Friday 29 October 2010

El Vino, las Tapas y la Burocracia

What a busy, fun-packed week I’ve had! As ever, I’ll try to cast my mind back to last Saturday (which seems oh so long ago) and pick up where I left off.

So, Mary and Krista arrived from their village, Villarrobledo (which is actually in the province of Albacete, not Cuenca, but still not too far away) at about 10.30 on Saturday night. They were staying for three nights; Krista on the couch at mine and Natira’s flat, and Mary at Corinna’s place.
The main purpose of their trip was to keep an appointment they had in Cuenca’s Oficina de Extranjeros (Foreign Office) on Monday morning to get their NIE (Número de Identicación de Extranjeros) , which is basically a certificate with an identification number on it that says you’re a resident of Spain. Of course, the secondary purpose of their trip was to have a weekend away in a different city and come and see us, which worked out very well!

However, in terms of getting their NIE it was a wasted trip. I managed to get mine last week (having tried and failed three weeks earlier, and then making an appointment), but for the ex-comunitarias among us (i.e. all of the language assistants in our little group apart from Corinna and I, who are fortunate enough to be residents of the European Union) it’s a long and gruelling process to say the least. As well as all the paperwork, photocopies of important documents and more paperwork that EU residents need, Jaclyn, Natira, Mary and Krista need a private health insurance plan that includes a repatriation clause. And yes, that is just as unsavoury as it sounds – it basically means that their insurance must state that if they ‘come to any harm’’ (i.e. die) while they’re in Spain, the US government will cover the cost of getting their bodies shipped back to the States. Lovely, isn’t it? As well as this, they also need a photocopy of EVERY page of their passports – even the blank ones – and photocopies of pretty much every other piece of paper they own.

If this had been clear originally, the girls would’ve been able to have all the relevant documents ready in time for their appointment. As Spanish bureaucracy would have it, though, nobody is informed of anything and instead, they think it’s much more fun to keep confused, nervous foreigners with looming visa deadlines guessing. You’d have thought that after their failed appointment on Monday, for which they’d had to wait three weeks, the lovely chaps at the Foreign Office might’ve recognised that they were largely to blame for the misinformation and scheduled them another appointment for the earliest possible date. Not in Spain, though. On the contrary, they had to ring up again and were given an appointment for another three weeks’ time... in Natira’s case, just four days before her visa runs out.

From the tone of the last two paragraphs, you may already have an inkling about how I feel about Spanish bureaucracy. Just in case you haven’t, though, here it is in black and white: it is unfriendly, unhelpful, unreliable and inconsistent. If you ever decide you want to live in Spain, you have been warned!

Anyway, enough about bureaucracy (as fascinating as I’m sure you’ll agree it is). On Saturday night, myself, Corinna, Krista and Mary went to our new favourite bar, El Quinto Pecado (The Fifth Sin) for some wine and tapas. It is obviously a hotspot in Cuenca, as every time I’ve been it’s been absolutely heaving. I can see why; unlike most bars in Cuenca which give you a mere small plate of free tapas with your first drink, El Quinto Pecado brings you a different, ever more extravagant, platter with every drink you order. I’ve been there several times now (and each time I’ve had several drinks!), and never have I had the same tapa twice. It’s like Christmas every time you order a glass of vino blanco (my new favourite tipple, since Spain doesn’t appear to do vodka and cranberry juice)! We’ve had everything from garlic king prawns to chicken escalopes on crusty bread with tomato puree (very Spanish), to mini burgers and chips, to goats cheese and tomato with balsamic vinegar, to fried eggs with some of the tastiest meat I’ve ever had (I think it might’ve been lamb). Each drink is only 2 euros (regardless of whether it’s wine, beer or Coke) and I can’t help but think that the food you get with it free of charge more than counteracts the cost of the drink. If you can’t be bothered cooking and a few drinks is what you’re after, I would definitely recommend El Quinto Pecado as the best place to go to kill two birds with one stone!

One of the yummy free tapas in El Quinto Pecado
After El Quinto Pecado, we moved onto a Latin American bar called El Rodeo, which was ever-so-slightly seedy but a good laugh nevertheless. We wiggled our hips to the contagious salsa music in the basement until about 3am, when we got too hot and decided to get some fresh air. At this point, the famous botellón which I spoke about last week was still going fairly strong, and the Plaza España was littered with empty bottles, cups and plastic bags. I felt a wave of sympathy for whichever poor soul had the job of cleaning up the destruction the next day.

After visiting and promptly leaving a couple of bars in La Calle (they were so packed you literally couldn’t move, and just squeezing your way through the crowds to the door in order to escape was an ordeal), we wandered back in the direction of El Quinto Pecado, where one of Cuenca’s nightclubs, Caché, is. It struck me when we rolled up there at about 4am that at this time in Britain most clubs would’ve closed about an hour ago, but Caché was just warming up. We danced until we got fed up of the smoke (we were basically standing in a cloud of it and my eyes had begun to sting quite alarmingly) and retired at 5am. Thankfully, Spain will be bringing in the smoking ban on January 2nd 2011 (they want people to be able to enjoy one last smoky New Year first!), and in my opinion, it can’t come soon enough. As we were leaving Caché, people were still arriving and the club showed no signs of winding down for the night. How do they do it? I doubt I’ll ever know...

Bottelón at about 2am
The next day, despite slightly sore heads, we managed to rise at a respectable midday. After dousing myself in all the sweet-smelling shower products I own to get rid of the stench of stale smoke that had permeated my skin, hair, clothes and bed sheets, we set off to the old town. Krista and Mary, who hadn’t seen it before, were suitably impressed and did lots of ooh-ing and aah-ing and taking photos. It was a lovely day, and I found I didn’t even need my cardigan, let alone my coat, as we were wandering around.

On Sunday night, all six of us went out for a few drinks to – you’ve guessed it – El Quinto Pecado, and it was lovely to have us all together. On Monday, after the girls’ failed attempt to get their NIE, Jaclyn, Mary, Krista and I treated ourselves to a Chinese meal, for which we were the only people in the restaurant. Much to our amusement, at the end of the meal (which was at about 4.30pm – we’d gone for a later lunch) the Chinese owners were looking at their watches and tapping their feet. As we finished our free shots (it’s a Spanish tradition to get free liquor at the end of a meal) they were even putting their coats on and said very pointedly: ‘Tenemos que ir’, which means ‘We have to go’. Right, that’d be our cue to leave, then! It seems even Chinese Spaniards are Spanish through and through when it comes to the importance they place on their daily siesta...

 From left to right: Jaclyn, Krista, Mary, Natira,
 Corinna and me
With the weekend well and truly over, and Mary and Krista headed back to Villarrobledo, it was time to knuckle down to work. This week at school, I’ve been teaching my classes about Halloween. I made a rather impressive presentation on Powerpoint (even if I do say so myself!), with pictures of Halloween-y things like ghosts, witches, bats, haunted houses and vampires. The idea was to build their vocabulary while at the same time interacting with them instead of just talking at them. I even had a slide with some photos of Halloween costumes that I’d found on Google Images, and a list of adjectives which could be used to describe them. With bated breath, I showed them each picture, praying that it would provoke the desired reactions. In most cases, it went down very well. The girls in particular squealed with delight at the picture I’d found of a baby dressed as a devil (‘cute’ was the desired adjective here), and there was predictable uproar from the boys when I showed the picture of the leggy blond in high heels and a rather short black dress (she was supposed to be a witch, I think, but one can never be sure. The desired adjective here was ‘sexy’).

By Thursday afternoon, I had done the same presentation about 8 times and was sick of the sight of it, not to mention hoarse. I’ve had a bit of a cold and a sore throat (I blame the smoky bars) this week anyway, so I wasn’t particularly in the mood to raise my voice, but unfortunately I have to in order to drown out the persistent chatter of the few trouble makers in each class. I’ve discovered it doesn’t matter how engaging and interactive you make the content of your lessons; some children just don’t want to learn and don’t give a monkey’s about English. If I could weed them out (or gag them, whatever) my life would be a lot easier, but such is the bane of every teacher’s life, I suspect...

One class in particular gets me down. In fact, I dread going every week. I don’t know why they’re so bad; on paper they’re no different from many of my other classes. There are about 22 of them, they’re 15 years old and like all teenagers, they’re a bit silly. However, for whatever reason, I find them above all other classes, impossible to teach. Their level of English is appalling. I have to speak so slowly that I literally couldn’t speak any slower if I tried... and they still don’t understand me. Those who are capable of understanding me usually don’t listen to me anyway, and the teacher doesn’t do enough to keep them in check. The worst thing, however, is their lack of participation. When I ask them a question (and I’m talking basic, basic stuff) they think nothing of leaving me at the front of the class floundering. A roomful of blank faces stare back at me, many of them trying not to make eye contact with me. I understand that they’re embarrassed to speak and that their English is, quite frankly, awful, but trying to get even just one of them to say two words in English is like trying to extract blood from a particularly hard stone. Disheartening is not the word. Despair, I feel, is more fitting.

Thankfully, about two thirds of the way through this hour of torture, I was quite literally saved by the bell when the fire alarm sounded. Fuming, on my way out, I told the teacher exactly what I thought of her class. She seemed surprised when I admitted they were the worst class I had, but agreed that there was no point in my being there if they refused to ´take advantage´ of me. I felt slightly guilty afterwards, as she looked genuinely helpless and kept saying she felt bad and didn’t know what to do. I explained that it wasn’t her fault; we’d just have to think of ways to get them talking. I’m glad to have got my feelings out in the open, and hopefully she’ll be a bit more supportive of me (i.e. she’ll push them a bit harder) in the future. Watch this space...

Thankfully, my private lessons are all going well. At the moment, I have five a week, although it was supposed to be six. A teacher at San José had asked me if I could teach her daughter, but we couldn’t work out a suitable time until she’d checked her daughter’s timetable, so we agreed to speak about it when I next saw her. I’ve seen her several times since that conversation, though, and she hasn’t mentioned it again. I’m not sure why, but I’m certainly not going to bring it up – five private classes a week is plenty to be going on with!

I was nothing short of amazed when a two women, a baby and a 4-year-old child turned up at my door a few evenings ago, inquiring about private classes as they’d heard there were native English speakers living here. It turned out the older woman (who I think was the younger woman’s mother) was friends with our landlady, Felicidad, and that was how they’d got wind of us being here. As I did my best to explain in Spanish that Natira and I both had too many classes already and couldn’t take any more on, the 4-year-old ran around in the lobby outside our flat screaming like a banshee and hammering his fists against the main door of the building. Teenagers might be a pain in the neck, but they’re nothing compared to hyperactive, hysterical toddlers, I realised.

I gave the woman Jaclyn’s number, as Jaclyn had instructed me to send any unwanted pupils her way. I think it was the best move I ever made: it turned out the woman wanted private classes for her delightful son, not herself. As if this weren’t bad enough, she wanted him to have four classes per week. Jaclyn bravely rose to the challenge, but is already finding it difficult to keep the little darling engaged. Despite her best efforts to keep him occupied with fun stuff like colouring in while sneakily speaking English to him, during their ‘lessons’ he usually refuses to cooperate and instead runs around his bedroom throwing things and screeching. If she tries to get him to repeat English words, he refuses, and just says them in Spanish instead. Poor Jaclyn...

Last night, Jaclyn came over and she, Natira and I watched a horror film to get into the Halloween spirit. It’s not something I usually do, and last night I remembered why – I’m surprised I’ve still got my voice intact I screamed so much, and Jaclyn and I nearly broke each other’s knuckles we were squeezing each other’s hands so tightly. Still, it was fun, and a nice way to round of the working week.

Today I’m relaxing and catching up on household chores (incredibly exciting, isn’t it?) before catching the coach to Madrid tonight. Hugh’s plane is arriving at 11pm and my coach gets in at 10.30pm, so if all goes to plan, we should arrive at the hotel we’ve booked at around the same time. I can’t wait to see more of Madrid – it’s such an exciting city and there’s so much to see and do. We’ve booked ourselves tickets to see an exhibition at the famous El Prado gallery, and we’re also planning to go to one of the Japanese restaurants that Jesús, one of my private students, so enthusiastically recommended to me. Monday is All Saints Day and a national bank holiday in Spain (people traditionally use the day to visit cemeteries to place flowers on the graves of their relatives), so it’s a day off lessons for me, which is always nice.

Next weekend, I’m planning to visit Toledo with Mary, Krista and Corinna, although we haven’t made any concrete plans yet. I’m sure I’ll be able to tell you more about it next time.

¡Hasta luego!

Friday 22 October 2010

Mi Horario Loco

Since I started my last post complaining about the weather, I feel it would be appropriate to do so again.  Although the sun has thankfully been a permanent fixture since its triumphant comeback after the nasty rainy spell, the temperature has dropped considerably. This in itself is not unreasonable – it is late October, after all – but the reality is the temperature just can’t make its mind up! The mornings are very chilly. I’m talking gloves, scarf, coat, see-your-breath weather. It makes getting out of bed even more difficult than usual, as my feet just don’t want to make contact with that icy tiled floor in my bedroom.

The evenings too can feel fairly Baltic, particularly in my bedroom which doesn’t enjoy the advantage of the sun during the day. In the middle of the day, however, it’s as if the sun suddenly remembers what it’s there for and thinks ‘Oh, I’m a big ball of fire – maybe I should start acting like one!’ The temperature soars and you begin to feel a bit foolish (not to mention as though you’re cooking alive) wrapped up like an Egyptian mummy in all your winter woollens, with just your eyes and nose poking out. Gloves and scarves are discarded, layers are shed, and finally your body temperature is restored to normal... until the evening, when Mr Sunshine gives up the ghost and that frosty feeling creeps back in.

So far we’ve been martyrs in our gallant quest to keep the heating off (to save the planet but also, I’ll admit, to save the pennies), but I don’t know how much longer I can last. If it gets any more difficult for me to get out of bed, I run the risk of just staying there all day with the duvet pulled up to my chin until eventually I get fired and have to go home with my tail between my legs. Which would be unfortunate, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Anyhow, enough about the weather – three paragraphs is a tad excessive but I am, after all, British, and talking about the weather is what we do best.

Last weekend was great. Hugh arrived in Cuenca late Saturday afternoon, despite a series of ordeals for which the French can be held accountable: thanks to their incessant striking, the air traffic was all messed up so his plane was delayed by over an hour, causing him very nearly to miss his coach to Cuenca.

On Saturday night, we felt we’d earned a good stiff drink or six, so I took him to Calle San Francisco where we indulged in some good old-fashioned bar-hopping to take full advantage of the free tapas. Later on, our bellies full and our heads slightly warm and fuzzy, we hiked up the hill to the old town to meet up with Natira, Beatriz, Pedro (whose birthday it was) and some of their friends. Soon after, we went to La Calle, Cuenca’s very own street of bars and clubs. I was delighted to have finally found the heart of the city’s nightlife, and even more so to be able to witness botellón in the nearby Plaza España. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, botellón is a Spanish tradition whereby young people all over the country gather in public squares to drink and socialise before moving onto bars. In Spain, they’re serious party animals. Not only do they eat later (it is the norm to have lunch at 3pm and dinner at 10pm) but they party later, too. Botellón barely gets going until midnight, and it peaks at around 2am. Generally, the nightclubs don’t even open until 3am, and finally shut their doors at around 8 or sometimes even 9 o’clock in the morning.

Beatriz, Hugh, me and Natira in a pub in La Calle
As first-timers, however, Hugh and I retired at a modest 3.30am. We had been out since 9pm (and Hugh had been awake since 5am the previous day), so I think it was an admirable effort! It was a fun night out, and I particularly enjoyed chatting away to Beatriz and Pedro’s friends in very uninhibited Spanish (thanks to the alcohol, of which I may have had a tad too much). I even gave one of them my number in case he wanted private English classes, as he mentioned he wanted to learn!

Speaking of private classes, I seem to have gone a bit wild for them in the past week. Somehow I’ve ended up with six classes per week, on top of my job at San José. I know what you’re thinking – I’ve taken on too much. I agree, but it’s something I just can’t seem to help. It’s always been in my nature to cram as much into my life as possible and that, combined with my inability to say no to people is how I’ve ended up with so much on my plate. It also doesn’t help that the demand for native English speakers willing to give private classes far outweighs the number of native English speakers who are living in Cuenca. And English English (i.e. home-grown in the British isles) seems to be what Spaniards desire the most. When it comes to American English, they somewhat turn their noses up, it seems. Of course, this is not always the case – if it was, then Natira wouldn’t have any private classes, but she does.

So, as well as Marta and Jesús, I now have: Jorge and Álvaro, the sons of a teacher at San José, who take the class together; another Marta and her husband Rafael, who also take the class together (she is an English teacher and he a civil servant, and they live in a very nice flat in the up-and-coming new bit of Cuenca); and 3 other girls who I’m yet to meet – my first classes with them will be next week. Two of them are sisters and the daughters of another teacher at San José, and the third is the daughter of a neighbour of Ana’s, whose name is Consuelo (I don’t yet know her daughter’s name). When Consuelo rang me, I was in the midst of the bustling staffroom at school, and found speaking to her on the phone and understanding what she was saying very difficult indeed. I did, however, pick up on the fact that she was asking if I’d also be interested in giving classes to her friend’s daughter, which, you’ll be relieved to hear, I politely declined. Six is quite enough, thanks! A girl needs some time to herself.

Hugh charming the locals in the old town
Anyway, I digress. Back to the weekend! Sunday was lovely and sunny, so Hugh and I wandered round the old town and then went for a big 3-course lunch at around 3 o’clock, followed by a much needed siesta. He left Monday lunchtime, and it was sad to say goodbye but thanks to Ryanair, it would only be two weeks until I saw him again. That’s right – he’s back again next weekend, and this time we’re spending the weekend in Madrid.

This week at school was exhausting – teaching is stressful, especially as most of the time I don’t have a clue what I’m doing or what is expected of me. I’m more or less given free rein to do what I like with them, which may sound like a good thing, but actually I’d prefer a bit more guidance. As a 21-year-old student with no experience of teaching teenagers (or indeed, anyone) I’m not finding it so easy to just pull wonderful, stimulating, educational activities out of thin air.

On the contrary, I usually turn up without having prepared anything, hoping that the teacher will tell me what to do. In these cases, they usually just ask me to do something from the text book with the kids, while they take a back seat. It seems it doesn’t matter too much what I do as long as I’m the one doing it. As a native speaker my mere presence, it appears, is what they desire. Even if it is dull work from a text book that we’re working on, the teachers invariably ask me to lead the class and read out the instructions. I suppose it’s because they think it’s better for the students to hear English as it’s spoken by a real English person.

Having said that, I don’t feel as though I’m pulling my weight if I turn up empty-handed, and I can’t help but feel the pressure of the teachers’ expectations pushing down on me. I get the impression they want new, exciting, fun ways to teach disinterested adolescents a subject that the majority of them don’t really care about, and that they think I’m the person to deliver it. Well, sorry guys, but I’m out of my depth. I’ll try, but if it all goes horribly wrong and the kids end up staring at me in disgust wondering what this weird, falsely enthusiastic English girl who’s lamely trying and failing to inject ‘fun’ into their curriculum is doing in their classroom, then DON’T BLAME ME!

Enough of the negativity and self-deprecation for now, though.  Jokes aside, I actually don’t think I’m doing too badly so far. Kids have started shouting ‘hello, Helen!’ at me in the corridors (of course I have no idea what any of their names are, but that doesn’t matter as long as I smile and say hello back), and this evening as I walked past a group of youths on my way to the cinema, I even heard my name being shouted in the street. I feel almost like a local celebrity!

The atmosphere in San José is a lovely one. Students don’t wear uniform (this is the norm in schools across Spain) and teachers dress casually, thus creating an altogether more relaxed and amiable feeling. Many of the teachers – I’m thinking particularly of Ana – have a rapport with their students that you rarely see in British schools. There is mutual respect, which is nice to see. Of course, it’s not perfect – the one fatal flaw of all this happy-go-luckiness is the lack of discipline. When students get rowdy, the teachers’ approach tends to be to ‘ssshh’ a bit and then make excuses for them (‘Oh, they’re hungry’ or ‘It’s the end of the day – they’re tired, poor things’) when personally all I want to do is to yell at them to shut up and stop talking while I’m talking because it’s rude. As an assistant and a young one at that – I’m only about 4 or 5 years older than most of my students – I have neither the authority nor the gall to discipline them, so instead I patiently persevere and leave the behaviour side of things for the teacher to deal with (or overlook, as the case may be).

Next week, I’m going to attempt to teach my classes about Halloween (you know, because it’s such a traditional English celebration... all the way from America). I haven’t got very far with planning how I’m going to go about that, but I’m told repeatedly that the most important thing is to get the students talking, which is no mean feat. Some of them would rather be doused in honey and fed to the bees than answer me in English when I ask them how their weekend was. Speaking English is just, like, so not cool. Having said that, I do have some lovely classes and as much as I grumble, none of them are really all that bad. One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learnt is that instead of asking for volunteers to answer questions, I’ll save myself time and embarrassment by just picking on people. Ruthless, yes; effective, yes!

Last night I went out with Natira and Jaclyn (the other American assistant who’s living in Cuenca) for drinks and some lovely free tapas – a recurring theme in my blogs, I fear. Five glasses of wine in three different bars and enough free tapas to fill my belly for the night set me back less than 10 euros. I love this place!

Tonight, Natira, Corinna and I went to see a frankly shocking film at the cinema called Di Di Hollywood. I won’t bother giving you a synopsis (that’s what Google’s for), but let’s just say that it was borderline pornography. Not quite what I was expecting, but good for my Spanish nonetheless!

Tomorrow, Mary and Krista (two other assistants are living and working in schools in small towns outside of Cuenca – they are American and Bermudan respectively) are coming to Cuenca for the weekend, so a big night out is on the cards tomorrow evening. Bring. It. On.

¡Hasta luego! 

Saturday 16 October 2010

¡Adelante y hacia arriba!

After almost a week of some of the most English weather I’ve ever experienced in a foreign country, I’m pleased to report that my faith in the term ‘sunny Spain’ has been restored. Today, yesterday and Thursday have all been gloriously sunny, and warm too!

Last Saturday, Natira, Corinna (the German language assistant in Cuenca) and I got caught in a torrential downpour – not to mention thunder and lightning – on our way to El Mirador, Cuenca’s somewhat modest shopping complex. We’d decided to go to the cinema to see ‘Siempre a mi Lado’ (‘Always by my Side), a cheesy, sentimental romance about life and death, starring teen heart throb Zac Efron. I would like to stress at this point that this would not be my usual choice of film were I in the UK! However, it looked fairly undemanding , which is a definite selling point when you’re about to embark on 2 hours of Spanish dubbing. The films here are all dubbed, unlike in some other European countries where the English dialogue is left alone and there are subtitles instead. Annoying if you just want to sit back and enjoy a film without having to concentrate, but I can’t complain because it’s good for my Spanish!

Corinna is a very sweet girl from a small town in Bavaria. As well as speaking German (obviously) and Spanish (noticeably better than I do, much to my affront) she speaks good English too. From my point of view, it’s nice to have made another English speaking friend, and from her point of view she’s delighted she’s getting to practise her English at the same time as improving her Spanish! It’s a win-win situation.

On Sunday, I packed an overnight bag and caught the coach to Madrid, where Carmelo and his friend Alfredo – who is also from Lanzarote, like Carmelo, but studies Forensics at university in Madrid – met me at the station. Thankfully, the weather was much better in Madrid than it had been in Cuenca, and we had a lovely time wandering around the city, passing shops I could only dream of being able to afford to buy anything in! Because of the ‘Puente’ (extended weekend), the streets were thronging, even more so than I imagine they are on any other day. We met a few of Carmelo’s other friends for a drink, during which I spent most of the time smiling and nodding politely (either that or staring into space with a vacant expression on my face) while they talked at 100mph in Spanish. By this point, my brain was too tired to even attempt to decipher what they were saying, so I decided not to.

Temple of Debod, Madrid (photo taken by moi!)
When night fell, we climbed up to a park from which there were great views of the city, as well as a stunning Egyptian temple which sits in a lake, and looks very attractive when lit up at night. Apparently, Spain helped Egypt to save some of its historical monuments after the construction of the Aswan Dam in 1960 had posed a threat to them. The temple was given to Spain as a gift from the Egyptian state to show their gratitude for this.




On Monday, after Alfredo had very kindly let me stay the night in his flat, I caught the coach back to Cuenca, where a miserable day of grey skies and rain awaited me. Tuesday’s weather was disappointingly similar (except cold too!), so I spent the day in hibernation, curled up on the couch in my jogging bottoms, slippers and hoody.

On Wednesday, it was back to school, and let me tell you it was difficult after 5 days of late nights and lie-ins! I was so tired that I had mentally written the day off as one where nothing would be achieved, as I sat slumped in a chair in the staff room, fighting the urge to nod off. I discovered Ana had different ideas, though, when she approached me and asked brightly: ‘So, what have you got planned for my class today?’ Naturally, I had nothing planned. I wasn’t even aware that I was supposed to have had anything planned – no one had thought to tell me – and as this was only my fourth day at school (I’d had to miss a day for the orientation, and another two for the Puente) I hadn’t really envisaged being put in this position. She caught me off-guard big time, and I’m sure she knew it too, as we both sat there floundering; she’d not planned anything either, as she’d been hoping I had!

However, in an unexpected stroke of genius (and thanks largely to my parents, who happen to have both had careers in TEFL and were therefore able to provide me with plenty of suggestions for learning activities) I remembered I had something at home. It was a picture of a space scene, and the idea (well, Mum’s idea – credit where credit’s due!) was to ask one pupil to come to the front of the class and describe the picture in English to the rest of the class, who would then draw it and (hopefully) ask questions about the details. So, I dashed home to retrieve the picture, and without having enough time to even think about getting nervous about how unprepared I was for teaching my first class, I gave it a go.

And it worked! I picked a boy from the Ukraine whose English I knew would be up to the task (he recently moved to Spain and can’t speak much Spanish, so it was good way to get him involved) and he did a great job. Some of the pictures the students drew even vaguely resembled the original. Result! Ana must’ve been pleased too, as she asked me to do the same activity with one of her other classes the next day.

On Wednesday evening, I went to Marta’s flat for our second conversation class. I met two of her three daughters, who are 14 and 8 (the third, who is 16 and going through her hormonal, rebellious stage wasn’t at home – the mother-daughter relationship is rather turbulent, according to Marta), and they kissed me on both cheeks as is the Spanish way. We talked generally for a while, and, during a conversation about journalism, I foolishly divulged that I’m writing a blog about life in Cuenca. Of course, she wanted to read it, and I didn’t feel I could say no, so instead I just sat there wishing the ground would swallow me up as she read it aloud (including the two paragraphs I’d written about her). Cringe! However, she seemed to enjoy it, so no harm done.

At the end of the class, she sweetly gave me a small tin of tea leaves that she’d bought in Harrods when she went to London, ‘to keep you going until your boyfriend brings you tea from home’, and 3 Spanish novels. They’ll certainly keep me going for a while...

I’d also arranged to meet Jesús – a man who Ana had put me in contact with – that night for our first conversation class. As I trudged through yet more rain to get to his flat, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Ana had told me he was a dentist who likes to travel so in my head I pictured someone young. As it turned out, however, he was probably in his late 40s, living on his own and had strange art (mannequins and the like) all over his flat. Nonetheless, he was lovely, and very keen to learn. His English is at a very basic level at the moment, but I intend to put that right!

On Thursday, Cuenca was once again doused in sunlight, which instantly lifted my mood and made me feel less tired. A teacher I hadn’t met before approached me in the staffroom and asked me if I’d be willing to give English lessons to his two children, to which I said yes. I’m meeting them on Monday at 6pm. Another lady also asked for my number, so that’s another potential customer!  

In the evening, I went out for drinks with Ana and Pedro, another teacher at San José. We went to Ana’s favourite bar, a little gem tucked away behind quite a nondescript door in a street I hadn’t been down before. I’m glad she introduced me to it, because I never would’ve spotted it myself and the free tapas were top notch! Not only did we get a little terracotta pot of steaming ‘caldo’ (soup), but a platter of all kinds of tasty things like salad, fried eggs, squid, courgette fried in honey (sounds strange but trust me, it’s delicious) and jamón Serrano was also produced. Yet again, I ate enough that I didn’t need to have a meal when I got home.

Well, that brings me up to last night, which was the dinner to welcome new staff to San José. There were about 30 of us, which was overwhelming for me, to say the least. I can barely hold up one conversation, let alone follow what’s being said when everybody sitting around me is talking at once! It was good fun, though, up until the point where everybody started chanting ‘Helen Jones, Helen Jones!’ and looking at me, and I turned the colour of a beetroot.
This is what the offending jug looked like...
The embarrassment didn’t stop there, either: at the end of the meal, I managed to pour Baileys all down my front (in my defence, we were supposed to pour it straight out of this funny looking jug and into our mouths – it was never going to end well). On top of this, during his speech at the end of the meal, one of the slightly tipsy teachers started serenading me in English while everybody killed themselves laughing. It was very funny, I’ll admit, and it was nice to feel so welcome, but it’s lucky we went home after that because I don’t think I could’ve handled much more embarrassment!

This morning, I got up early and started a manic cleaning spree (partly because Hugh is arriving later, but also because the flat really needed it anyway). I won’t go into the horrors that awaited me in the toilet, but they weren’t pretty. Let’s just say I was very grateful for my Marigolds, and used copious amounts of bleach to thoroughly disinfect the area. I hold Shrek solely responsible for my ordeal, as he clearly can’t aim and frankly, I don’t want to be cleaning up after an 18-year-old man with questionable personal hygiene, who should’ve been toilet trained years ago.

With this in mind, I finally bit the bullet and wrote a very pointed note which I then taped to the wall above the toilet. It says: ‘¡SI ENSUNCIAS EL INODORO, POR FAVOR LÍMPIELO!’, which translates as: ‘IF YOU MAKE THE TOILET DIRTY, PLEASE CLEAN IT!’. That should get the message through, I hope...

¡Hasta luego!

Friday 8 October 2010

El trabajo comienza...





Only a week has passed since my last post, yet so much has happened. Where to begin?!

Well, last weekend went down like a lead balloon. As we still hadn’t been in Cuenca long and didn’t know many people, opportunities to socialise had been few and far between, and it was starting to get to me. I was so bored that I had to practically beg Natira to come out with me on Saturday night, lest I shrivelled up and died from a severe lack of oxygen and vitamin D brought on by being cooped up in the flat for yet another night.

It’s not that I can’t cope with boredom – really, I can – but there’s only so much reading, watching TV, surfing the net and ‘getting a good night’s sleep’ (i.e. going to bed ridiculously early because there’s nothing else to do) that a person can take.

So, off we went to Calle San Francisco: a street of laid-back, low-cost cervecerías (places that serve beer, basically) and eateries, each with terrazas full of tables and chairs for alfresco eating and drinking. There, we sought out a place that specialises in burgers, serving 30 different ones, each supposedly representing a different country. Naturally, I chose the Argentinian burger (those guys know about beef!). After three glasses of white wine – at 1.35 euros each, I might gleefully add – a couple of hours of people watching and a double chocolate Magnum ice-cream, my boredom was somewhat appeased and we headed home for another ‘good night’s sleep’.

On Monday, I had my first class with Ana, a petite, very Spanish-looking lady with dark hair, dark eyes and tanned skin. I liked her immediately, and my nerves about meeting the class soon disappeared. They were a lively bunch of 13-year-olds, with a good level of English as they were part of the British Council’s ‘bilingual programme’ and had been learning English since they were 3 years old. As there were only 12 of them, it wasn’t as intimidating as I’d feared. Once I’d started reeling off my speech about my life – in very s-l-o-w, CLEAR English, of course – I was surprised to find it came quite naturally to me, and I started to enjoy myself. 

Tuesday and Wednesday were much the same, except with different classes: sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller, sometimes with older students, sometimes with younger, and all with different levels of English. In 3 days, I had met 5 of my classes and was beginning to tire of the sound of my own voice, not to mention the same old questions that kept being asked of me by pupils:
  •          Do you like Spain?
  •          Do you like Spanish food?
  •          Do you like sports?
  •          What kind of music do you listen to?
  •          Have you got a boyfriend?
  •          Can you speak Spanish?

By the end of each lesson, I felt as if I’d just survived the Spanish Inquisition (no pun intended!). I was exhausted, my mouth was dry and my feet and back ached from standing at the front of the class. However, I must admit that I was quite enjoying being the object of interest; the exotic zoo animal that these too-cool-for-school Spanish teenagers just couldn’t help but gawp at. It’s an amusing situation to be in, to say the least.

On Wednesday evening, I met with Marta for our first conversation class. All I had to do was keep the English conversation flowing for an hour, and help her with any vocabulary or pronunciation questions that cropped up. At the end of the hour, she said she was ‘happy with me’, so we’ll be meeting once a week now, and next time it’ll be at her house instead of a bar. When she asked me my price, I self-consciously mumbled something about having heard that 15 euros is the going rate, hoping that she wouldn’t think I didn’t deserve that much! But, to my relief, she happily handed over the money and even paid for my drink, despite my protests. 

She’s so passionate about English; I really admire her attitude to learning it. She immerses herself in the culture and the language, always reading English books and watching English TV programmes online. In fact, I would say she is the true definition of an Anglophile, and I aspire to be the equivalent, but with Spanish.

After I’d said goodbye to Marta, I met with Natira and a teacher from her school, Beatriz, for drinks in Calle San Francisco. She was very friendly, and the three of us chatted amiably in Spanglish as we moved from bar to bar. When her fiancé, Pedro – who doesn’t speak much English - joined us, and with the wine still flowing, I found my Spanish tongue loosened! The merits of the free tapas in Cuenca really showed themselves, that night: we had so many nibbles that there was no need to have dinner. Yes, you read right: when you go to a bar and buy a drink, you get free food! A personal favourite for me is the tortilla (Spanish omelette). Yummy!

The last bar they took us to was a charming little place right up in the dizzying heights of the old town, where we sat on the roof terrace and admired a panoramic view of the city and its twinkling lights, including the illuminated casas colgadas and statue of Jesus, overlooking Cuenca  from a mountain top. Even the cliff faces were dramatically lit up. It was truly beautiful. I will endeavour to take another trip up there soon, this time armed with my camera!

Yesterday was the jornada (orientation) for all of the language assistants in Cuenca and its surrounding villages. I went somewhat reluctantly, accompanied by Ana from school, and feeling slightly the worse for wear from the wine I’d consumed the night before. The orientation itself was much like any other training day: dry and boring, but with a free lunch to compensate! However, meeting the other assistants was an interesting experience. As well as myself, there were three American girls (including Natira), two French girls, one French guy, a German girl, an Irish guy and a girl from Bermuda. An interesting mix, to say the least! Apparently, there should’ve been not one, but TWO other Brits (one of whom, incidentally, had originally agreed to live with Natira and I), but both had promptly decided they couldn’t hack it and dropped out. That’ll be me representing the country on my own, then...

A few of us swapped phone numbers and email addresses, so I expect we’ll be meeting up for drinks in the coming days and weeks, since we’re all foreigners in Cuenca!

Today is the first of a 5-day weekend for me, since I don’t work on Fridays, and next Monday and Tuesday are bank holidays in Spain. On Sunday, I’m off to Madrid for some sightseeing and a good night out with my half-Spanish friend from university, Carmelo, and some of his Spanish friends. I’m looking forward to getting away from Cuenca for a day or two – it is, after all what most of the locals seem to do at the weekends... 

¡Hasta luego! 

Saturday 2 October 2010

Desde el principio

So, I’ve been in Spain for 10 days now. In that time, somehow I’ve managed to conquer language barriers (well, to a degree) and navigate my way through some of the challenging situations that moving to a foreign country inevitably throws up. And here I am: I have somewhere to live – yes, a real Spanish flat in actual Spain – a Spanish job; a Spanish mobile phone; a fridge full of Spanish food which I somehow procured from the supermarket using a combination of common sense and my somewhat limited knowledge of the Spanish vocabulary; and, as I write, a Spanish man is standing on a chair in my flat drilling holes through the wall (don’t worry, we’re paying him to do so – he’s installing a phone line and internet access).

If, 10 days ago, you’d told me all this would have happened by now, I’d have laughed. Or, possibly cried, at the seeming impossibility of the situation and how useless I felt about the fact I could never achieve so much in such a short space of time. They are not things that I would ever recognise as achievements had I done them in England, but in Spain, every time I understand a babbled Spanish sentence from a native who doesn’t think to slow down their speech for the benefit of shell-shocked foreigners, it’s a step in the right direction.  To this end, every day so far has been laced with ‘Eureka!’ moments, and it feels good!

Of course, it hasn’t always been plain sailing. When I first arrived in Cuenca I was decidedly unsure about what beheld me. It seemed small. Very small. Being used to relatively large cities like Liverpool and Sheffield, I had my doubts as to whether this so-called ‘city’ of just 60,000 inhabitants could really live up to my idea of a city.

On closer observation, my suspicions about its size were, of course, confirmed. But happily, I found myself not minding; Cuenca, and in particular its picture-postcard ‘casgo antiguo’ (old town) with its dramatic ‘casas colgadas’ (hanging houses), has a certain charm to it which appeals to even the most cynical of visitors straight away. Yes, it’s small... but I prefer to use estate agent speak and say it’s ‘compact’. It has everything you need: shops, bars, restaurants, supermarkets, cinemas, schools, a university, a library, parks, a leisure centre and (reasonably good) transport links to other, larger cities – and all these things are in easy walking distance of one another. Perfect. Okay, so I wouldn’t recommend you come here to go on a shopping spree, but for that, there’s Madrid!

As for the cost of living, Cuenca is cheap. I’m paying 170 euros a month to live in my flat. Where in Britain would you find somewhere to rent for that price? Not even in the dingiest student dive in the country, I fear.

I’ve even made a few friends, of sorts. There’s Natira, my flatmate from Indianapolis who is also doing a British Council assistantship in a local infant and primary school (so far we’ve not really warmed to our other flatmate, an 18-year-old Spanish Shrek lookalike who doesn’t seem to change his clothes, urinates on the toilet seat and apparently has an aversion to showering). There’s Kate, also coincidentally from Indiana, whose 3-year-old son Lucas goes to Natira’s school. Her husband Rodrigo is Spanish and she’s lived in Cuenca for years, so she’s fluent in Spanish. On Thursday, they took us out for a 3-course lunch on them! There’s Marta, the lady who served Natira and me in the bank when we went to open our Spanish accounts – she gushed about how much she loves to speak English but doesn’t get to practise, and asked if one of us would meet with her once a week for English conversation (she said she’d pay, too). Then there’s Elena, the wonderfully eccentric and young at heart Head of the English Department at my school, San José. From the outset, she’s been somewhat a lifeline for me. Even before I arrived in Spain, I had email contact with her, and ever since I’ve been in Cuenca she’s been my first point of contact if something goes wrong!

As time goes on, I hope to meet more lovely people like these and build up some sort of social life. As much as I like Cuenca, it isn’t the liveliest of places, so in order to feel completely at home here I would need to keep myself as busy as possible to avoid the drag of repetitiveness. I have yet to go and sample what Cuenca’s nightlife has to offer, which is a travesty!

In terms of the job, I have had my first day at school. I was only there for an hour, mainly to be shown around the building and introduced to some of the staff (all of whom were very welcoming). I was also given my timetable, which shows that I have Fridays off; plenty of long weekends gallivanting around Spain for me, then! I start properly on Monday. I’ll be observing my classes for the first week or two, to get a feel for their levels of English and what kind of things engage them. After that, who knows what I’ll be doing... I still can’t imagine myself stood in front of a classroom full of teenagers, imparting my wisdom to them! What makes it even weirder is that one of my classes consists of adults in their 20s, so I may actually be ‘teaching’ people older than myself!

Well, that’s all for now folks. There’s sun to be enjoyed!

¡Hasta Luego!