I make a fool out of myself every day. I try to say something in Spanish and it comes out jumbled and crazy. Or I have a thought I want to convey and realize after I’ve started talking I have no way to finish it with my limited vocabulary. Once again, I need to learn how to be patient. Making mistakes is just part of the process. This is good considering I’m making a ton of them. I can’t even say my Spanish is rusty. It’s not. I never spoke well, and each day is another day I’m reminded of it. However, when someone (with great patience) takes the time to understand me, I am encouraged to at least try. I can not thank the world enough for these people (like the teachers I work with in Cuatro de Abril in Zahinos).
Cuatro de Abril is the school in Zahinos where I spent my first teaching week
View from Zahinos
I’ve been living in Spain a week. Wow. I really just wrote that.
I travel to wait for the carpool to school around 9 a.m. each day and it’s dark outside. It feels like I’m waking up in the middle of the night, until I hear the rooster. And yes, I actually hear roosters in the morning. For some reason, when all I hear is Spanish, it doesn’t surprise me anymore. I’ll just listen (occasionally realizing that I understand everything they are saying) and sometimes try to add to the conversation when I can. Last week, I was having a sandwich after work in a bar because I was famished (still not used to having lunch at 3 in the afternoon), and I ended up having a conversation with two old Spanish men, trying a few jokes to see if our senses of humor were similar. They were. I caused these two men from a different generation and a different culture AND a different language to laugh!
The plaza gets much busier when school lets out for the afternoon
It’s fun to spend some time wandering and taking photos and even more fun to have the time to do it. Last week after work, I read in the center of town on a bench and all of a sudden, kids started playing all around me. Kids playing is a universal language. Jerez has a good sense of community. While there aren’t many folks my age (or so I’ve met yet), it is nice to at least have some familiar things. Family is very important here.
And so is cooking… which is why I am going to make an effort to cook. It’s not something I do with my Kashi frozen meals back home. I need to here. And I have a good friend who is encouraging. When I thought about what to do for dinner, I remembered about what she said to me earlier when I said I had another sandwich for dinner: “You can’t just have sandwiches all the time.” Well, I easily could, but I won’t. My plan is to take photos of everything/most everything I eat and drink. Just like my Spanish will improve, so will my cooking.
My first attempt: Olive oil, onions, garlic, chicken, zucchini
It was quite a sight to see me try to cut up the veggies in my tiny kitchen or try to light the flame on the gas stove for the first time. However, if I’m not making a fool out of myself each day, I’m not doing my job here in Spain.