Oye, Tio!

October 7, 2007 by · Leave a Comment
I forgot how crazy the men are here. It’s totally cool I guess to meet someone one day and tell them you want to know them sexually the next.

On Friday after work, I went to lunch with Martin and 10 auxiliares from all over – France, New Zealand, Canada, the Netherlands. I figured I needed to meet more people since I have no friends yet. But the good thing is that I have my ladies in Huelva: Kait, Jessi and Lynn. After lunch and several hours of talk (as is the norm in Spain), I hopped on a bus for an hour to go and visit them. Huelva is much different than Sevilla. Not only is it smaller, but it’s a port town, so there are a lot of poorer people than Sevilla. But it’s small and welcoming, and I liked it very much.

The girls have a fantastic pisoright in the center of town. It’s got a huge terrace and a second floor and it’s enormous. The people who own it are wonderfully nice, I guess. Anyway, after getting a manicure and spending hours with these wonderful little ladies who painted our nails, we went and bought 30 euro worth of wine (about $45), which was over 12 bottles, plus the one I bought, fanta for tinto de verano, coke for calimoxo, and snackies.George and his cousin Christian from Romania were the first to arrive. They were the most metrosexual people I had ever met but soooo funny. Apparently George only talks to Jessi and not the other girls, but he was chattering away with me and telling me about how rich he was. Christian was much more shy. Silly chavales.
Jessi, Christian, Lynn, me and George on the terraza
In time, aka later than we told people to come, we’d accumulated a huge party with more wine. There were people from the UK, from Lithuania, more Amercans, Portuguese, Italians, more Spaniards. I was drinking tinto de verano and meeting people from all over. I was so sad that they all live in Huelva. Luckily, the town is only an hour away or so, which makes it easy to get to and from.

I made good friends with Nacho. He’s from Sevilla, and hardly speaks English, so I had consumed enough to feel comfortable talking to him in Spanish. He’s guapo. He also has cousins who live in Huelva, Alvaro and Jorge, who got my number because they come to visit him often.

Once the wine was gone, we all went to another bar. They wouldn’t let me wear the sunglasses that we found in the piso, telling me I looked like a traficante de los drogas. After that, we went to a disco, but my feet were soooo tired from my new shoes and I had had enough to drink. I definitely woke up at noon the next morning with a super dull headache.


top: some kid in the gafas, Jojo, Nacho, me, Jessi and Alvaro at the piso. bottom: The crazy Brit, Jojo, me, Nacho, Linn and dumb awkward Luke. He was cool for two minutes.

Saturday, Eva and I bummed around because we were exhausted and I didn’t feel like even going out of the piso. I’m so lame because it was an absolutely perfect day. I didn’t get home until about 5pm, and Jorge Armani had already called me a million times. He convinced Eva and me to meet him in Santa Cruz, and we went to the bar where Nacho works in Los Remedios. Alvaro was making fun of me by limping and calling me by my full name, but the guys are fantastic.

Eva and I were too tired to go to the disco, so the boys offered to walk us home. We told them not to worry about us and we left. Eva practically body slammed some dude who tried to grab her. I got like five phone calls from Jojo making sure I was home safe…then he called me drunk a bunch. And told me he wants to be with me and we can’t just hug. I stopped picking up the calls. Yikes mister. He said, I’m sad we don’t spend any time together. Your roommate is safe at home, so you come back. I will call you a cab. So I have silly Jojo as a stalker.

Today was beautiful, so I showed Eva around the city and we met a lot of nice people and just had a nice time together. Melissa is very friendly, as well, and speaks English well. I’m happy.

Filed Under: Huelva, nightlife ·

Instituto Carcel Olivares

October 4, 2007 by · Leave a Comment

I think my school looks like a gigantic jail. Ok, so the school only has 1000 kids, and it’s not scary or unsafe and there aren’t any gangs, but it seriously looks like a penitentiary, Martin and I decided during the longest bus ride home ever. The first things you see is a low wall full of graffiti, followed by a seven-foot wrought iron gate. Since Andalucía is so hot and dry, there’s hardly any vegetation inside the gates. You have to be buzzed in after school hours to both the school grounds AND the school door. No one has keys but the grounds keepers and the lady who works in the cantina. Nieves, my boss, assures me that this is for security so no one breaks into the school (to what, steal the 12 computers that are inside?) or vandalizes the property.

IES Heliche draws in students from three different towns, like Olivares and Albaida, and some other one I can’t pronounce. There are 1000 kids, aged 12-16, then some in the bachillerato program up to 18. Eighty teachers, then Martin and myself. They’re all quite nice, including the administration class. Martin and I were done after out 11:55 department meeting, but we stayed another two hours introducing ourselves to everyone, from the art teacher to the man who writes our checks, Paco. The English department is wonderful: Charo and Asun speak brilliant English with British accents, Nieves is so sweet, Sylvia is very beautiful, Angela is funky, Miguel is fascinated with the United States, Valle is nice enough to offer me rides, Rocio is quiet but always smiling. Martin and I round out the bunch.

Today, like yesterday, I didn’t know what to expect. I had to get up super early to be at work by 830 since there was no direct bus. I didn’t bother to look at the times until about 20 minutes before the bus came, so I ran part of the way to get there on time. Like all things in Spain, the bus was late. And because I didn’t know where to get off since I took the wrong bus, I was nervous about missing the stop since it was still dark out. Luckily, I quickly realized that all of my fellow passengers were students and Rocio. Success. I was able to make it in time to my first class with Angela, a second year group.

Olivares is a very traditional Andalusian town, and many parents don’t encourage their children in any subjects, much less English. I could tell this right away in the class because the students all had low marks on their diagnostic test, had to be told multiple times to sit down or be quiet or write down notes, and hardly spoke my language at all. They were so confused how I could live in Spain and not speak theirs (I was told not to tell them I spoke Spanish so they could practice more). Even though they are in the second year, we just reviewed possessive pronouns and how to form questions. The most confusing part to them was not having a question mark at the beginning of a sentence to mark it as a question. Or why the tu and vosotros form is the same. Either way, I wasn’t nervous (the students thought I looked bored, but I was really exhausted), and I’m looking forward to planning lessons and teaching. The difficult part is that some classes I will only be in every other week, or sometimes even every third week. This will inevitably make it difficult in some ways to be consistent, even within levels.

I had some “planning” time in which I had some coffee, paced around the box that serves as the English department office, leafed through some books and kind of just stared at the wall until Nieves and Martin joined me so we could talk more about the curriculum. After the recreo, we had a department meeting. It was actually hilarious how they would start talking in English, then switch to Spanish and the Charo, the department head, would make a random comment in English. But it was here that I learned how dire the education system is in Spain. These poor people deal with bureaucracy, students who aren’t motivated by parents, many whom fail year after year, and low pay. They’re expected to implement all kinds of new programs, but don’t have the money to make it happen or the time to plan it. It’s very frustrating to them, and I’m now happy to have the education that I have. Tomorrow we do get some reprieve and we have to go to a mandatory meeting right in Cartuja, about a 20 minute walk for me. Then it’s on to Huelva to see the girls for their housewarming party!!

Filed Under: Auxiliar Program, Auxiliares Norteamericanos, IES Heliche, teach abroad ·

First Day of Work at IES Heliche

October 3, 2007 by · Leave a Comment

The past few days were quite the adventure. After skipping out on orientation yesterday with my new friends to go explore and eat (seriously, I was ready to dive off the balcony head first, I was SO bored), I settled into my new apartment. Apparently my Spanish roommate is not here, the German girl has found a second job and is gone all day, and my apartment has been taken over by a smelly woman who is staying in Melissa’s room while her husband has surgery. After I moved all of my things in, I walked around the city. It was about 7 pm, so things were starting to get dark and the lights were coming on. Triana is amazing. This is where the gypsies and the poor fisherman once lived. It’s colorful and mysterious and almost magical. My apartment is in close proximity to a lot of things, and a walk to the bars on C/Betis takes 5 minutes. It started to rain as I walked home, but I loved getting drenched. Who said the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain? NOT TRUE!

I started my job as an auxiliar de conversation (language and conversation assistant) at IES Heliche today. I hopped on bus M270 just a few blocks from my place and rode the direct line into Olivares ( or so I thought). It’s incredible how much the city changes when you’re outside the center. The towns are all centered around a roundabout off the highway with no shoulder, and each one was a different hue – from white to yellow to burnt orange. The hills, covered in olive trees, spread out any direction, only broken by small, crumbling farmhouses. It made the trip go much faster. I asked the bus driver to let me off as close as possible to Heliche, and she slammed on the brakes (I was the only one aboard anyway) and told me, “BÁJATE, BAJATE!” So I got off and walked along the highway for a while like a campesino until I found an open cafeteria. I couldn’t understand a word the nearly toothless bartender was saying, but a very nice woman with a heavy accent was kind enough to tell me I was not even in Olivares anyway, but in Albaida. They’re next to one another, but I would need to walk a long way. So I set off, having 40 minutes to just walk up to the plaza, hang a left, wind around til I got to the health center, turn left again and go through some gates to the school. I wasn’t even two blocks away when a horn honked and the woman opened her car door and offerred to take me. She said it was obvious I was a foreigner.

I walked around the dead streets for a little while, just taking in the beautifully decorated exteriors of the white churches and the barred windows guarding “moda” inside that looked like it could have come from the 80s. I mistakenly wandered into the private gardens of some little house, thinking it was the other gate of the school since they have an extensive garden from what I’ve read. A man in a wheelchair with an even more thick accent told me I should leave, but then asked me how my day was going, so I don’t think he was mad.

At about half past 10, I followed a teacher past the gate and into the school. You’d think it was a penitentiary from the way there’s so much security! The woman had me sit on a bench next to an older man with wavy blond hair. As it turns out, Martin is the other auxiliar. He’s a forty-year old psychologist from Amsterdam, but his English and Spanish are impeccable. He’s on sabbatical until next June, kind of like myself. I just don’t know what I’m taking sabbatical from? Anyway, a wonderfully short, yet friendly lady named Nieves showed us to the English department office, a small room with just a little light and a broken computer near the school’s main entrance. Apparently our job is not what we expected (not like I went to orientation anyway…). Martin and I will be spending half of our time in the classroom helping the teachers and helping to establish an English curriculum, and the other half will be only in conversation with the teachers in a lounge. Some of the teachers will be teaching English, while the others just want to improve because the school will become bilingual in the future. I work every day but Tuesday, making travel difficult, but many of the teachers live in Sevilla and offered us rides. They’re all so nice. They make such an effort to test out their skills and are interesting in their own right. Thursdays will be my busiest day – I start at 830 am and teach/converse for three hours before the 30 minute break, then attend a teacher’s meeting. Very exciting.

As it turns out, Martin is very nice and bought me lunch in exchange for letting him use my Internet. I think we will be pals. Ok, out to explore. It’s beautiful out here, and I need to find out where I’m going on Friday!

Filed Under: IES Heliche, teach abroad, TEFL ·

Out on my Own in Spain

October 1, 2007 by · Leave a Comment

Well, it´s here. Helen left at 4:45 this morning to catch a plane to Madrid to London to LA, leaving me to fend for myself. Heaving my 20 kilo (aka 45 lb) pack onto my back, I took bus #10 to my new hotel, more or less, despite getting lost in what was kind of ghetto. The hotel is four stars with a VERY cute desk attendant (did I mention how gorgeous Spanish men are?!). From there, I had to catch two more buses to go to Carrefour, like a Walmart, to buy a comforter and sheets since I won´t be in Seville until VERY late tomorrow and more shampoo and toothpaste. Then, I figured I needed a cell phone and the only place in the mall complex was Movistar. So I now have a movistar number! 

The last few days have been extremely relaxing and wonderful. From Toledo, we came down to Granada and the hostal lost our reservation, so we walked around for a while and tried to find an empty couple of beds on a saturday night after midnight. Not fun with a heavy pack. The following day was gorgeous in Granada – 24º and sunny. We took our time eating lunch before heading up to the Alhambra. I forgot just how stunning it all is – the Nasarid art, the views of the Sierra Nevada and the pubelos blancos and the gardens of the Generalife. We found a super fancy four star hotel to eat at. I chose gazpacho and veal from Avila. Half a bottle of wine later, we went to this really intimate flamenco place in a cave where only one singer, one dancer and one guitarist were playing. Though it was extremely crowded, I could watch the shadow of the dancer on the wall and her facial expressions. They were passionate and almost anguished. Her feet moved about a thousand miles a minute. It was intense. Spain is a passionate country – everyone argues their point and has an intense love for La Patria. Ask any Spaniard what his or favorite city is, and they will undoubtedly tell you the very one you are in. It never fails.

I have my orientation course tonight at a fancy hotel. I’ll head back to Seville late tomorrow and report at 1030h on Wednesday to IES Heliche to meet the other teachers. I really am happy I’m starting. Last night I met a girl at the flamenco cave named Erin. She’s been in Malaga for the past nine months, having met a Spaniard two years ago on the Camino de Santiago. They’re getting married this weekend. She told me this experience will undoubtedly change my life.

The first visit here certainly did, or else I wouldn´t have moved seven time zones away. I can´t wait to get to Sevilla and really settle in.

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Filed Under: Granada, living abroad ·
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