The End

I arrived in the United States a month ago, and was immediately taken aback at how strangely long and rectangular our currency is, how uniform in color. I also realized I no longer had to equip myself with specialized vocabulary before asking for help (in the O'Hare airport I began to think of all the necessary words for upgrading my ticket until I remembered that I could just--incredible!--use English). But soon enough I got used to the sound of English on the street, the possibility of running into a friend at a cafe who I hadn't seen in 5 years, the prevalence of high fructose corn syrup. Also, the children I now work with are helping to erase the weird sense I developed that all young humans speak Spanish fluently and English only marginally.

There are several stories that I wanted to post to this blog and never got around to writing, such as Easter Sunday when Arcos let two bulls loose through its streets (tentative title: Hallelujah, it's Running Men). Perhaps I'll get to them someday soon--more for my own benefit of recording everything than yours, my loyal audience. But for now my life is already carrying me quickly into a new phase and Spain is starting to seem more unreal, more distant. On to the next frontier.

Things I Will Desperately Miss

And thus, of course, here’s the follow-up list:

1. Patra’s knee-slapping jokes (I think there were 3 or 4 this year, and they were all gems)
2. Taking flamenco lessons in a bar, ie, doing as much drinking as dancing
3. Our terrace. Our terrace on perfect days, meals on the terrace, hanging laundry on the terrace, drinking sherry on the terrace at sunset
4. 300 children
5. Seeing one of my 300 children on the street and feeling like a star
6. Saying hello to all the old men taking their morning, afternoon, and evenings walks
7. Living in a cubist’s dream
8. Being halfway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean
9. Taking Sevilla for granted since it’s just an hour away
10. Hearing Spanish every day, especially the awesome accent the old men have here
11. Being constantly inspired by the beauty of this town
12. Cheap tickets to everywhere else in Europe
13. Being serenaded by an incredible flamenco guitarist
14. Doing yoga in an old Spanish patio
15. The Friday market
16. Olive oil, organic eggs, fruit in season all year round
17. The cliff
18. Flamenco parties every Friday and Saturday (and spontaneous flamenco in the street)
19. The fact that everyone knows how to clap in rhythm here

This list is actually harder than the last, because many of the things I will miss aren’t as concrete as the things I won’t miss. That is, I will miss all the smells of this town, all the strange and beautiful things I see every day, I will miss the sounds in the streets of the old men talking, of bands practicing for Semana Santa, I will miss the feeling that everyone welcomes me in. And I will miss hundreds of people—Patra and Adan, Emma and all the Brits, Santi and the women we danced flamenco with, my co-teachers, the choir members, the shop keepers and café owners, all the townspeople I’ve become accustomed to seeing…and, as I said above, the hundreds and hundreds of children who I love more than I thought possible. But the year has come to an end and I don’t belong here anymore. Such is life. On to the next adventure.

Things I Will Not Miss

I leave Spain on Friday. Though I will be glad to see my family and friends again, leaving Arcos will be like ripping out a small piece of my heart. Thus, to make myself feel better, I’ve compiled a list of things I will NOT miss.

1. Having to wait for a day that is warm, sunny, and dry enough to do laundry (this day having to correspond to a day I wasn’t in school).
2. For that matter, the laundry machine and the long process of getting its door open (this involved a small silver spoon—the laundry spoon—that we used to jimmy the catch)
3. The ants that have taken over the apartment floor, coupled with the fact that I now sleep on the floor due to a broken bed-frame.
4. Relying on a small and inefficient gas tank for hot showers—and then hoping they’re not TOO hot.
5. Dubbed movies.
6. Trying to avoid bird poop while passing underneath the flying buttresses of St. Mary’s on the way to school (thereby avoiding being the object of ridicule)
7. Not understanding people a lot of the time.
8. Having a terrible internet connection.
9. The creepy guy.
10. The gray cat upstairs and how he’s always on the terrace when I’m wearing black clothes.
11. The piercing bark of the dog downstairs (and his young owner calling out “Blanky!” at all hours).
12. The construction that started just outside my window.
13. Feeling like an outsider.
14. Carrying groceries up the hill.

Um, I think that's it. Meaning that everything else currently in my life I am either slightly indifferent to or will desperately miss. Writing this list has only made me more aware of what I WILL miss. Shoot.

Last tango in Arcos

Today was Patra's last full day in Arcos, and it was a busy one. In the morning we went out to the countryside to do yoga in the blazing sun. The view up to our town was beautiful:


Then, in the afternoon, we headed to the countryside once again, this time to dance at our flamenco teacher's house. As it was our last time ever, I took a few videos of our teacher doing the steps so we could practice after we left. I also took this one of Patra and I dancing tangos (a flamenco form that has nothing to do with the Argentinian partner dance):

Snail Season

For me, the turn of late spring into summer heralds the arrival of my favorite fruits: raspberries, blueberries, nectarines, cherries. Meanwhile, Andalucians get excited about the advent of a different seasonal food: snails. Come late May, the little creatures can be seen scaling walls, burrowed in the folded leaves of every plant, and hiding in the produce section of any grocery store. Their prevalence begs the question of why anyone would bother buying them instead of blindly sticking a fist into nearby greenery and drawing out a meal's-worth. But there they are, the snail-sellers, standing at street corners with plastic tubs of their captives millimetering toward freedom. Broken shells and the flattened grayish goo of snail bodies on the sidewalk stand as a testament to the doomed future that awaits crawlaways.

To be honest, the sight of few hundred ugly brown shells with their corresponding oozy gray inhabitants does not especially whet my appetite. Perhaps to combat this rather unappealing reality, restaurants frequently advertise the availability of snails with a hand-drawn picture of a smiling snail frolicking among flowers, or just happily surrounded by snail-friends (ooze, translucency, and amorphousness are all down-played).

Though I have remained unpersuaded by the drawings, the enthusiasm of my Spanish friends convinced me I needed to try this seasonal delicacy. When ordered, snails come in little glasses, submerged in a brownish liquid which is to be sipped first before slurping the small bodies out of their shells. I have not yet gained the courage to slurp any bodies (which have been described to me as "gooey" and "fishy," adjectives that fail to entice me) but I agreed to try the liquid. After the briefest of sips, I nodded in approval: it failed to make me nauseous, and that was success enough for me. The Spaniards continued to coax me into trying a snail itself.

"Well, you know, I'm more or less a vegetarian," I told them, desperate for any excuse.

"But you eat plants," one friend argued. "And plants are animals, too!"

I stared in disbelief, and started to say, "But, no, that's the whole point of the distinction, plants AREN'T animals..." Unfortunately, the beauty of specious reasoning is that its ridiculousness often negates the possibility of logical counter-argument. So I shrugged and sipped down another mouthful of herbed snail-brine. Yum.

Turning 23, I think I'm turning 23

23 has been my lucky number since I was five years old when it was the number on the mat assigned to me for nap time. We've been close ever since. Perhaps it's most significant appearance in my life occurred in a place ripe for superstitions and lucky numbers: a casino in Montreal. It was my first--and thus far last--trip to a casino and, big spender that I am, I placed aside $20 with which to gamble. I converted my precious cash into four 5-dollar chips (I would have done twenty 1-dollar chips if they'd let me) and headed to roulette. First chip on black and the number turned up red. Second chip on odds, the number came up even. Third chip on some random area of the board, and lost that one, too. With my last chip clutched in my hand, I eyed 23. Why not? I would most definitely lose, but all more "surer" bets had lost. But I lost heart. I selected another random area of the board, one that didn't include 23. And the number that came up? 23, of course. I took that as a direct sign that I was not meant for the gambling life, and haven't done so since. Who knows what kind of a person 23 saved me from becoming?

In any case, my affinity for 23 has long made me believe good things would happen when I finally reached the age. Many months ago I became nervous when I realized it would occur during my year in Spain. I wondered if anyone would know it was my birthday, if there would be any special celebration at all, if I would be surrounded by friends like I was last year at the end of my time at Dartmouth. Turns out I had nothing to fear.

The day itself was a study in Reasons I Love My Life in Arcos: I was with my kids in the morning, some of whom had bought presents for me (a silver coin purse, silver sandals that were somehow exactly the right size, and the first item of clothing with Minnie Mouse on it that I've owned since I was 5). There was also cake and a belly-dance performance by my 10-year olds which was just a little awkward. In the afternoon I went to yoga (Patra, to our yoga teacher: "Jenna's having a special day!" Yoga teacher, looking aghast, "You didn't get married, did you?" Me: "No, I just turned 23." Yoga teacher: "Thank God. Your mother would have killed me.") Patra and I had dinner on the terrace and went to flamenco in the evening (the class sang "Cumpleanos Feliz" and one of my fellow dancers with delightfully bowed legs chided me for not bringing a cake). All in all, it was not so different from any other Wednesday in Arcos, which is to say it was perfect. The kind of day that makes me think 23 is indeed my lucky number.

Don't know much about geography

I told one of my private classes that the following week would be our last class together.

"And then you're going home?" Alvaro asked.

"Yes, that's right, to my country."

They looked puzzled.

"Which country are you from?" Juan Manuel asked, which disappointed me since he's also in my regular classes at school and it's the kind of thing I'd think he'd know by now.

"I'm from the United States. Do you guys know where that is?"

"Oh yeah! Right next to France!" Alvaro looked gleeful in his knowledge.

"Ummm, not next to France, no. You know how there's an ocean near Arcos? The Atlantic? I'm on the other side of the Atlantic."

The kids still looked confused. Then Alvaro spoke up again, "Okay, so not next to France but above France?"

I shook my head. Juan Manuel jumped out of his seat. "I know!" He picked up a marker and began to draw a crude outline of Spain and France on the whiteboard. "Okay, here's where we are, and here's where you live," he said, indicating approximately where the UK is.

"No, I'm not from England, I swear," I said, but Alvaro was already agreeing with Juan Manuel.

"Yep, yep, that's where teacher lives."

Finally I found a book on Christopher Columbus and showed them an egregiously out-dated map. I pointed at southern Spain, showed them England, and then showed them where Minnesota would be, relative to them. Their eyes widened.

"You live all the way over THERE? That's so far!"

"That's right," I said. "Nowhere near France."

Wouldn't it be lovering

I've often rolled my eyes at the poor English blazoned on Spaniards' t-shirts. Then recently I noticed one t-shirt that I thought was an inadvertently clever mistake. The t-shirt says, "Think Green," in large letters and underneath it has an alternate 3 R's: reduce, refuse, recycle. I've seen the t-shirt enough times now, though, to think that "refuse" was intentional. Either way, I approve.

But I saw one sweatshirt that takes the cake in that it's so absolutely bizarre you can't even imagine what message someone was trying to get across. I wrote it down because it was impossible to remember the sequence of words. Here, I give it to you verbatim: "Ever body lovering her so we all love."

Happy April Fish Day!

While all you Americans are tricking each other with short-sheeted beds, saran-wrap on toilets, and telling your trusting children that it's a snow day (I'm looking at you, Dad), the French are busy with another equally exciting tradition today: fishing each other. Although I myself have never been fished, I hear it requires the utmost skill and the result is utterly hilarious: children (and perhaps adults?) attempt to stick cut-outs of fish on each others' backs. And they're completely confused why anyone would go further than that when it comes to mischief-making on the first of April.

Ghetto Blaster

Speaking of carrying a radio through town, I came across a surprising translation in my pocket English-Spanish dictionary: on the English side, I found the term "Ghetto Blaster." I'm not sure how that's necessary enough in the English language to beat out other missing words (HarperCollins considers it more important than seahorse, gargoyle, and woodchuck, for instance). So never fear, when you want to quickly reference the outdated and perhaps offensive term "ghetto blaster," just turn to page 386 and find its Spanish translation, "un cassette portatil de gran tamano."

Getting ready for Semana Santa: Part 3

Since our apartment is on the parade route, Patra and I have had the pleasure (?) of witnessing parade rehearsals. These occur on Thursday nights around 11 pm, due to the fact that a parade rehearsal means closing down the street entirely so that dozens of burly men can haul a gigantic unadorned platform downhill at the pace of snails. Perhaps this wouldn't be such a problem if the one-way street in front of our apartment wasn't the ONLY way to exit the town. Recently, we heard the approaching semana santa music emanating from a tinny little radio (which, actually, doesn't change the overall quality of the music) and rushed to the window to watch. Rushing, of course, was unnecessary as it took the men ten minutes just to turn a corner. We watched their slow progress, their feet moving a few centimeters with each step. They passed our window and we went back to what we were doing. A few minutes later we heard a car rumble downhill, apparently unaware of the street blockage. And then, a few minutes later: the same car backing uphill on our narrow street, moving about as quickly as the men had been going downhill. Traffic jams come in all varieties in this town.

Getting ready for Semana Santa: Part 2

And, in town, posters of Semana Santas past go up:




My favorite, from 1950, is right next to my apartment (on the left):


A monument in the middle of town of the scary penitents:

Getting ready for Semana Santa: Part 1

The most important week of the year requires a lot of preparation. In my school, the terrifying penitents are made to look slightly less scary by being made out of paper:

And children make their own mini-Jesus floats:

Playing the Jenna and Patra game

Emma, our yoga teacher, just let us know that the game of choice for her 2 children (aged 4 and 6), is "playing Jenna and Patra." Shocked and honored, Patra and I asked what the game consisted of. She said: if there are yoga mats in the house, the kids just strike a pose. But if there are no mats, they jump on the bed, strike a yoga pose, and try to make the other one fall over. Having each selected one of us as his or her avatar, they yell out "there's a point for Jenna!" "that's one for Patra!" Funny, that's how Patra and I DO spend all of our time--yoga fighting.

Spitting Image

This year, I've thought a lot about spitting. In my "about me" for this blog, I say something about "learning to spit like a Spaniard." Unfortunately, alliteration took precedence over reality in that instance. In truth I find the custom disgusting. In the United States I can forgive when a runner spits into the grass as they're passing by. I can understand when a tween spits in front of his friends to look cool. I don't find either situation particularly pleasant, but not horrible either.

Here's how it plays out in Spain: I'm walking to school. I near an old man. He's got a tickle in his throat, starts coughing vehemently. "What to do with this phlegmy gunk, now loosened?" he thinks. "Well, why not expectorate in the direction of that nice young woman coming closer? Better out than in, after all." He spits, nearly missing my shoes, wipes his chin, and smiles at me. "Buenos dias, guapa!" And a good day to you too, sir.

Putting the "blanco" back in the pueblo

Arcenses take the designation of their town very seriously: as the quintessential "pueblo blanco" of Andalucia (as some guidebooks describe Arcos), townspeople take great care in keeping up appearances. Spring cleaning for inhabitants of the old town means scraping off the last year's layer of whitewash and reapplying bright new coats of the calcium-based cover. And what better way to remove an entire wall of paint than with a butter knife? And why not reapply with a paintbrush best suited to fine detail work in small watercolors? These seem to be the tools of choice for my neighbors...

Painting with a mini-paintbrush:

Because chipping paint off with a butter knife requires supervision:

Arcos' Darwin Awards

To catch the bus to Sevilla on Valentine's Day, I woke up at 6 am and traveled downhill through my quiet, darkened town. Though I've been up that early before to catch other buses and have never felt anything but safe, I felt uneasy this time. To add to my unease, or perhaps justifying it, I passed a glasses shop and saw broken glass on the sidewalk. Then, a large rock. And a hole in the window just in front of a display case, the Prada glasses missing. I felt unnerved enough (the crime had obviously happened in the past few hours) to quicken my pace, start to look over my shoulder and make my way to the lighted part of the street.

A week later, the criminals were apprehended. They were attempting to break into the OTHER glasses shop in Arcos, just across the street from the first, on a Friday at the same time as the first burglary. I can only imagine they did it with the same rock.

I sat down with a friend earlier today who said this wasn't the first time a burglar showed a lack of savviness in Arcos. Last summer an Arcense robbed a bank, made off with several thousand Euros, and then...hung around in Arcos. Now, Arcos is a small town. It wasn't hard to figure out who'd committed the theft. But he wasn't eager to skip town. In fact, his first crime had gone so well he decided to try it again. He held up a restaurant in the old town, using only white face paint as a disguise. He was caught soon afterward.

The friend who was telling me this story said his own house had been broken into at one point. He got off lucky, he said. Ignoring a plasma-screen TV, several pieces of very expensive furniture (this friend is in the business of remodeling homes, included interior decorations), and other items with acknowledgable value, the thieves took:
1) 2 plastic deck chairs
2) a large skillet
3) a bread-maker

You can tell these thieves weren't in it for black market resell value...they were just in the mood for a back-porch bread-filled barbecue.

Down on the [organic] farm

Since October, Patra and I have been enjoying organic vegetables, hand-pressed olive oil, and the most beautifully-yoked eggs this side of the Atlantic (and perhaps the other side as well), all produced on a nearby farm. Our first delivery in October, courtesy of our yoga teacher, amounted to pretty much a forest of fennel and Swiss chard, and included proof of its organic pedigree: a snail as big as my thumb left its slow, slimy trail up one of the chard stalks. Yum! If only we were escargot enthusiasts.

Today we got the pleasure of finally visiting our organic farm, run by farmer Ian and farmer Sue. As on any good small farm (it seems) everything they showed us was about to be moved somewhere else, except perhaps for the Muscovy ducks who supply our eggs (I let them know we were their biggest fans; they simply nodded their heads and kept eating lettuce). Ian showed us where the carrots would go, the beets, the herb garden, the potatoes, the onions and garlic, the dates and tomatoes. On the other side of the farmhouse he showed us the koi which would be soon moved out of the pool and into a Japanese garden complete with bonsai. He let us pick mint and the flowers off cactus, and explained how onions grow (I'm still a little confused). And finally he showed us where they grow waterlilies, grapes to make their own wine, and papyrus. To make their own paper? Perhaps someday.

We'd been collecting vegetables and eggs along the way; for a box brimming over with green, they charged us only 5 Euro. We would have felt even guiltier if it wasn't for Sue's gorgeous little red Porsche sitting next to Ian's tractor. An eclectic farm, to be sure.

Dani the Saint

On Thursday, I had my after-school group of thirteen-year-olds discuss what they would do in certain situations to practice conditionals. First, I gave them an article about an American man who deposited a fake check for $95,000 on a whim and, to his surprise, the bank credited him with the money (a true story: you can check it out at http://www.goodthink.com/writing/view_stories.cfm?id=11&page_id=2). Would my students keep the money? There was near-consensus: six of the seven kids there said yes, they would, no question.

We got around the table to Dani, a tall, skinny kid whose hair is the only thing that's out-of-control about him. Whereas the other kids run around, lock each other in and out of places (including the balcony outside our classroom and a nearby refrigerator) and generally go crazy during our breaktimes, Dani always stays seated at the table with hands folded, looking at me with an expression of "Kids, what can you do about 'em?" He's well-behaved, but also well-liked; all the girls wanted Dani on their team last week when we were creating rules for new sports.

When it came to the question of keeping the money, Dani was appalled. "No, I would not keep the money because it does not belong to me! I would not want to be a robber." I told him that technically the money was not the man's, but the bank had made the error in his favor. Dani was immutable in his opinions. He would keep the money under no conditions. I applauded him and moved on to the next question. What would the kids do with this extra money? Their answers showed their confusion about what $95,000 can buy these days.

"I would buy many houses and nice cars!" said Javi, whose sentiments were echoed by Alba and Pedro: nice houses, nice cars, maybe a few islands in the mix (Pedro also thought he might be able to buy his way to the presidency of the United States--"I'm the second Barack Obama!" he assured me). At the other end of the spectrum, Maria asserted, "I would buy a dog;" Nieves agreed. She too would buy a dog for just under 100 grand. Meanwhile, Jose Maria contemplated the question, then said, "I would buy Spiderman." I raised my eyebrows. "No wait, I would buy Spiderman and Superman. And then I would conquer the world."

Again to Dani. "Dani, if you legally had $95,000, what would you buy?" He looked very serious as he replied, "I would study at Oxford." None of this materialist stuff.

We moved on to a game where one person leaves the room and everyone has to come up with a solution to a problem. The person re-enters the room, listens to all the solutions, and then tries to guess what the original problem was. I gave them the problem of being on the sinking Titanic. Dani's response: "I would jump off, then swim behind the rescue boats."

"Why wouldn't you get in a rescue boat, Dani?" I asked.

"Because they would be full of women and children. It's okay, I would get used to the cold water."

To which I pretty much slammed my hand on the table in shock and shouted, "My God, this kid's a saint!" Dani turned bright red, making him look only more like the cherub he is.

Watch how baller my flamenco teacher is:

Okay, so I only took one class from this guy, but check it out:

Antonio "El Pipa" enters around 1:34 and starts rocking it out hardcore around 2:37
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VkJY-D5b54&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCMeVhVDYXI&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKtkxloDD2A&feature=related
(All 3 are part of the same performance)

Picnic with the Brits

On Sunday, Patra and I trekked out to the mountainside with about twenty British expats. The expedition had been postponed from February 8th, aka "International Yoga Day" to March 8th, "International Womens' Day." Just as fitting, I suppose. While the men barbecued, a good dozen of us ladies brought out the yoga mats and stretched in the gorgeous Andalusian sun. Though there were a few stares from picnicking Spaniards, we were lucky to escape much notice.

Emma leads us in the triangle pose

Patra and I do the tree pose together

And while we stretch, the men busy themselves with meat

Maggie, on the left in the red sunblock facepaint: my favorite little Brit ever

You say potato

One of the difficulties of teaching British English is that, well, I don't speak it. Sometimes I try to affect a British accent so the kids will understand me better (especially with the letter t in the middle of a word: thirty, Peter, etc), but it often comes off as a ridiculous mockery. For instance, I tried to fancy up the word "computer" and said something akin to "com-PUH-taah!!!" which is recognizable to none (for some reason, I feel the need to say everything more exuberantly when I speak "British"). The English teacher, Lola, was quick to assure me I could use my own accent and tried to copy me, coming out with the sound "com-puh-rur."

I had some difficulty pronouncing foods for my third-graders today. I tried "WAH-tuh!!!" then my own accent--"WAH-der"--and then just had to show them the flash-card for the kids to understand I was talking about water. I thought I was so clever to preempt confusion and say toh-MAH-toh instead of toh-MAY-doh. Then I tried poh-TAH-toh. Ubiquitous confusion. Can you believe it? Potatoes and tomatoes don't rhyme in the UK. Guess that song is lying.

Dublin: Rethinking our Drinking

In a city where half the pedestrians you see are carrying a musical instrument, a city with four Nobel laureates thus far (impressive for its relative size) and connections to hundreds of other incredible writers, it was surprising to Hilary and me that advertising in the great city of Dublin has not lived up to the musicality or poetry it is so famous for.

We noticed this on our first night in Dublin when we went to a pub after dinner. Our Lonely Planet guide asserted that the pub, Dawson Lounge, was the smallest pub we would find in the city. Dawson Lounge itself was shooting for grander recognition, but employed Irish modesty in its slogan: "Probably the smallest pub in the world." Probably? Perched on stools in the tiny, green-carpeted pub, Hilary and I agreed that there could indeed be a smaller pub in, say, Malaysia. The owners of Dawson Lounge simply couldn't know. Better to be truthful than exaggerate your own superlative status. Still, we couldn't help but think that the word "probably" in an advertising slogan is probably not the best tactic.

The next day, while walking around the city, we ran into several small clumps of people carrying signs proclaiming, "Official dispute." Nothing surlier than the word "dispute," that's for sure. I couldn't tell you who was actually disputing, either, though it was clear they were upset over the current financial crisis. As though someone had made the choice to send the world into an economic tailspin, but would now reverse the process once they saw these sock-it-to-'em slogans: "Tax the rich, not the lower-paid," "Stop top bankers from putting their hands in our pockets," and "You do the maths" (okay, the last one was actually a sign for a bagel shop, but that UK "maths" gets me every time). It seemed as though the protesters were trying to light a fire with damp wood; if only they knew to add a spark! And change the wood.

Finally, we found a slogan both memorable and to the point: "Rethinking our drinking." This phrase is at the center of a national campaign that, unsurprisingly, encourages Irish citizens to change their habits of imbibing. Unfortunately, we didn't find any of the supporting phrases to have as much zing or memorability. And, while the website drinkaware.ie calls it a "hard-hitting campaign," we spent more time being confused than being roused to action.

After rethinking, Hilary and I decided to do some drinking; we spent an afternoon in the Guinness storehouse, which is really just a huge interactive advertisement for the drink. No slogans necessary: I was thirsty for Guinness the whole time. However, when we came to the advertising section of the tour (a history of Guinness campaigns) we were left wanting when we read what was obviously meant to be an impressive story. Two advertising executives were locked in a hotel until they came up with something stunning. After three days they emerged with one word: Genius. Hilary and I scratched our heads. Sure, "genius" is a good word for Guinness--they share so many letters! But how did it take these execs three days?

On our last full day in Dublin, Hilary and I bought ourselves green scarves before heading off to a pub ("The Bleeding Horse"--makes you thirsty for a pint, right? But of what?) We'd been excited for the upcoming rugby match since we'd checked in on Wednesday and our receptionist told us the town would be "jammers" for the game. The match was between Ireland and England and we were pumped to root green. Our spirits were only slightly dampened by a large banner proclaiming: "It's about being the best rugby team in the six nations." Why not "It's about winning!" or "It's all about Ireland"? Anything, really. Anything you could say without having to refill on breath. In any case, we made it to the Bleeding Horse, cheered Ireland on to victory, and enjoyed pints of Guinness with the crowd. Genius.

Hilary and I enjoy pints at the Guinness Gravity Bar; shamrocks were etched into the foam of these free pints!

Saga of Malaga

When my parents lived in Morocco, they would often show up to take a bus to a neighboring town only to find out the bus had left long ago. Having filled to capacity, why wait around until the scheduled hour of departure?

Apparently Morocco's northern neighbor employs similar logic. My friend Hilary and I showed up at the bus station this morning at 7:45 am to catch the 8:05 bus to Malaga, as it was listed online. We waited around until just after 8; I asked another bus driver about the trip to Malaga (it's always best to let someone know where you're going at the Arcos bus station) and he informed us the bus had left probably around 7:40 am. Frustrated, I explained that the time had been listed differently on the bus company's website. He looked at me pityingly, as if to say "why would you trust the internet?" Better that than the Arcos' tourism office, which had told me that there was no direct connection to Malaga, and that we would have to take the bus west to Jerez instead (thereby losing ground). At least the internet had informed me that the Jerez-Malaga connection actually goes through Arcos...but still, it had let me down.

Luckily, this bus driver, this new ally of ours, had plenty of suggestions. First he mentioned going to Ronda, but decided against it since there wasn't an Arcos-Ronda bus for a while. Another random man joined in the conversation, suggesting we go to Algeciras and take a bus up the coast from there. The bus driver and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes. Algeciras? No thanks. Finally the bus driver decided we should take a bus to Villamartin, a town to the east of Arcos on the Sevilla-Malaga route. Besides, "In Arcos," the bus driver said, looking around conspiratorially, "There's nothing. Look around! Nothing here. Just a cafe. Now, in Villamartin, there's a guy."

Hilary and I raised our eyebrows to show appreciation of that fact. "A guy?" I asked.

"That's right," he said, and folded his arms and held his chin up. "He'll look like this. He'll be walking around. You can ask him anything--he knows it all. He'll help you."

Needless to say, we were sold. The bus to Villamartin would be leaving in about an hour. I casually mentioned to the bus driver that maybe we would drink some coffee in Arcos' cafe until the bus showed up. He shook his head.

"Now's not the time," he assured. "It's not the time to drink to coffee. When you get to Villamartin you can drink all the coffee you want." I shrugged. The weather in Arcos was nice enough to Hilary stayed outside and waited for our Villamartin bus. When it showed up an hour later, our bus driver ally rushed out of the cafe. "Where were you?" he asked, in surprise. "I was drinking coffee that whole time! And you were out here!"

Our ally lit up a cigarette and stood around talking with the Villamartin bus driver, a handsomer, taller, and more Spanish-looking version of George W. Bush. When asked if the bus was leaving soon, GW shrugged. He didn't seem to be in a rush. Still, as Hilary was trying to pay for her ticket at the front of the bus just after I'd gotten on, GW closed the door immediately, started up the engine, and started pulling out of the station. "There's no time!" he told Hilary, as she was trying to get out the exact change for her fare. "Just sit down--we're outta here!" Hilary stumbled to her seat as the bus lurched backward.

Hilary and I spent the trip to Villamartin in eager anticipation of meeting this famous "guy." We wondered if the legends could be true. We soon found out: they were. The "guy" was an older man seated in a small information booth at the Villamartin station, who looked up from the article on Obama he was reading to address us merrily. I told him we were on our way to Malaga; he let us know when our bus would be leaving and then proceeded to discuss the merits of taking the route through the mountains, full of beautiful white towns, instead of the coast, full of garbage-dump-inspired developments for Europeans on holiday. I agreed, shuddering over what would have become of us if we'd taken the Algeciras route up the Costa del Sol (seriously: Costa del Trash-heap is more adequate).

Having gotten our information, Hilary and I sat down to long-awaited coffee and sugar-coated churros. We noticed the guy leave his information booth and flit through the station, greeting friends, giving out information, ushering customers to the correct buses, calling drivers to make sure they were on schedule. We were impressed. If only Arcos had a guy, we lamented, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Still, if we'd caught our original bus, we'd never have met our original ally, GW, or this guy. And, as the guy shepherded us toward the bus to Malaga, and we shared tearful goodbyes, we knew it had all been worth it. Besides, losing three hours of exploration time in Malaga is not exactly unfortunate...but that's another story.

Carnaval Caroling

One of the most popular parts of Carnaval in Cadiz is the caroling done by costumed choruses. As our guide around the city on Sunday, Jose attempted to explain what was going on. The songs are, in general, supposed to be funny, but we often missed the jokes (as is common not only for foreigners but even Spaniards who are not from Cadiz). After laughing particularly hard, Jose would turn to us and translate what he'd heard, which would only make us more aware of how much we were missing ("So the punchline is...I want a sandwich? Hmmm....")

We stood in one plaza for about an hour as choruses on flatbeds were pulled past us by utterly bored-looking tractor drivers. After listening to the Indian group (my PC self cringing, though it was already weakened from the previous night's costumes), and a group of sailors, a tractor pulled up with a flatbed full of men in short wigs and overalls with pastel T-shirts and thoroughly Spanish scarves. Patra and I ventured a guess: cross-dressing Spanish hill-billies? No, we found out, they were "lesbians." Ah yes. Obvious.

Principal of Tides

When I tell Spaniards about Minnesota, sometimes I start with the Mall of America. Then they find out the Mississippi River begins in Minnesota, and they wonder why I didn't start with that fact. With some irony that is no doubt loss, I assure them the Mall of America is very big (there's an amusement park inside! A walk-through aquarium below!) Truthfully, I am much prouder of my state's claim to the origins of one of the world's most important rivers. I have visited Lake Itasca, the source of the Mississippi, several times. A friend of mine and I once walked the first few hundred meters, the river shallow and narrow around our ankles. We walked until the water reached our knees; when it reached our thighs, we turned around. It was only then that we realized the strength of the downstream current. Every step against the current was laborious.

Last night I experienced a similar sensation, except the tide was one of humans (reeking of alcohol, covered in face paint, shouting, slurring, spitting) and it was not constricted to my calves. Welcome to Carnaval in Cadiz, arguably the largest celebration of its kind in Spain.

I arrived in the center of Cadiz last night around midnight with Patra, Hilary, and my Spanish friends Ana and Jose (who own an apartment in Cadiz and invited us to witness the spectacle). In such a crowd, you quickly learn to recognize the costumes of your friends, and thus I spent much of the night making sure I was near Patra's blue and orange homemade (awesome) mask, Hilary's pink flower and matching pink coin-embellished skirt, Jose's silky turban, and Ana's red devil cape and trident. We pointed out other costumes to each other (my favorites were three boys as Munch's "Scream;" we also saw inordinate number of chickens and cows), but mainly just tried to stick together. In the plaza in front of Cadiz's cathedral, this was almost impossible. As we were exiting the plaza through a ridiculous bottleneck, I contemplated seriously the amount of pressure it would take be squeezed to death. Somehow I felt strangely comfortable, though, knowing I hardly had to place my feet on the trash-, liquid-, scum-covered ground to be moved along. The five of us held hands, linked elbows, and followed Jose's upheld trident to guide us out of the fray.

In the midst of this mess, I witnessed my favorite sight of the evening. Not an ingenious costume, no, but two old women in their regular clothes moving slowly toward the plaza we'd just fought our way out of. They were so small the tops of their heads barely met my shoulder, and I noticed the bright speckles of confetti adorning their white hair. They looked determined, yet calm, and I hoped the currents would be kinder to them than they had been to us. We were sand in the spray of the waves, they the rocks at the ocean's bottom, moving inches every eon...perhaps they knew what they were doing after all.

Bring a paella

There is to be no flamenco the week after I return from Dublin because it's the "week of women;" my teacher, also a marriage counselor and advocate for abused women, is running many of the events. At flamenco tonight she read out the schedule. One event, listed as 10 am to 6pm, provoked indignant shouts from my fellow dancers. "When would we eat?!" they asked. Maria Jose, my teacher, looked up in annoyance. "I was just about to get to that." She continued reading. "This event is limited to 100 participants. All participants should bring a paella to supply the lunch-time meal." Hilary, who had accompanied me to rehearsal, and I looked at each other in surprise. 100 paellas? Seems like there will be more than enough yellow rice to go around...

It's a small town after all

My friend Hilary, who teaches English in Paris, is currently visiting me. Our worklives are similar, our homelives not. She has constant access to internet, constant access to English bookstores, constant access to foods from around the world. I: do not. I felt a little country-bumpkin as I eagerly pointed out the features of Arcos: "Here's the bakery--it's fantastic" (I bought a croissant; obviously biased, Hilary decided not to sample something her own town is renowned for, though I swear these croissants are just as good), "This is the main street...well, the street," "Here's the Italian restaurant. Italian! Can you believe it?" In truth, Arcos--at 30,000 residents--is not such a tiny town. And it has everything I need: organic vegetables, yoga, flamenco classes, a fantastic bakery and an adorable wireless cafe. Sometimes, though, it's small-town character is more obvious.

Hilary, Patra, and I had just exited the adorable wireless cafe en route to a flamenco class when we saw a familiar face: Antonio, our landlord. Although Antonio is a little crazy, spits on us unintentionally, is difficult to understand, and keeps asking about our marriage prospects (still thinking we're going to settle in Arcos indefinitely), we were glad to see him. Our shower hasn't been the most trustworthy when it comes to hot water, and we wanted to ask Antonio to check it out. After a few awkward minutes of spittle-filled communication, we reached an agreement about when Antonio would come by. We continued walking. To Patra and me, this sort of meeting is unsurprising, almost necessary for getting business done (we originally got our apartment by unintentionally running into Antonio's wife Angela in the street an hour after she'd shown it to us). To Hilary, the chance encounter was nothing short of extraordinary. "Wow," she said. "This really is a small town."

I speak their language

Not Spanish (well, I try). No, I'm becoming fluent in the language of young children. The other night I walked into my flamenco class--held in the back of a bar--and started putting on my shoes. A boy, maybe 5 or 6 years old, walked up to me and stuck out his tongue, perhaps thinking to intimidate me. I stuck my tongue back out at him. He looked surprised for a moment, then nodded in approval. He held out a piece of gum; "for me?" I asked. He nodded again. I could see the conclusion in his eyes: I'd passed his test, and thus was aptly rewarded.

I love Arcos in the springtime

In Arcos, as in most of southern Spain, there are 5 seasons: Fall from Oct-Nov; Winter from Dec-Jan; Spring from Feb-April; Summer in May, June, and Sept; and Unbearable Heat in July and August. I am lucky in that I will experience all these seasons except UH, which I designate as such only from stories of heat waves at 4 in the morning upwards of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. I am also lucky in that, being February, Patra and I have decided that spring has officially arrived.

Spring is unmistakable, though the name of the month we're in catches me by surprise (I think now of the snow storm that canceled classes at Dartmouth on Valentine's just two years ago; my Valentine's this year will be considerably warmer). The air is calm, birds and bugs have returned, laundry dries within a few hours. Laundry is, now, my way of classifying the weather: calculating variables such as cloud cover, length of daylight, strength of the sun's heat, wind force (can't be too windy; two weeks ago the wind was so strong it blew down the line I'd just hung my clothes on), moisture content in the air, likeliness of rain. Over the past few months--the winter months--laundry was an infrequent possibility. Now I sit on my terrace for hours, storks passing by overhead, bright banners of laundry drying on terraces below...yes, spring has definitely arrived.

The girl with two novios

For all those stressed about upcoming Valentine's celebrations, either lonely at the lack of a significant other or wondering just how to remind a beloved that they are truly loved, imagine how much easier things were when you were a child. When everyone in school decorated brown paper bags with red hearts and doilies, and teachers mandated that if you were to pass out any cards at all you had to have enough for everyone. Moreover, the whole question of significant others takes on different meaning through the eyes of a child.

After gym class the other day, my second-graders were lining up to go inside. Divided by an invisible barrier, the boys stayed to the front of the line discussing the merits of Real Madrid versus FC Barcelona while the girls sniffed at the kiddie-perfume they'd dabbed on to their wrists at the back of the line. As we waited for the bell to ring, Javi-the-gym-teacher reminded the kids that Valentine's was coming up. Two boys wanted to let Javi know about their girlfriend--singular (nuestra novia). Javi and I expressed shock.
"You both have the same girlfriend?"
The boys shrugged their shoulders. "Sure, why not?" They were good friends and shared many other things in their lives--juice boxes, crayons--so why not a girlfriend?
"Well, who is it?" Javi asked.
"Andrea," they said.
Javi and I went to the back of the line where Andrea was twirling her hair unsuspectingly. He asked if she knew she had two boyfriends. She said she didn't, though she seemed unfazed by the idea that two of the boys in class would have put forth the idea. Javi and I went to the front of the line again.
"Andrea says she has no boyfriend," Javi asserted to the young Romeos. They shrugged again.
"She's wrong," they said. "We are her boyfriends."

Bread Sins

"Lunch" is provided for the teachers at my school during recess. Due to the Spanish eating schedule (no food at the beginning of the day, a piece of toast with coffee at 10:00 am, a large family meal at 3 pm, and a dinner meal at 10 pm) lunch consists solely of toasted bread and hot drinks. Every school day at 11:30 am, there is a rush on the one toaster in the teachers' lounge, which is inconveniently placed in the corner of the room, on top of the microwave (to which there is a similar rush for heated milk, coffee, and water for tea).

One day last fall I decided to forgo the long wait, and buttered a piece of un-toasted bread. The looks my actions were met with were completely horrified. Bread, un-toasted? How could someone consume such filth? I might as well have been eating an uncooked piece of meat, still dripping blood (on second thought, that might have been more acceptable). After that experience I never consumed another piece of un-toasted bread, at least not while anyone was looking.

Yesterday I stayed at school after lunch to plan a lesson and avoid the rainstorm outside. The butter, jelly, and pate that are offered as toppings for toast had all been put away in the refrigerator, but the bread was still out. I placed a slice in the toaster. When it was done I didn't want to be a nuisance and dirty up a just-washed knife, so I began to munch away on my piece of toast. Once again: looks of horror. "Why are you eating a piece of dry toast?!" cried one teacher, while another quickly assured me that there was still butter and jelly available (implying: for the love of God, just put something on your bread!) I sighed and walked to the fridge.

In the future, I will remember to prepare my bread properly or face the consequences. I can only imagine what must be said about me: "that foreign girl, wherever she's from, sure is a weird one. You'll never guess what she was eating today!"

The flamenco affair

I've been attending a flamenco class since October in "bulerias," a class that's more of a gossip session for elderly women in town than one dedicated to learning flamenco. We've been doing the same 30-second routine since, well, October. Thus, when Patra and I saw a notice for a new flamenco class in town, we jumped at the chance to learn some new steps. This class focuses on "tangos" (which has nothing to do with the Argentinian partner dance). And, since the tangos class is Monday/Wednesday and my bulerias class is Tuesdays/Thursday, I thought it wouldn't hurt anyone to do both at once.

In my bulerias class this evening, I had my shoes on already and decided to practice a step from the tangos class during a break (the bulerias class is ostensibly 6-8, though we start around 6:15 at the earliest, take at least one 10-minute smoke break, and rarely get out later than 7:45). My teacher saw me do a small turn and called out "Shenna! Where'd you learn that?" Caught! Cheating! So I sort of shrugged my shoulders and feigned innocence. "Oh," she rationalized, "your friend [Patra] must have taught it to you. No?" To which I said, "ummm...si!" I didn't want her to know I'd been seeing someone else...

Bluebloods

Relating to my last post: Wikipedia tells me that Andalucia (Al-Andalus) was once a place of notable racial tolerance, which was then replaced with extreme segregation and expulsion of racial and religious Others. Perhaps it has nothing to do with the current atmosphere, but I found the connection interesting all the same.

"Richard E. Nisbett has said that the question of racial superiority may go back at least a thousand years, to the time when the Umayyad Caliphate invaded Hispania, occupying most of the Iberian Peninsula for six centuries, where they founded the advanced civilization of Al-Andalus (711-1492). Al-Andalus coincided with La Convivencia, an era of religious tolerance, and with the Golden age of Jewish culture in Iberia. It was followed by a violent Reconquista under the Reyes Catolicos (Catholic Kings), Ferdinand V and Isabella I. The Catholic Spaniards then formulated the Cleanliness of blood doctrine. It was during this time in history that the Western concept of aristocratic "blue blood" emerged in a highly racialized and implicitly white supremacist context, as author Robert Lacey explains:

It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. A nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin--proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy. Sangre azul, blue blood, was thus a euphemism for being a white man--Spain's own particular reminder that the refined footsteps of the aristocracy through history carry the rather less refined spoor of racism."

And bones in our hair

This past summer, the Spanish Olympic basketball team took out a full-page ad in a newspaper showing all the players pulling the sides of their eyes so as to look "Chinese" as an expression of solidarity with the host city of Beijing. Americans were outraged, the Chinese less so, and the Spaniards simply confused. How, they wondered, was this perceived as racism? How, the Americans wondered, could it not be perceived in such a way?

On Thanksgiving, I was with a gathering of some Americans, a few other varied English speakers, and several Spaniards. At the end of the evening, as most guests were leaving, one fellow American brought up the concept of racism in Spain; he argued that Spaniards were the most racist people he knew. He cited the incident of the Spanish basketball players. In the midst of Spaniards, he was fighting a losing battle. They countered that their potential ignorance should not be misinterpreted as discrimination. Should they be expected to know the difference between Chinese people and Vietnamese people, they wondered, if they'd never seen representatives of either? Hoping we Americans would support him, he turned to us. Yet, at the time, I could not say I agreed with him. I couldn't support the idea that ignorance is an allowable excuse for racism, yet I doubted racism could be determined by the same gestures and terms from one country to another. Moreover, could it not be a form of racism to overlook the reasons for another set of cultural assumptions, taboos, allowances? Certainly, Spaniards are not politically correct in the cautious way of Americans; at times this can even be refreshing for me. Yet I am still thoroughly American, with an American's capacity to be offended.

Tonight at choir practice, our directory passed out a new song. One I had sung previously, in fact, in my church choir: Siyahamba, a song of Zulu origin. The women to my left--fellow altos, women I love dearly--laughed. "Zulu?" they said. "We should paint our faces black for the concert!" one said, doubling over. "And put bones in our hair!" said the next, gleeful. Blackface--unequivocally racist in the USA--is still featured prominently in Spain's Christmas celebrations, as children sit not on Santa's lap to ask for presents, but on the laps of the three kings, one of whom wears dark brown makeup to portray Balthasar (Caspar being European and Melchior Asian in Spanish folklore). However uncomfortable I was seeing these blackface kings, the jokes from my altos were much further over the line into inexcusable xenophobia. My personal line, clearly, yet a firm one nonetheless.

Jenna, the exotic zoo animal

I don't know all that many people in Arcos, so I always get excited to see one of my 300 or so Spanish schoolchildren around town. I have come to realize, however, that seeing me usually inspires some excitement for the kids, and then fear. Miss Jenna, out in the wild? What to do?

Similar to a zoo, the children are thrilled to see me move around and make utterances when in the confines of a classroom. Sometimes they chant my name when I enter or cheer or even take pictures. This adds to my sense that the kids might actually, you know, like me.

In the supermarket or on the street, though, it's more like the kids are on safari. They spot me, they grin, and then they get nervous. Avoid eye contact! She might growl (in English)! She might advance toward me! She might....well, I'm not even sure of all that they're afraid of. But I do remember when I was a kid that some people just didn't exist out of a certain sphere of my life. Schoolteachers were NOT real people and therefore had no need to buy groceries or be anywhere outside their cages...ahem, classrooms.

Lesson: lions are cute and cuddly when you watch them from outside a protective glass barrier, but when you could be prey to their claws and golden manes (allow me that), you're best off just freezing, hoping they haven't seen you, and slinking off in the opposite direction as soon as the opportunity presents itself. Which is exactly what my children do.

Happy Holidays to all!

I have been on an extended vacation for approximately the past month and therefore have not been so faithful to my writing. I will try to catch up on all the adventures I've had through Spain and Morocco...stay tuned.