4Goodness, it’s been a long time since I’ve written. I’m sorry I’ve let so much time pass. I have a lot of things to talk about, so I’ll probably sort of just go through them in a haphazard way.
My “Continuation Period” classes began last week. I am taking "Women Writers of Spain" and "Spain and Immigration," as well as continuing my Lope, Dance, and Cultural Realities classes from before. My professor for Women Writers is Milagros Molina, or Mila. She’s really cute, and kind of has a northern accent. I’m really excited for this class. We are reading a lot of poetry, prose excerpts, novellas/short stories, and two novels. My professor for Immigration is Carmen Castilla—another Carmen, so she will be Prof. Castilla here. She is an anthropologist and a professor at the University of Granada. She is so passionate about anthropology, and she knows so much. I think this class is going to be really interesting. I mentioned before my observations on the beginnings of multiculturalism here, and that is going to be a big topic in the class.
I am tutoring some Spanish children in English, for which I am paid €8 an hour. They are Estefanía, who is ten, Tulio, nine, and María, seven. They are really sweet, but I wasn’t quite prepared for how difficult it could be to teach something as basic to me as my mother language. When I taught clarinet lessons, it was a little different, because clarinet was something I studied and practiced, whereas English I just sort of picked up as a toddler. It’s also hard because there are three of them, and only one of me, and especially now that they are opening up to me, they have a lot of energy. Tulio and Estefanía are in the same grade, and Estefanía is very competitive. I’ve been making them some word searches with vocabulary words, and whenever Tulio or María find a word before Estefanía does, she gets kind of grumpy. But when she finds a word first, she’ll go and circle it on María’s paper for her, and then María will get upset and sad. I don’t have a lot of experience with kids, so when they get all competitive and grumpy, I don’t really know how to handle it, except try to placate whomever is crying and then change the subject. I also have to balance what Estefanía and Tulio are doing, as they are in different classes but the same grade, and therefore have many similar lessons in their classes, but María is two grades below, so she is learning different things. So I have to think of different activities for them, and I have to figure out how to divide my attention between them. I think I am going to start giving them separate word searches or activities, so they don’t get so competitive. I also need to think of some more active games, so they can burn off some of their energy while they’re learning some new vocabulary.
Last Friday, Alicia and I visited el Museo de Bellas Artes (the Museum of Fine Art). That had a large and very nice collection of Renaissance and Baroque Spanish paintings, as well as some other European painters. We weren’t able to see the whole museum, though, so I’m not sure what other collections they have. This spring, they are hosting an exhibition of paintings by Bartolomé Murillo, a seviallano painter, who is quite dear to the hearts of los seviallanos. We kind of had to rush through the end of the exhibit to get home for lunch on time, but it was really nice. I really like the way he used light in his paintings.
I went to Gibraltar last Saturday. I am not going to write a lot about it, because it poured rain the entire time, and was kind of miserable. I am glad I went, as it’s a very geologically interesting place and I will probably not have another chance, but the rain made it rather cold and unpleasant. We did get to see a few of the famous Gibraltar monkeys, though. Apparently, they are everywhere, and they’re not too scared of people, and are really good at stealing people’s lunch. But that day most of the monkeys were hiding from the rain, so we only saw a couple.
It was really sad driving to Gibraltar and back (also to Algeciras to catch the boat to Morocco) because we passed fields and fields that were completely flooded. I saw in a newspaper that the Andalucían harvest has lost €130 million already to rain damage. All this flooding has been really hard on the farmers and people who make a living from the land. The sun has finally come out for four or so straight days, so hopefully the countryside will start to dry out soon, but it’s going to take some time for all that water to go away.
Last Sunday, Alicia, our friend Corey, and I attended a Protestant church in Triana. It was really small, but it had a sense of community that I felt was missing at the Cathedral and even a little bit at the smaller church we’ve gone to a few times. I feel like this lack of community is not uncommon in Europe. I noticed it in St. Giles Kirk in Edinburgh too. People just sort of went to service and left. But at this little church (also the church we went to in Glasgow), there seemed to be much more community. The congregation had studies and mission events during the week, and people lingered a bit to chat after service, although as it wasn’t so small it didn’t have a hall with coffee or anything like my church at home. It was definitely quite refreshing to go somewhere that did have that sort of community, because that’s one of the things I value and enjoy most about church.
This morning, as we now do not have class on Fridays, Kerry, Alicia, and I did some wandering and shopping. And today, finally, I had a churro. I don’t know why it has taken me this long to eat one, but finally I had a chance to sample churros with hot chocolate. And it was delicious. We were able to sit outside in the sun, and we had a big place heaped with little ring-shaped churros, and little cups of thick delicious chocolate. Sigh . . .
There were several other little things like that this week—little things that don’t make great stories, but are so fun to do—but I as they don’t make good stories, I won’t list them all here. We are going to a flamenco show tonight, so that should be exciting. I’ll let you know how it goes. All for now!
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