It´s been two months now that I´ve been in Spain. Can you believe it? I know I can´t. Actually, it reminds me of the Lord of the Rings (as most things do). Do you remember the part in the Fellowship of the Ring where Frodo and Sam are walking through the countryside and Sam stops and says:
“This is it.”
Frodo: “What Sam?”
Sam (in a vaguely Irish accent): “If I take one more step, it´ll be the farthest away from home I´ve ever been.”
I feel a lot like Sam right now because, while this isn´t the farthest away from home that I´ve ever been, it’s certainly the longest I´ve ever been away, at least without my parents. And like Frodo, I too am reminded of what my Uncle Bilbo used to say: “Emily, my girl, what doesn´t kill you, makes you stronger?” OK, you caught me, I´m a liar. That isn´t actually what my Uncle Bilbo used to say: I don´t even have an Uncle Bilbo. Plus that part about “what doesn´t kill you” is really an old proverb. But it sure sounds good, doesn´t it?
Enough of my tonterÃas (sillyness), this really is the longest I´ve ever been away from home, and frankly, it´s weird. Ironically, things feel normal now. I seem to have slipped into the life of someone else. I feel like I’m in a parallel universe. This person has a family, a school, a bed, but none of them are what mine were two-and-a-half months ago. To play with the expression “to walk a mile in another´s moccasins,” I seem to be wearing someone (who doesn’t exist) else’s clothes entirely. (Riddle me this: does that mean I´m naked?) I know I´m being rather silly here, but I´m serious when I say that things feel normal, which is what makes these blogs harder and harder to write. What stories do I pick out to relate back to all of you reading this? Well, I´ll do my best to tell the most meaningful experiences from the last few weeks.
When last you heard from me, I was starting school. Now I´ve finally started to get into the flow of school, and it´s really not bad. I say that because in California every time I start a new school year, I begin to wish sooner and sooner for summer to come. I feel a little more relaxed at school here, which sounds odd, since I´m learning in my non-native language. But the truth is, I know that if I fail it won´t be because I was not studying enough, but because I´m still learning Spanish. I just hope that my professors recognize that.
This would be a good opportunity to explain how differently class is held here from school in California. It basically consists of students sitting here, the profe (professor) standing in front and talking and talking, maybe asking a question or two, and talking some more. I´ll admit that it´s a little boring, but I find I still learn the material pretty well. I admit I was a little surprised when I first heard how the students address the professor. For one, they only call the professor by his/her first name. Plus, they seem very comfortable with telling the professor exactly what they think. Imagine walking into your English or journalism class with Mr Kandell as your teacher (sorry Mr Kandell, I needed an example), you sit down, and the first thing you say is:
“Paul, why do you have to give us so much homework all the time?”
It sounds weird, doesn´t it? Maybe you don’t think it does, but it sounds weird to me. They also show no hesitation to call the teacher by the common diminutive used in Andalucia: Chiquillo/a, or simply, Quillo/a. It´s more or less the equivalent of calling your teacher “Dude.” (As a Californian, I´ll be the first to admit that almost everyone is “Dude” to me). It´s strange at first, but I think it adds an interesting dimension to the student-teacher relationship.
My favourite class at the moment is English, for obvious reasons. In my other classes, I´m the one the teacher always has to ask “do you understand?” Whereas in English, I´m the only one who doesn´t have to be asked. Have you ever realized how nice it is to know things? Actually being able to say “tengo esto chupado” (more or less “this is a piece of cake for me”) is the best feeling in the world. Although, it can be a little embarrassing. I´ll explain. One day, for homework, we had to write a short summary of the life of someone famous that we admire. Most people interpreted it to be an actor or actress. I didn´t want to go on the computer to research someone, because it´s in my host brother´s room, and I didn´t want to take up too much time there. I tried to think of famous people I admire, but the list was short, and I couldn´t come up with any details of their lives. So, it occurred to me that I had a book on Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, the German philosopher. Why I´d been reading a book on Nietzsche is a completely different story: my psychology teacher told us that if we wanted to understand the world better we had to read 4 authors: Freud, Nietzsche, Marx, and Lévi-Strauss. Long story short, I wrote my little biography on Nietzsche, thinking my teacher would never ask me to read it aloud, since I obviously can speak and write in English. It would be a little joke between me and myself. So what does she do? She asks me to read. If you know a little about Nietzsche, then you know he led a complicated life. My essay, as a result, was pretty complicated. I admit I used the word hypochondriac. Halfway through reading what I had written, I looked up and asked “¿Alguien se entera de algo?” which basically means, “does anyone understand any of this?” Needless to say, the answer was a hefty “no.” It was… embarrassing. But the upside is that now everyone in class comes to ask me how to say different things in English.
One of the great things about living in a Spanish family is that on the weekends you tend to go out to what they call the campo. Now, if you speak Spanish, you already know that campo, translated literally means “field” or “countryside.” The interesting thing about Spain is how you can go to the campo and not set one foot in the countryside. If you have to drive a long way, on twisty roads, and you end up someplace that is more than forty minutes from the nearest Corte Inglés, you´re in the campo. As a family, we’ve gone out quite a bit, sometimes to the actual countryside, and sometimes to little towns out near the countryside. There´s a little town about two hours from Chiclana, called Grazalema, that´s as cute as a peach! And in the area there are a lot of people who sell walnuts out of their houses. So, when we bought and ate a few, everyone starts asking me if I think Spanish nueces (walnuts) are better than Californian ones. I didn´t even know California was a big walnut producer. So I say “Yeah, definitely,” and everyone laughs. Meanwhile, I´m thinking: “I´m definitely missing something here.” Out of curiosity, how are Californian walnuts?
Right now it´s raining quite a bit here. Oh, and I passed my first four exams! Since it takes me a week or two to write these blogs, I didn´t mention that at the beginning. Besides, there’s not much to tell, except that passing is really good. Unfortunately a lot of kids don´t, even though you only need a score of 50% to pass. So far, so good, I guess. Wish me luck on the rest of my tests. Oh, and if you read this blog, and like it (or even if you don´t), please leave feedback, because I love to hear from people, even people I don´t know.
I guess this is goodbye again. You´ll hear from me again in the next couple of weeks. Until then, peace.