SOoooooooooooooooooooooooo Late.

Day 4

High: Discovering free wifi in the train station, muahahaha
Low: Discovering no free seating, no open outlets and limited connectivity to said wifi. So I guess the real low is recognizing I’m Not as clever as I thought.
NMDM: Spanish children only raise their pointer finger to answer questions

Dane Cook has a bit on oversleeping. Nothing could more appropriately sum up my experience this morning than his cry, “5 hours! I overslept by 5 hours! There is NO excuse for that. NONE.” Granted, I didn’t oversleep by 5 hours, only by 1 ½. I sunk into my pillow when my eyes registered 8:01am. Damn it. 9 minutes to shower and haul ass to the train station to catch my ride. My second day and I was already messing up big. I did what any of us would do. I just lay in bed, considering the many ways in which they might kick me out of the school, would they yell in Spanish or English, knowing that I’d be so overwhelmed by their accent and the speed of their insults that I wouldn’t be scathed, so English would really cut much deeper. But then I went back to the moment of fight or flight, I thought, no, there Must be some excuse good enough for being 2 hours late. Then I learned, while I am not a test taker at anytime before 9am (thank you GREs) I am verry creative in excuses. It did not help my case though that my phone still did not work, so I couldn’t even call the school and let them know I was coming chock full of juicy stories of hostel evictions, muggings on the train, random toilet floods, hobo phone stealers, discovery of rare blood disease, fugue, etc.

So I casually hopped on the 9:40am train, having plenty of time to kick myself in the butt and get ready for a later departure. Since everything in Spain is “Que fatal!” (Oh, how terrible!) They didn’t even listen to half of my blubbering excuses and assuring me that it was fine that I was late, shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. I felt guilty relief. 

I’ll tell you something else though. The rest of Malaga has nothing on the 3rd graders at Los Llanos. I walk in, ridiculously late and they saw, “la senorita viene” (the young lady is here!) and then burst into the English dialogue they’ve been practicing to train themselves on how to properly do an introduction in English, I’m blown away as they yell in unison, “Hello! How are you? I’m fine thank you! How are you? I’m fine thank you? (high 5 your neighbor)” they don’t bother waiting for my answer, that’s not the point of the exercise, they see by my smile I’m overjoyed to be with them, and they glow right back so proud they speak like the Inglesa (British girl, still working on getting them to understand that I’m American, not British, doesn’t quite stick in their minds because they’ve never met an American. For now, I’m relishing my faux European status)

Today was full of more classroom tours, stopping in to teach/learn to teach with Esmerelda, or Mery as she prefers. I got to gab about myself, very very slowly. Repeating, “My favorite color is green” and doing some serious body language pointing to my shirt, my waterbottle and my notebook to get the point across. They asked the normal picky questions, “Do you have a car?” “Do you have a boyfriend?” “How old are you?” “Why are you scared of horses?” Even the more rural Spaniards clearly have their social agenda in the forefront of their minds.

Later we got to see a demonstration of the food of the nearby Guadalhorce Valley. All the kids donned chef’s hats and then went to shop tomatoes, kiwi, watermelon and mango, to name a few. I grabbed Gema, my saving grace, and had her tell me the words of all the food in Spanish. As we stepped back to watch the kids interact with the mayor of Álora, who had come for the presentation, I noticed that when the children raised their hands to answer a question they only put their point finger up in the arm, none of them dared to put their whole hand up, much like children in the USA do. I was baffled and asked Gema if she could explain it. Always with answers she said that the arm raised with the palm open looks too much like a Nazi salute. Since the era of Franco is still very fresh in the national memory of Spain the children have been taught to raise their finger so as not to appear as if they were saluting Franco or Hitler. It’s interesting that the Ministry of Education began the program of language assistants, bringing foreigners into the classroom to help teach, because they already seem to be dedicated to eliminating the memory of Franco and Nazism. As Gema said to me, “I’m glad you asked because I never thought about why we did that.” If Spain is invested in changing for the better, where does the move to be more conscious of their history begin (or rather the ramifications)? I only ask because while they love my English, I think they really just love having a younger teacher around who really doesn’t have the right to punish them. I bring in the games and take away the boring lesson books. But the handful of international students who speak English have already told Gema that they refuse to help her speak English and are tightlipped when we do anything bi-lingual. It’s almost as if a slip of an English word would cause them to lose their friends, expelled because they broken the code of Spanish nationalism, used the language of the enemy, of the British and the Americans. While some things have changed for the better in Spain, clearly, the ramifications of Franco’s regime can be seen in the behavior of the children. I’m not even sure where to begin addressing it, or if I’m even if a position to address it as the foreigner.

I hope to soon post videos or pictures of my school and the commute to Álora because it is magnificent. White washed building flowing like white hot lava in the Mediterranean sun down the mountain sides. Clouds like plumes of smoke hang with puffed chest over the valley. As I precariously wind my way down the road to the train station, in glimpses I catch breathtaking views of the countryside. I know many of us use a long drive to clear our heads or calm down or think through something, I think that any of us could reach a sort of nirvana, free of stress or worry by cruising through the interior of Spain.

Back to the apartment hunt …..this time with Cristóbal, another (alumni) language assistant. Maybe two will have better luck than one. He pointed out the best place for tapas and the coolest place to get a view of all of Málaga (WHICH MEANS YOU SHOULD VISIT, BECAUSE I ACTUALLY KNOW USEFUL THINGS NOW  ) It was reassuring to speak to someone who’s already lived in Málaga and has a year of experience teaching English in their back pocket. Even though I already knew I’d get a routine and everything would settle down and life would get into a familiar flow, it felt really good to have someone else tell me that…but then again, where would any of us be if we actually took our own advice?

I love you all and miss you!!

Spanish phrase of the day: Vaya castaña! [You just fell flat on your face!] ….not that I did…hehe