Settling into Extremaduran Life

Two Pals Bonding in a Park near my Apartment

Now that I've been in Cáceres for 17 days (I can't believe it!) I've started to get into a rhythm: 

Tuesday through Friday my alarm shrieks miserably at 7am when it's still dark. I travel for an hour to Miajadas, a small factory town in the province of Cáceres, with fellow teachers who, like me, live in the city of Cáceres. 

Then I help the teachers infiltrate their students' ears with English. It's heartbreaking to correct their charming accents, to tell them that "does" is pronounced "duhhz", not "doos" and that "milk" has a short I sound--that you don´t say "meelk." It doesn't matter much anyway, though, because their English teachers are native Spanish speakers who have very thick Spanish accents, so the English they've learned up until my arrival has been a very Spanish-inflused type of English. Therefore, getting them to change they way they're used to speaking is not something that can happen in a day. I'm not sure it will even happen by the end of the eight months I'm here. But honestly, if their Spanish accents stay strong, that's fine. It's a beautiful accent. What I at least need to get them to do is UNDERSTAND English when it's spoken by a non-native Spanish speaker. They understand their teachers when they speak English, but when I speak English with my American accent, they look at me like I'm from a different universe. "Hello!" I'll say super slowly, so each sound is accentuated to the fullest. "How aaarreee youuu todayyyy?" They'll stare at me blankly, giggle, and say "¡habla en español!" ("Speak in Spanish!") But speaking in Spanish is not something I'm allowed to do, so instead we have to communicate with smiles and gestures. This isn't just little kids I'm talking about. Twelve-year-olds, who have been learning Spanish since kindergarten, will often fail to understand a phrase as basic as "how are you?"

I hope I can help them, but I'm starting to teach at another school next week, so I'll only have six hours at each one, and within each one, I'm divided up among many classes. So I'll only see some students for about an hour a week, which really isn't enough to expose them to English. If it were up to me, I'd devote all twelve hours to one class so at least those students could benefit, rather than spread myself so thin that no one benefits. But it's not up to me.

Many of the students here in Miajadas are gypsies. According to the teachers, gypsies don't value education and therefore don't buy their children the books they need or bring their kids to school on a regular basis. By 6th grade, many of the students have taken on a defiant attitute. When I try to talk to them, they say "No entiendo inglés" ("I don´t understand English") as if it's an established fact and there's nothing they'd like to do to change it. But in kindergarten, they still seem eager to learn, and it's disturbing to see them sitting at their desks, with nothing to do, while the other children color in their books.

Anyway, around 2pm the teachers and I embark on the hour-long drive back to Cáceres (during which time I usually sleep). If it's a Tuesday or Thursday, I then have more classes to teach at an English academy that happens to be right in my apartment building. Here's how I got the job there: One day, I was walking down the stairs with one of my roommates, Unai, and the door to the academy was open. Unai is friends with the director, so they were chatting, and the director, when he found out I was American, immediately asked me to work there. He let out quite a sigh of relief when I said yes-- he was clearly overbooked and desperate. So the following day I arrived at the academy, expecting that he'd tell me about the students, give me some teaching tips, provide me with some materials, etc. But he immediately set me off to teach four classes of students of all ages. Luckily improvising proved to work out fine, although by the end of the day I was so dazed i have no idea how I was able to cook dinner, brush my teeth, or put on my pajamas. Although it's obviously quite convenient to have the academy right in my building, it's not always ideal. The director showed up at my apartment one day when I wasn't supposed to be working, and asked if I could work. I told him no because I really wanted to take a nap. So hopefully he got the point and won't do that again. When I told Unai about what happened, amazed at how unprofessional it was for him to show up like that, he didn't seem surprised at all. He said bosses in Spain are often unprofessional and disorganized, and in order to avoid getting trampled on, you have to "echar cara" (stand up for yourself and be confident).

So yeah, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, basically all I do is teach. On Wednesdays and Fridays, I have a little more time after teaching in Miajadas to nap and explore Cáceres, which is always hustling and bustling at night. Unfortunately I can never stay out late if I want to avoid being a zombie the next day at work. Saturdays, Sundays, and Mondays are free days! It's definitely necessary to have three-day weekends if I want to travel at all since Cáceres is tucked far away from everywhere else in Spain. For instance, this past weekend, I went to a beach in Malaga with Antonio (who was back in Spain for a few days) and visited Javi's apartment in Malaga. That was about a seven-hour busride--definitely not worth it for only two days. Going to the beach in October made me feel like I was going back in time and that it was summer once again!  It's supposed to get cold here soon, though...But least I'll be able avoid the Massachusetts snow storms.