. But, we have come a long way despite the long way left we have to go. One woman was particularly insistent on the racism of my country especially compared to Spain, and I did finally lose it. Spain 89% Spanish. Málaga is the second largest city in its province. It’s known for having many different types of immigrants, yet almost everyone I see in the street is either a tourist (you can tell from the shoes) or Spanish. Even if not practicing, they’re all Catholic. Spain is currently seeing its first generation of mass immigration. It’s not like France, a country with immigrants from Africa and all over the world who are now third or fourth generation French. Spain has experienced some immigration from Latin America for decades, but recently, more and more people from Eastern Europe and North Africa are settling here. Despite my student’s assurances that “yes, we do know about the mixing of cultures. The Spanish are a mix of many, many cultures since centuries,” I felt the need to teach her not the best way to construct the sentence she was attempting to produce, but the closed mindedness of her statement.
“Yes, but what you’re talking about is the making of one people over time. What this country is about to see for the first time is different cultures coexisting rather than simply becoming one over many generations.” The United States has its problems. We are “the Empire” as one of my students pointed out. (Just as a side note, whenever someone says this to me, I can’t help but picture Bush as Darth Vader and Cheney as Emperor Palpatine. I know this is not the Empire they mean, but the picture still pops in my head each time). But, I’m hoping that Obama can help change that role for us in people’s minds.
The other thing my students get very heated about is gun control. They’ve complained that you sign your name on a piece of paper and they hand you an AK-47. I know this to be an exaggeration, but honestly, I know little about gun laws in the US after that. I find myself saying I agree with them, but the right to bear arms is not going away. It helps less when I tell them that my father owns a shotgun but only has it to shoot clay pigeons and the occasional boyfriend.
By far, my favorite two things that end up on the chalkboard are the fat American, always with an American flag, a gun, a burger and a bat and my drawing of the US. This is always my opportunity to say that there are 305 million people in the United States, and the way that I, a liberal, white Jew, raised in Los Angeles and educated in New England, explain this map will not sound the same as the way a 65 year-old man from the middle of nowhere Kentucky would do it. That it takes all kinds, and that while some Americans think Spain is in Mexico, it’s not fair to let them speak for all of us.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Columbus Day
The second Monday in October is Día de la Hispanidad, otherwise known as, Columbus Day. This was the day I finally got to move into my very own room. When I arrived, the Polish girl occupying it was still moving out, but now it’s mine. Monday night, I finally got to do my laundry, lie down in a bed, in a room by myself. I woke in the morning to the sound of a thunderstorm, thinking, now this is bliss. Until I realized that much awaited laundry I had finally been able to do was hanging outside in that peaceful thunderstorm. I thus began my second week of work.
Work actually is pretty great. I very much enjoy having advanced level students. A few days ago, we were doing a lesson on television. Not yielding very much from the book’s questions, what’s your favourite (the books are published in Britain) type of show? Do you prefer public programming? Etc., I decided to go with route with which I was more familiar. I split them into groups and had the pitch shows to me. I plan to do this lesson again next week, but my particular favorite from this one were a game show called “Wheel of Transvestites,” “The Spooky Email,” and “G8 on Safari,” a reality show that sent world leaders on safari through Africa with only five dollars.
This week also saw my first freelance job. You would not believe how hard it is to get two 15 year-old girls to talk. When I was 15, I think my family would have paid to get me to shut up. (“When I was 15,” as though reactions to my tireless jawing and confusion over the difference between an inner and outer monologue have changed so radically in the last seven years). But, I think I put them a little more at ease by the end, and I went home with 20 euros in my pocket.
My roommates are great. Nadia and Maria are 28 and 29. They work together at some empresa that represents other empresas and, ok, to be honest, I’ve asked three times, and still can’t piece together what exactly they do or whom they do it for. But, Nadia speaks three or four languages and has promised to lend me books. My third roommate is named Rafa. He works for some environmental agency, and from his closet across the kitchen from my room, he’s beginning to write a doctoral thesis on water and poverty. They like to shoot the shit, have been super supportive, know how to speak English decently, but don’t do so with me. Ideal.
The last wonderful thing I’ll tell you about here is this: I get to cook my own meals! This means going to the market, a venture I was forewarned about by my roommates. “It can be intimidating,” “Foreigners usually take pictures,” they told me. Thinking them mad (I’d been to les halles in Avignon), I went happily with my little bag. They were half right. Buying fruit was fine, but the butcher had me smiling uncomfortably to myself. They sell every part of every animal, including brains, which come in small plastic packages and retain the small amount of blood that surrounds the brain. The American in my head was jumping up and down, pointing and shouting, “Don’t you see that?! Brains, girl, brains! In packages. That means they’re packaged in bulk. That means people buy them. Hmmm. I wonder what consistency they have…”
Work actually is pretty great. I very much enjoy having advanced level students. A few days ago, we were doing a lesson on television. Not yielding very much from the book’s questions, what’s your favourite (the books are published in Britain) type of show? Do you prefer public programming? Etc., I decided to go with route with which I was more familiar. I split them into groups and had the pitch shows to me. I plan to do this lesson again next week, but my particular favorite from this one were a game show called “Wheel of Transvestites,” “The Spooky Email,” and “G8 on Safari,” a reality show that sent world leaders on safari through Africa with only five dollars.
This week also saw my first freelance job. You would not believe how hard it is to get two 15 year-old girls to talk. When I was 15, I think my family would have paid to get me to shut up. (“When I was 15,” as though reactions to my tireless jawing and confusion over the difference between an inner and outer monologue have changed so radically in the last seven years). But, I think I put them a little more at ease by the end, and I went home with 20 euros in my pocket.
My roommates are great. Nadia and Maria are 28 and 29. They work together at some empresa that represents other empresas and, ok, to be honest, I’ve asked three times, and still can’t piece together what exactly they do or whom they do it for. But, Nadia speaks three or four languages and has promised to lend me books. My third roommate is named Rafa. He works for some environmental agency, and from his closet across the kitchen from my room, he’s beginning to write a doctoral thesis on water and poverty. They like to shoot the shit, have been super supportive, know how to speak English decently, but don’t do so with me. Ideal.
The last wonderful thing I’ll tell you about here is this: I get to cook my own meals! This means going to the market, a venture I was forewarned about by my roommates. “It can be intimidating,” “Foreigners usually take pictures,” they told me. Thinking them mad (I’d been to les halles in Avignon), I went happily with my little bag. They were half right. Buying fruit was fine, but the butcher had me smiling uncomfortably to myself. They sell every part of every animal, including brains, which come in small plastic packages and retain the small amount of blood that surrounds the brain. The American in my head was jumping up and down, pointing and shouting, “Don’t you see that?! Brains, girl, brains! In packages. That means they’re packaged in bulk. That means people buy them. Hmmm. I wonder what consistency they have…”
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Mountains, beaches and the advaced level class
Friday made one week I’ve been in the city of Málaga. (This may seem odd given the last entry, but it was supposed to be backdated. It took me a while to get it up. Tee hee. No pun intended.) The look of the city is somewhat difficult to explain, and more difficult still as I’ve only been here a week. Málaga is the first large city in Spain coming up from North Africa. It sees a fair amount of tourism and immigration but nothing so intrusive that one notices off the bat. It’s quite obviously a very large port. There’s a nice center to the city, a web of nicely paved pedestrian streets with bars, shopping and restaurants. There are very few chains outside of the main train station. (Except there is a Dunkin’ Donuts, and I find it odd that something I never craved before is so tempting because it’s out of place). As for this, I’m pretty sure bars are open all the time, restaurants on the other hand have very specific hours. For lunch, you’ll be hard pressed to find anything that really opens before 1:30 or stays open past 4. For dinner, nearly nothing starts serving until at least 7:30 or 8. This seems to be true throughout Spain; everything except for restaurants closes between 2 and 4.
Málaga is going through a period of some needed restoration. In 2016, it is to be the site of some European culture capital something or other, and as a result there are lots of signs and scaffolding that bear explanations to this effect. There will be blocks of beautiful buildings that almost look connected to each other with balconies with iron trace work bars, and then it will abruptly stop. There’ll be an empty lot, and the side of the building next to it looks as though someone tore the last building off, leaving only a rusted orange outline of a roof. But, for the most part, the city is beautiful in its dirty Spanish way. On one side it’s surrounded by mountains and on the other, the ocean. The weather is a lot like Los Angeles, and, to top it off, there’s an inexplicably amount of palm trees and a dried up river that runs through it.
Finding an apartment was not the world’s easiest task, but the process did alert me to something wonderful: my Spanish is far better than I thought. I found an apartment on Calle Ollerías. It’s fifteen minutes from the beach, ten from my school, and five from all the bars. I’ll be living with three Spaniards. This sentence is unfortunately in the future tense because I’m currently residing on the very long Ikea couch of some other friends on the program. I’m still living out of my suitcase, which is something I’m accustomed to but was hoping wouldn’t continue much longer. Thankfully, I’ll be able to move in on the 13th of this month.
I work at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas. They are all over the country, and there purpose is to provide a cheap way for any European citizen to learn another language. It’s mostly adults, a few teenagers and some retirees. The EOI in Málaga is probably the largest in Andalusía, so they offer a lot of languages: English, Spanish (for foreigners), French, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, and German. They’ve kindly allowed me to take German classes at the school for free, the only rub being I have the world’s most erratic teaching schedule, so it was difficult to find a beginning course at a time where I could attend most of the classes. My teaching schedule is nuts because they’re trying to get my adorable little American accent to make an appearance in all 30 something of their advanced classes.
Teaching can be exhausting. You wouldn’t have thought speaking your own language could tire one out so, but speaking as slowly as I’m supposed to (I still speak to quickly) makes my whole mouth ache. My very first day I showed up to get my schedule, etc, and five minutes later I was in a classroom being told to speak. “It’ll be fine. Just let them ask you questions.”
Never again will I enter a classroom without a lesson plan. I somehow ended up writing the words binge drinking on the board and attempting to explain the problems of alcohol and obesity in the United States. My second day, I took the theme of American stereotypes and ran with it. Here are some facts you didn’t know about us:
We all eat hamburgers and are overweight, except for the people in California where everything is organic or silicon. (I did an exercise where I had them draw the “typical American” on the board at the end. Pepe drew a pair of breasts so large that there was no room for a head.)
We’re all in a hurry.
All black people drive huge cars with huge rims.
Every American owns a gun and a Stetson. (Yes, one of my students actually asked me about Stetsons.)
We all have curly hair, and we’re all ‘estressed.’ (They have a bit of trouble with words that start with s. These words all mysteriously acquire an e sound at the beginning.)
In all honesty, things are going well, and I’m starting to enjoy teaching. My teachers usually leave me alone to teach, and often leave the room entirely as there shouldn’t be any disciplinary issues to deal with. My biggest problem is that I speak too quickly. But, I’ve reminded all my students repeatedly and with very large gestures to tell me to “slow down crazy American girl.” One of the teachers told me they seem to like me very much because all my classes have left the room smiling. My main job is to get them talking and make them feel comfortable doing it. This for me has never been such a difficult task.
Málaga is going through a period of some needed restoration. In 2016, it is to be the site of some European culture capital something or other, and as a result there are lots of signs and scaffolding that bear explanations to this effect. There will be blocks of beautiful buildings that almost look connected to each other with balconies with iron trace work bars, and then it will abruptly stop. There’ll be an empty lot, and the side of the building next to it looks as though someone tore the last building off, leaving only a rusted orange outline of a roof. But, for the most part, the city is beautiful in its dirty Spanish way. On one side it’s surrounded by mountains and on the other, the ocean. The weather is a lot like Los Angeles, and, to top it off, there’s an inexplicably amount of palm trees and a dried up river that runs through it.
Finding an apartment was not the world’s easiest task, but the process did alert me to something wonderful: my Spanish is far better than I thought. I found an apartment on Calle Ollerías. It’s fifteen minutes from the beach, ten from my school, and five from all the bars. I’ll be living with three Spaniards. This sentence is unfortunately in the future tense because I’m currently residing on the very long Ikea couch of some other friends on the program. I’m still living out of my suitcase, which is something I’m accustomed to but was hoping wouldn’t continue much longer. Thankfully, I’ll be able to move in on the 13th of this month.
I work at the Escuela Oficial de Idiomas. They are all over the country, and there purpose is to provide a cheap way for any European citizen to learn another language. It’s mostly adults, a few teenagers and some retirees. The EOI in Málaga is probably the largest in Andalusía, so they offer a lot of languages: English, Spanish (for foreigners), French, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Portuguese, and German. They’ve kindly allowed me to take German classes at the school for free, the only rub being I have the world’s most erratic teaching schedule, so it was difficult to find a beginning course at a time where I could attend most of the classes. My teaching schedule is nuts because they’re trying to get my adorable little American accent to make an appearance in all 30 something of their advanced classes.
Teaching can be exhausting. You wouldn’t have thought speaking your own language could tire one out so, but speaking as slowly as I’m supposed to (I still speak to quickly) makes my whole mouth ache. My very first day I showed up to get my schedule, etc, and five minutes later I was in a classroom being told to speak. “It’ll be fine. Just let them ask you questions.”
Never again will I enter a classroom without a lesson plan. I somehow ended up writing the words binge drinking on the board and attempting to explain the problems of alcohol and obesity in the United States. My second day, I took the theme of American stereotypes and ran with it. Here are some facts you didn’t know about us:
We all eat hamburgers and are overweight, except for the people in California where everything is organic or silicon. (I did an exercise where I had them draw the “typical American” on the board at the end. Pepe drew a pair of breasts so large that there was no room for a head.)
We’re all in a hurry.
All black people drive huge cars with huge rims.
Every American owns a gun and a Stetson. (Yes, one of my students actually asked me about Stetsons.)
We all have curly hair, and we’re all ‘estressed.’ (They have a bit of trouble with words that start with s. These words all mysteriously acquire an e sound at the beginning.)
In all honesty, things are going well, and I’m starting to enjoy teaching. My teachers usually leave me alone to teach, and often leave the room entirely as there shouldn’t be any disciplinary issues to deal with. My biggest problem is that I speak too quickly. But, I’ve reminded all my students repeatedly and with very large gestures to tell me to “slow down crazy American girl.” One of the teachers told me they seem to like me very much because all my classes have left the room smiling. My main job is to get them talking and make them feel comfortable doing it. This for me has never been such a difficult task.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Arrival
I have arrived in Spain with 15 books and nearly as many pairs of shoes, and on this, the fourth day after my arrival Sevilla for orientation, I have decided that now would be good time for the discipline and indulgence of a blog. As I have little idea about how to write such a thing, I’m going to attempt each entry as though it were a letter to an intimate friend. This means that few entries will contain any explanations regarding my neurotic tendencies, my curious need to make my inner monologue outer, the trouble that gets me into, and how I probably secretly adore the looks on people’s faces as they think, “Did she really just say that out loud?” Frankly, I can’t stand the idea of people reading my verbal diarrhea, but I figured this fateful “gap year” (insert echoing god-voice here) could do with the mass updating that blogs afford.
Orientation includes 200 Americans staying in a hotel for a week as we take classes on things like, how to open a Spanish bank account, how to by a cell phone, culture shock, basic English grammar, how to buy a bus ticket, how to find your name on a list, how to feel superior to the 180 people in the room who don’t know what the present progressive is, and what your role in the classroom will be, which is still unclear, but we have been assured, baruch Hashem for those little Spaniards, that it will have nothing to do with teaching grammar or syntax. But, it has also brought a few friends, and much excitement about the beginning of classes.
The real low point of this week would have to be what I have decided to deem an occasion for learning. I learned a new word, empaste, or filling, as in “I lost a filling in my tooth,” which is exactly what happened, except it took my tooth with it. Dentistry in Spain, despite what they tell us at orientation, is not quite as good as it is in the States. And, in the future, even if he is very attractive, I don’t want a 25 year old with a Punisher tattoo to have a drill in my mouth. I ended up with three fillings, and I still need a cap. But, it seems all will be well, since here in Spain, I may be drinking most of my meals.
Orientation includes 200 Americans staying in a hotel for a week as we take classes on things like, how to open a Spanish bank account, how to by a cell phone, culture shock, basic English grammar, how to buy a bus ticket, how to find your name on a list, how to feel superior to the 180 people in the room who don’t know what the present progressive is, and what your role in the classroom will be, which is still unclear, but we have been assured, baruch Hashem for those little Spaniards, that it will have nothing to do with teaching grammar or syntax. But, it has also brought a few friends, and much excitement about the beginning of classes.
The real low point of this week would have to be what I have decided to deem an occasion for learning. I learned a new word, empaste, or filling, as in “I lost a filling in my tooth,” which is exactly what happened, except it took my tooth with it. Dentistry in Spain, despite what they tell us at orientation, is not quite as good as it is in the States. And, in the future, even if he is very attractive, I don’t want a 25 year old with a Punisher tattoo to have a drill in my mouth. I ended up with three fillings, and I still need a cap. But, it seems all will be well, since here in Spain, I may be drinking most of my meals.
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