Life & Language Lessons

Dos Besos:
More on kissing… as it turns out, there are many times one can be double kissed without expecting it. The other day I made cookies for my bible study group and now I know that if I’m ever in the mood for a lot of double kisses all I have to do is make cookies.
I have a Venezuelan friend here. As we were saying goodbye the other day, I asked, “In Venezula, only one kiss is given, right?” She confirmed that this was indeed the case and quickly responded with, “How many kisses do you give in your country?” I told her that we shake hands instead of kissing, and tried to explain the concept of a “personal space bubble”, but I’m not sure that it made much sense. They’re not real big on personal space bubbles in Spain, and I don’t imagine they exist in Venezuela either. I like the lack of bubbles.

Guapa!:
Another embarrassing story. The other day as I was leaving church someone called out, “guapa!” and I turned around attentively thinking someone needed to talk me. Hahaha. I am often called “guapa” instead of my name, but that’s normal here for most young women.

Polvo vs. pavo:
These words really aren’t that similar – which makes my confusing them all the more embarrassing. Let’s make a long story short and just say that my pastor and his wife respectfully thought that Americans eat “dust” on Thanksgiving as opposed to “turkey”. They believed this for about twenty minutes until my error was realized and we cleared up the issue. We laughed for about 5 minutes straight. They had thought it was strange, but if it was our tradition, they didn’t want to laugh at it!

Perdón, donde esta…?
It’s happened twice now. Lost Spaniards have asked me for directions while I’m out taking a walk. One of the times I was actually able to give the person directions (that may be a small miracle; not only because I’m actually a foreigner myself, but also because of my dismal sense of direction). It made my day both times it happened. My excitement sprung from the hope that
my foreignness may not be quite as obvious as I always assume.

A change of plans...
I may have told some of you that when I arrived in Spain, the program director surprised me by letting me know that I’d mainly be teaching International Commerce, not English! You’ve got to love the Spanish way of doing things (please sense the use of strong sarcasm). So anyway, I started teaching International Commerce a few weeks ago, and it’s going surprisingly well. I was initially afraid of the fact that I’m not exactly qualified to teach International Commerce to adults, but it turns out that the biggest challenge is (YAWN), excuse me, as I was saying, the biggest challenge is keeping the students (YAWN), excuse me again, um, what was I saying? Oh yes, AWAKE. The material is rather dry – to say the least. Thankfully, I’ve been doing activities with them that actually get them involved and force them to learn the material. I sense that they appreciate my efforts to make something so dry a little bit more fun.

Tiffany and I have been busily planning our adventures throughout Spain together. Tiff has been researching all sorts of things, and I’ve created a spreadsheet detailing our itinerary and a budget breakdown. I guess that kind of makes us look like non-spontaneous dorks, but I love it. As they say here, “me hace ilusión” – I’m really looking forward to it!

A time to be thankful

I’m going to admit something very bad to you. This year, I had plans not only to be un-thankful on Thanksgiving, but to be a bit grumpy as well. When I thought about all the things that make the day special: good food, family, dad’s cheesy jokes – I realized that this year would be lacking more than one of the key elements. Thanksgiving is (obviously) not celebrated in Spain, and most people here have never even heard of it. So, imagine my surprise when my pastor and his wife invited me and my host family over to their house to celebrate Thanksgiving! I was blown away by their generosity and hospitality. Inma made an apple pie (her first one ever!), and another American friend of ours made pumpkin pie from scratch. After consuming a big Spanish meal, we just sat around talking, laughing, and singing. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I just feel super blessed and loved. It’s really humbling to have a God that is so good to me despite my sometimes bad attitude and lack of trust. He continues to surprise me with His love. I hope you all had reasons to be thankful this Thanksgiving, too. God bless.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness.”
~Jeremiah 31:3

¡Olé!

Today was an exciting day. A package arrived from my parents containing: brown sugar, baking soda, chocolate chips, and (ahem) my teddy bear. Most of you know about my love of baking, and I cannot wait to make something delicious for Inma and Antonio. There is a serious lack of good cakes and sweet breads here. At this point you may also be thinking, “Sarah is 23.75 years old, she doesn’t need her teddy bear anymore”. Well, thinking that was precisely my mistake. You see, when one has slept with a teddy bear for 21 years, it’s amazing how difficult it can be to sleep without it. Slightly embarrassing, I know, but I promised to include embarrassing details on my blog and I certainly wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone. Anyway, all that to say: I’m very happy today, and, “Thank you, Mom and Dad”!

In other news, I’ve been doing some traveling lately. Last weekend I went to a town on the Southwestern coast called “Vejer de la Frontera”, which is near Cadiz. It was a pretty good time. Also, this past Friday I went to Sevilla, which was a really good time. I got to see the famous cathedral there, visit a few other touristy destinations, and see live Flamenco. Check out the pictures on Facebook.

Last but not least - I got a big surprise last week! Tiffany is planning to come visit me in December for two weeks!! I can’t wait to see Tiff, and to travel around Spain with her.

That’s all for now folks, until next time. :)

I’ll take the siesta, but I’ll pass on grass.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here for over a month! I feel like I’m starting to acclimate in some ways, and in other ways I’m still the stupid foreigner who doesn’t know what’s going on! Some days I feel like I’m improving in the language, and other days I feel like I’ll never learn it. Some days I love Spain, and other days it frustrates me to death.

I’ve learned that starting a life in a new country is not any easy thing – it’s full of obstacles that can cause a person to become disheartened. You may be surprised to find out that I frequently experience discrimination because I am a foreigner. However, I wouldn’t trade this experience; not just for the wonderful things about it, but for the hard things, too. I come from a country that is made up of immigrants – immigrants who went through, and continue to go through, the same challenges that I’m facing. This experience is invaluable and I’m growing in ways I never could have otherwise.

Teaching. is. great. I love it. I feel like a fish in water. It’s what I’m supposed to do. The students are a lot of fun and I really enjoy planning classes. I teach adults (ages 18 -30), so they’re my age, which is weird and cool at the same time. The first day of class the students had the opportunity to ask me questions. The questions from the female students were the normal questions one would expect on the first day. The questions from the male students were: “Are you married?”, “Do you have a boyfriend?”, and, “Do you like Spanish men?”. I took these questions as jokes. It’s been interesting (in a good way) getting to know the students over the last month. I feel like I have a real opportunity to be a “light” in a “dark place”. The abuse of alcohol and drugs seems to be ubiquitous, and is considered completely normal. In fact, I wasn’t sure what to do when one of the students started casually rolling a marijuana joint after class one day. It’s not necessarily the daily routine of drug and alcohol abuse that surprises me - it’s more how strange they consider it if this is not one’s daily routine. I think that the students don’t really know what to make of me. I arrive at class each day excited to teach and happy about life. I think that they must think I’m taking something, but I hope that as we get to know each other better, they’ll see that it’s really just the Christ in me that gives me joy and enables me to love others.

Double it up

Many of you are acquainted with the concept of giving cheek kisses. In many Latin American countries it’s proper to give an “air kiss” to a person’s cheek as you greet them. Well, I guess the Spanish like kisses because you don’t get one kiss, but two, and you don’t just double kiss someone when you greet them, but also to say goodbye. You may even get double kissed out of the blue if the person is particularly excited about the conversation you’re having, or particularly happy to see you. Double kissing is a lot of fun, but, it does have its down-sides. For instance, sometimes individuals take advantage of this tradition by actually planting a wet one on both cheeks and embracing you firmly. This has happened to me with numerous strangers.
Also, all the kissing is rather time consuming. When you walk into a room, you must double kiss every person in the room as a greeting. When leaving the room, you must double kiss every person again. If you do not, this may be highly offensive. This tends to be especially time consuming at church, or any venue with large groups of people. No matter, though, because the Spanish do not concern themselves with time. :)
Despite some of the aspects of this tradition that I have considered disadvantageous, I remain strongly in favor of the double kiss. Because seriously, twice as many kisses = twice as much fun. Don’t you think so?

Spanish hill towns and 6 course meals

This weekend was so much fun! It was a long weekend in celebration of Columbus day, and I did quite a bit. On Sunday we went to Fuente Tojar, which is a typical Spanish hill town. It was adorable and just like all the pictures I had seen in the books I read before coming. According to Inma I was "flipiando" (flipping out).
On Monday I went to my first Spanish wedding, which was a lot of fun. I had to laugh at some of the differences (but only to myself). For instance, the bride walked down the isle with no warning, while the room was only 1/4 full, and while people were talking to each other! After she came in, the room filled up with people and the ceremony started. After the wedding, we went to eat. Our plates were filled with meats, cheeses, shrimp and bread. Thinking this was the main course, I started going at it. Noticing that some of the other people weren't eating as voraciously, I started wondering if this wasn't the only course. It wasn't. There were 6 courses. I was full. It was probably about 4 hours of sitting around and eating. After this huge meal we all started dancing - yes, all of us. I'm talking about the youngest kid to the oldest lady - everyone was all about the dancing. Also, the wedding lasted from 12pm - 7:30pm! Another funny thing about the wedding was that I happened to be sitting next to a girl who used to be engaged to the groom! Crazy, huh? Anyway, her name is Sandy and she's from Wales. She's been living in Spain for 10 years and she's my first friend here! The picture I just posted is of her and me. After the wedding she and I went out to "the cinema". She has the most endearing Welsh accent and I was just trying to ask her lots of questions to make her talk more. :-) Ha, and as a side note, they have assigned seating at movies here! Forget about chosing the section you like. lol.
Anyway, I've been having way too much fun and it really isn't even fair. I hope you're all doing well and feel free to email me anytime to set up a phone date (I'll call you and it won't cost you anything). Love and hugs.

Out and about in Cordoba