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.
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| Temple of Debod, Madrid (photo taken by moi!) |
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.
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| This is what the offending jug looked like... |
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!
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