"Home"

I’ve grown comfortable calling Don Benito “home,” so I take that as a good sign that I’m adjusting well, both physically and emotionally. The fact that I have a good “home” here makes it easier to be away from my real home – the home that doesn’t require quotation marks.

For some auxiliares, Don Benito would be quite the adjustment. It’s small (about 35,000) people, and it’s rural, surrounded by a golden fortress of soon-to-be-harvested corn. It’s not a primary destination for arts, culture or tourism (some tourists do come to a select few Extremaduran cities), but I prefer it that way. You see, as a Nebraskan, I appreciate what the rest of the “sophisticated” world does not. Simple living. Proud people. Small-town dynamics. A lack of traffic. A lack of crime. There’s no world-class ballet or five-star hotels here, but I’ve never been one to give much weight to such things.

"The Good Life"?

For the most part, I was spot-on when I described Extremadura as the Nebraska or Iowa of Spain. It’s a great place to live but not necessarily an ideal place to visit (in my 500+ page guidebook, Extremadura was given a measly 20 pages). Like the American Midwest, agriculture reigns supreme here in Extremadura. Extremeños – the people of Extremadura – harvest corn, olives, tomatoes, sheep, goats, cattle and pigs. (Miajadas, the town where I teach, touts itself as the European tomato capital. I saw it on a sign as I rode into town on the bus this morning. I’ve yet to have a local tomato, however.)

This yellow stuff looks awfully familiar.

About those harvested pigs…Spaniards are obsessed with ham, I kid you not. I’ve been told it comes from the days of religious persecution, when everyone in Spain was forced to eat ham to weed out the people pretending to be Catholics (Muslims pretending to be Catholics so they could stay in Spain, for example, weren’t too keen on eating meat). I can’t confirm or deny if that’s really the driving force behind the national ham obsession, but I can confirm that ham is a big deal. Nebraskans are proud of our homegrown beef, sure, but it doesn’t rise to the level of obsession. Anyway, here’s a Wikipedia excerpt about the ham. I know Wikipedia isn’t always reliable, yadda, yadda, yadda, but for the purposes of this blog post, it shall suffice:

Wild Black Iberian pigs roam in the area and consume acorns from oak groves. These pigs are caught and used for the cured ham dish jamón ibérico. The higher the percentage of acorns eaten by the pigs, the more valuable (and expensive) the ham. Iberian Ham that can boast an acorn-fed average of 90%+ of the pigs diet can be sold for more than twice as much as ham whose pigs ate on average less than 70% of acorns, for example. In the US, Iberian Ham directly from Extremadura, bone-in, was illegal until around 2005. At that time, enough U.S. restaurants were in demand for the delicacy that Spain decided to ship it bone-out, which the U.S.D.A.'s health codes would (and continue to) approve.

Despite its obvious similarities to Nebraska (it’d be an unusual day if I didn’t see tractors roaring through Miajadas, and I saw a young guy wearing a Case International t-shirt at the gas station there yesterday), Extremadura is different in some respects. Although some areas of Extremadura are quite flat, mountains are usually within sight. The area’s geography is more diverse and interesting than Nebraska’s, I can say that with certainty. Here, valleys become mountains. Mountains merge with plains. Hills interrupt flatlands. That cadence is on repeat throughout the region. 

All of these are photos of Extremadura. Got diversity?

And, oh yeah, there are random castles on random hills. I mean, c’mon. 

Aforementioned random castle on hill

Additionally, the weather is better here. Sure, the mercury soars past 100 in the summer, but it’s unusual for it to dip below freezing in the winter. I’ve seen photos of my school covered in snow, but I’m told snow is super rare. I was teaching my students about American geography and climate the other day in class, and when I mentioned that -17 degrees Celsius (about 2 degrees Fahrenheit) wouldn’t be that crazy, my students were shocked. So, while it’s been below 40 in Nebraska recently, it’s been between 75 and 90 here in Extremadura, so I have no complaints.

For lack of a better transition…Let me share a bit about Don Benito. The main part of town can’t be more than a few miles across, from east to west. I can walk from one end to the other and still have leg strength left, if that’s a better illustration for those of you who know me well (I’m not much of an exerciser). The town is meticulously maintained; the avenues intersect at roundabouts with fountains and palm trees. It’s quite cute, really. 

Avenida del Pilar

The locals believe there are “bad areas” in Don Benito; I disagree. I’ve never felt unsafe, and I’ve never felt that I’ve ended up on the “wrong side of the tracks,” as we say in the States. I wander a lot here, and because I have no sense of direction, I never know where I end up. Perhaps I have trotted through the so-called bad areas and didn’t realize it, but the worst thing I’ve seen so far is a house lacking a recent paint job. I’ve yet to see a police officer doing anything resembling work. I can’t imagine there’s much for them to do around this peaceful plot of Spain. 

Avenida de la Constitución, the main shopping drag

Parque Municipal "Tierno Galván"; city park

On the outskirts of town, there’s an olive oil factory and a chocolate factory. I’ve yet to try the products from either company, but the olives I had here so far are to die for. But I’ll leave that for another blog.

I’m content and settled here in my new land, but I worry my comfort will erode into complacence. Here’s to making a conscious effort to keep making discoveries. 

Buenas noches, 

Teresa

Beautiful Cáceres

The 150+ auxiliars placed in Extremadura gathered in Cáceres, a charming town of about 90,000 people in west central Spain, for orientation. The orientation itself wasn't very helpful, and our accommodations at a local high school were sketchy at best, but the town itself was stunning.

Cáceres is the epitome of Spain. The town's medieval core is a maze of narrow stone streets winding through Roman and Moorish buildings. Outside of old town, Cáceres becomes a modern city with large stores and two American must-haves: Burger King and McDonald's.

We only had a couple of hours to explore Cáceres, sadly. I'll surely be heading back sometime for a closer look, but I wanted to share some photos.

One of the many adorable streets

San Francisco Javier Church.

The main town plaza

Entrance to old town from the plaza

My first wine thus far in Spain. It was from Extremadura.

That lengthy combination of letters and numbers is the most ridiculous wi-fi password I've ever seen.

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

A sad tale

Let me preface the following pathetic tale with a little disclaimer: I was terribly homesick last Friday, which was my first day in Don Benito. It was my first day without the great friends I’d made at orientation, and I was trying to come to terms with the fact that Don Benito is by no means Madrid. Anyway, I went to the Mercadona around the corner from my house to buy some food.

It didn’t go well. Blame it on emotions. 

For starters, I wasn’t familiar with hardly any of the brands or foods, so I had no idea what to buy. I didn’t know where things were or what they were called. I wandered up and down the same aisles five or six times, staring blankly at the shelves. I couldn’t find milk anywhere. I closely examined the products in the refrigerated section. I found some juices and a common drink here that I compare to liquefied yogurt, but I couldn’t spot milk. After several minutes and some tears (I managed to keep the tears contained in my eyes), I remembered that milk isn’t refrigerated here. I went to a different aisle and found what I thought looked like milk, but the packaging didn’t explicitly say what the product was. Keep in mind that milk doesn’t come in the translucent plastic cartons like it does in the States. It’s in opaque cardboard cartons here, and the tricky thing is that other drinks also come in similar opaque containers. I grabbed a carton that I figured must contain milk, and I continued on. I realized a couple of days ago when I pulled the milk out of my fridge for breakfast that I had purchased specially fortified milk for young children. At least I’ll have strong bones.

At Mercadona, I was craving fruit, so I put some apples in a bag, placed them in my basket and headed to the checkout. When the cashier pulled them out, she was confused by my stupidity, and I was confused by her confusion. This would’ve been quite the confusion-infused stalemate if a fellow auxiliar hadn’t been with me. The auxiliar explained that I had to weigh the fruit myself before taking it to the front (I’m sure you have to do that in some American stores, but I just couldn’t understand the explanation in Spanish). I surrendered and told the cashier I no longer wanted the apples.

Then it came time to take the products I did buy to my apartment. By then, I had no confidence in my Spanish or my ability to shop in this foreign land. The cashier was asking me if I wanted “bolsas” (bags), but I couldn’t understand her (the accent here in Extremadura is incredibly thick, like an accent in Texas or West Virginia). The auxiliar explained that there’s a charge for plastic grocery bags here, and the cashiers generally assume you don’t need them. Discouraged, I told the lady I wanted bags, and I walked out of the store with my head down.

Needless to say, I went home and cried. 

Things are better now (not that it takes much to be better than that). 

Buenas tardes, 

Teresa

Adjusting to Spain

I knew going into this experience that there’d be some cultural clashes. After all, I’m admittedly quite stuck in my American ways at times. I figure a lot of you, dear readers, are curious about what differences I’ve noticed between the States and Spain thus far. This post might seem terribly ethnocentric. I apologize for that in advance, but the easiest way to illustrate what life is like here is to compare it to the familiar back home.

- In Spain, stores that sell groceries primarily sell groceries. For random, non-grocery items, many Spaniards go to “chinos,” which are stores that sell, well, random stuff. They’re often run by Chinese people, hence the name “chino,” but that’s not always the case. I can’t make an educated estimate of the typical chino square footage, but the average size reminds me a lot of a Factory Card Outlet or Party America, if that helps. In the chinos, most products are in their original packaging, but some aren’t. 

Chino in Don Benito

 I was able to buy lotion, a lint roller, toothpaste, a trash can and dish scrubbers at the Mercadona grocery store. But I had to go to multiple chinos to find a fan, towels, power adaptors, an extension cord, hangers, a full-length mirror and a key ring. I must admit I miss the one-stop-shopping in Lincoln, Nebraska. But, considering I have to walk everywhere in Don Benito, the multi-store pursuit of goods is great exercise. There is a Carrefour (a France-based superstore chain) near my town, and that has a pretty good selection of necessities, but it’s no Wal-Mart (it’s compared to Wal-Mart sometimes, but they don’t carry a lot of the things Wal-Mart does. For example, they don’t sell any mirrors.)  

Got Crocs? This chino does.

I couldn't find a proper basket for my things, so I settled for a bread pan from a chino. 

Remember what I said about a lack of selection?

-         On a different note…I can’t write a post about Spanish culture and not mention the infamous siesta. I’m going to come right out and say it: I’m not yet a Spanish siesta fan. Here, virtually all businesses and municipal agencies close down from roughly 2 to 5 p.m. Afterward, some people return to work for a few hours. From my limited experience thus far, many banks and government agencies, however, don’t open again until the following day. On Sundays, virtually everything is closed. I know the Sabbath was once viewed in the States with reverence, but let’s be honest, it’s more or less become another day for many Americans to get things done. I mean, you’ve been to Wal-Mart on a Sunday, right?

-         Spanish culture is very social, perhaps because it’s less about working and more about enjoying family, friends, food, wine and cañas (small beers). The streets are almost always alive with people (except, of course, during the siesta). During the evenings, when most Americans are either on the couch or still at work, Spaniards are sitting on park benches, walking the streets or sitting at cafes. I’m quite serious about the park bench thing: In the evenings, handfuls of older men congregate on benches to chat. It’s lovely, really. It’s funny how fast I’ve adjusted to this – when I’m in my apartment in the evenings, I just want to get out and do something. 

-    I'm still very awkward with the double-kiss-on-the-cheek greeting. So far, pretty much everyone has greeted me that way. I've gotten used to that, but I don't understand yet when it's appropriate for a goodbye. It's almost like there's an uncomfortable dance for me at the end of dinner or drinks, in which the Spanish person wonders if he/she should give me dos besitos (two kisses) or if we should just leave with a smile and a wave. Are there concrete rules for this sort of thing? 

-    Lastly, my tummy is angry at Spain. See, Spaniards generally eat a light breakfast, a large lunch and a small supper. I bought cereal and milk at the grocery store (my next post will highlight that adventure), so I eat breakfast just like I did back home. However, Spaniards don't eat lunch until 2 p.m. or after. Students and teachers aren't served lunch at school, so I have to wait until I get home around 2:30 or later.  By then, my hunger clock has been ringing since noon. Supper isn't until 8:30 or 9, when I'm usually settling down for the evening in the States.

Perhaps in a month or so I'll be glowing about how happy I am that I've adjusted to these relatively

small-but-significant differences. For now,  I'm not sure what to think. 

Buenas tardes, 

Teresa

More than just Spanish

For me, this experience isn’t as much about teaching as it is about diving head-first into Spanish culture and language. But what I’ve quickly realized is that I’m not just learning about Spanish culture. So far I’ve learned about life in Canada, England and Ireland. Most of the auxiliares (if you haven’t read my previous posts, my title is auxiliar de conversación, which basically means language assistant) are American, but there are several from outside of the States. One of the girls I stayed with in Madrid was British. Another one was Canadian. On the bus to orientation in Cáceres, we met a “lad” from Ireland.

We often overlook cultural differences between English-speaking countries. But sharing a language doesn’t mean we share everything. A few quirks:

-         Police in the U.K. and Canada generally don’t carry guns unless they’re dealing with a riot or something of the sort.

-         When reciting the alphabet, Canadians and Brits say “zed” as the last letter, instead of the American “z” pronunciation.

-         Brits from northern England call tea “brew.” And when they say they’re having evening “tea,” that actually means they’re having supper, not drinking tea.

-         The British higher education system is completely different than in the U.S. They don’t say that they “major” in a subject, and they don’t follow the structure of a typical American semester, which is traditionally characterized by intermittent exams, midterms and finals. According to what I gathered from my aforementioned British friend, Brits establish their undergraduate course of study – Spanish, for example – and they work on that for three years, usually. At the end of those years, they take a test (or a series of tests, I’m not sure) to determine if they get their degree. As I’m writing this, I realize I need to learn more to fully explain the differences. But just know that it’s different, OK?

-    Of course Brits use all sorts of different words and phrases, but one that sticks with me: If Brits say they're "going to be at the restaurant for 8 o'clock" that means they'll get there around 8 o'clock. If they say "at 8 o'clock," that means they'll be punctual. 

Those are just a few tidbits I can remember. I won’t try to claim that this list is exhaustive. 

Buenas tardes, 

Teresa

Reflections on Madrid

 I’m safe, sound and somewhat settled in Spain. I’ve been here for almost two weeks now – it’s hard to believe it’s already been that long, to be honest. My bout of homesickness has subsided slightly, but it comes in fits and starts.

Anyway, let me share some tales and observations of Madrid. I got there Monday, Sept. 25 at about 10 a.m. On my flight, I knew four girls, three of whom were coincidentally placed in the same autonomous community (basically the equivalent of a state) as I was. One of the girls is from my high school, another was from journalism school, another is a friend from study abroad in Costa Rica and the other girl is my Costa Rica friend’s friend. Got that?

Familiar faces made me less uneasy about my move. The five of us planned to meet up in Madrid with some other auxiliares whom we met on Facebook. My fellow journalism school-er didn’t end up staying in Madrid, but the rest of us did. We stayed at Las Musas Residence hostel, a young-people-centric hangout near the center of Madrid. The place had wi-fi and no bedbugs, so I give it a thumbs-up. The workers were great, as was the location. However, I’ve never seen a smaller shower than the one in our room. The beds were like boards, and the comforters were stained, but hey, that’s hostel living, right? Man, I really know how to make a place sound terrible. Mom, are you reading this?

The offensively tiny shower

The eight of us clicked immediately. Now that I’m in Don Benito, the town where I’ll live for the next eight months, I miss them dearly. I think part of me sees those girls as a sort of lifeline or safety net because we were together when this whole adventure started, and they know what I’m going through as a displaced American 4,000 miles from home. We’ll stay in touch via WhatsApp, an über popular texting app in Europe, and Facebook.

Our group, minus Mandie from Kansas

We didn’t really do much in Madrid. We did a lot of wandering, getting lost and putting our collective memories together to figure out which direction we went in or came from. Anybody who knows me well can probably guess I wasn’t a valuable contributor to the group’s navigation.

Right after we arrived at our hostel, we took a free walking tour. Our tour guide, Harriet, was a pithy Brit with bright-red dyed hair and an eclectic vibe. She took us and a bunch of other hostel dwellers around the city, noting people and places of historical and political importance along the way.

Below is the Palacio Real de Madrid (the royal palace). The palace, which has 1.45 million square feet and more than 3,000 rooms, was completed in 1755 and was first occupied by Charles III in 1764. The current king, Juan Carlos, and his family don’t live there; the building is only used for government events. 

The Catedral de la Almudena is next to the royal palace. It’s a very pretty church, but it’s not particularly decadent compared to other European holy places. Harriet said the theory is that it was built “plainly” so it didn’t upstage its neighbor, the palace. The side facing away from the palace is more intricate.

Facing away from the palace

On our tour, Harriet took us by a home, shown below, called a “malicious house,” because the people who lived there in the 1500s deliberately put windows in between floors to throw off the assessors trying to figure out how many spare rooms were inside. See, when the capital of Spain was moved from Toledo to Madrid, there wasn’t enough housing for the royals and nobles. Madrid, at the time, was a small, forgettable town. It wasn’t exactly good politics to evict locals from their homes, though, so the rule was that the locals in Madrid (people in Madrid are called madrileños) had to move into a spare room in their home, while the nobles and other important folks relocating from Toledo could occupy the rest of the house. So, madrileños built homes with windows in odd places to make it hard for assessors to determine from the outside if there were spare rooms, based on how many people were in the family (assessors weren’t welcome inside the homes). Neat, eh?

Doesn't look malicious to me.

Plaza Mayor, shown below, is kind of the “it” gathering place in Madrid. If you haven’t been to Europe before, you probably don’t have a sense of what a typical European plaza looks like. If you have visited Europe, though, Plaza Mayor is similar in appearance to cualquier plaza en cualquier ciudad (any plaza in any city). However, it is quite large. The plaza in its current form was built in 1790. The original plaza(s) was constructed of wood, and it went up in flames not long after it was completed (using open fire for heat in a wooden building isn’t a good idea). Apparently, madrileños didn’t learn quickly. The plaza was reconstructed out of wood after it burned down in each of the subsequent four winters (I think it was four). Eventually, the king decided stone was a better idea, and the stone plaza still stands today. Harriet said a piso (translated to a “flat,” better known in America as an “apartment”) in the plaza will set you back 1 million euro.

This is getting long, so I’ll wrap up. With eight girls each hauling eight months’ worth of luggage, one can imagine how epic our stash of suitcases was. After a full day and a half in Madrid, we packed our hired van with our goodies, rode to the Estación Sur de Autobuses (the bus station for people traveling south) and headed toward our Extremaduran adventure.  

I couldn't quite capture its epic-ness.