Party time, excellent

Each auxiliar is assigned a mentor at his or her school. As the name suggests, it’s the mentor’s role to help the foreign auxiliar get acquainted with Spanish life, work through immigration red tape, etc. My mentor’s name is Teresa. Thus far, she’s gone far beyond her required responsibilities.

She’s a hiking enthusiast, and before I arrived, she had been organizing a big party in the countryside for her hiking club. On the car ride between our orientation in Cáceres and Don Benito, she invited me to the party. As a reflex, I said yes. Then I thought maybe I had made a mistake. After all, I would never go to a party with a bunch of strangers in the States. My first question when I’m invited somewhere at home is “Who’s going to be there?” (I’m not saying that’s a good thing.) 

But I figured I moved to Spain to challenge myself and expand my comfort zone. And, it was quite nice of her to invite me in the first place. She and three friends picked me up at 12:30 p.m. the following day. During the ride there, I was lost in their rapid-fire Spanish, and that confusion was compounded by the fact that they kept saying Teresa, and I didn’t know which one they were talking to.

We made it to the party spot, a large house in the countryside specifically intended for overnight parties. I helped set up, and when attendees started trickling in, I spent a lot of time at the long, narrow table covered in Spanish food: chorizo, olives, local paté and a bunch of other things. I tried whatever I was offered, as long as I was told what it was first (I wanted to know the Spanish names for everything.) Hanging around the food was a strategic move on my part: My silence was less awkward with a stuffed face. At the beginning, some people were talking to me. Some weren’t.

As the day wore on, I relaxed, and so did the Spaniards around me. I think part of it was that they realized I could, in fact, speak Spanish (contrary to what the supermarket cashier would have told them). The other, perhaps more important, factor was booze. There was lots of homemade wine, alcoholic cider and beer. By the time it got dark, my fellow party attendees were pretty comfortable talking to me. They asked many, many times what I thought of Extremadura. Since I haven’t been here long, my best answer was, “It reminds me a lot of where I come from."

People started dancing, and the DJ even played some American songs for me (one of them was “Born in the USA.”) I showed the Spaniards how to line dance, although I can’t remember what song was playing.

Overall, it was a good experience. It was a full day of Spanish (we arrived at 1 p.m. and I left at about 2:30 in the morning), and I made some local friends whom I hope to see again. The people were great, and so was the party. Here’s to expanding my comfort zone even further…

(Sorry I don't have any photos. I wanted to capture the food spread and the landscape, especially, but I decided against being the weird foreigner snapping pictures.)

Buenas tardes, 

Teresa