I had a friend two summers ago who, like myself, had decided to prolong his stay in Cortona, Italy by finding work beyond the UGA study abroad program. He worked as a landscaper that summer while I worked as a nanny. Often, when we would get together to hike or watch the events of the World Cup unfold, our conversations, like two fledgling ex-pats, would venture into reminiscing, comparing or complaining about the differences between the culture in which we were living and the one from which we came.
“Hoses,” he said. “Italian hoses are so much better than American hoses. Why do America have those crappy hoses that always kink and dry and crack.” “The Italian hoses are made of light, flexible rubber that doesn’t kink and doesn’t crack.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you should write your first book about it.”
Italy has come and gone and now, so has Spain. But with Spain in much more recent memory, I’d like to share with you all some of my observations since my return back to the states and how being away from familiarity really opens up a new perspective on even the simplest of things.
Grass.
I forgot how much I missed grass while I was living up in the “outstanding crag” of the Sierra de Cádiz. I also forgot about the American phenomenon of “lawn obsession.”
People.
I forgot that so many people in the states live their lives and base their actions on fear and frustration.
Toilet water.
The amount of water in American toilets is astounding.
Wine.
Can anyone tell me if there is anywhere in the whole of the United States where I can find a good bottle…I mean good…of red wine that is five bucks or less?
Underground.
Madrid subway system: anyone is up for conversation, ride is smooth, color and lighting aesthetically pleasing. Also, at some point, you are guaranteed to be pick-pocketed.
New York subway system: everyone maintains personal bubble and avoids any personal contact or connection at all times, ride is violently jerky, color and lighting aesthetically depressing.
Left Foot Disuse Anxiety.
Happened when I came back from Italy too. Me poor little left foot has phantom clutch depression urges while driving America’s automatic vehicles.
Public Transportation.
Ubrique: What’s that?
America:What’s that?
Business and business hours.
Ubrique: Guess I took for granted the fact that I could leave the house and in 1 minute or less, get fresh bread from the bakery, fresh produce from the fruit stand, and/or fresh goat cheese and eggs from the butcher.
America: Guess I took for granted that you have the option of functioning between the hours of 1pm and 5pm and that you don’t actually need 4 hours do digest your food before moving on to the next task.
Exercise.
At least in America, women are seen moving at a faster pace than a high-heeled strut and do not get disapproving or incredulous looks and comments from passersby when attempting to have a leisurely jog.
Medical Treatment.
America: Ridiculous amounts of money are spent on prescription drugs that are prescribed for conditions and illnesses that didn’t exist before the existence of said prescription drug.
Spain: Universal health care. But, for some reason, the first question I am asked upon entering into the clinic is: “Do you want bread?”
jueves, 26 de junio de 2008
Noche de verano
Es una hermosa noche de verano.
Tienen las altas casas
abiertos los balcones
del viejo pueblo a la anchurosa plaza
En el amplio rectángulo desierto,
bancos de piedra, evonimos y acacias
simétricos dibujan
sus negras sombras en la arena blanca.
En el cenit, la luna, y en la torre
la esfera del reloj iluminada.
Yo en este viejo pueblo paseando
solo como un fantasma.
Antonio Machado
Tienen las altas casas
abiertos los balcones
del viejo pueblo a la anchurosa plaza
En el amplio rectángulo desierto,
bancos de piedra, evonimos y acacias
simétricos dibujan
sus negras sombras en la arena blanca.
En el cenit, la luna, y en la torre
la esfera del reloj iluminada.
Yo en este viejo pueblo paseando
solo como un fantasma.
Antonio Machado
Great Expectations
Every coin has two sides, every sword has two edges and the pendulum swings.
I came into this country inevitably with preordained expectations. Expectations that I felt were reasonable, but entering into a foreign situation with any expectations is always dangerous because one can always depend on being greatly disappointed by his or her own expectations. The opposite, however, can also be true and one can be pleasantly surprised by what a place and its people have to offer.
I am leaving Spain in 1 week.
Every morning, I walk to school alone but along the way, I am hardly alone. If my timing is right, I am greeted by a timid little dog, name Curro who inches irresistibly towards me so I can give him a few good scruffs for which he invariably performs a sprightly little dance of excitement and gratitude. And if not Curro, it is the peacock who greets me, looking like some great cobalt and emerald seraph for his utterly disinterested and plain looking lover. And if not the peacock, it is the little goat herder with whom I see eye to eye. His skin is a perfect weathered caramel from the sun and his eyes always glisten out of the depths of his profoundly carved crows feet. I am always met by his smile and some emphatic and incomprehensible greeting before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of candies and shoves them in my hand shouting, “Caramelos!” No rules against taking candy from strangers here, though he is hardly a stranger at this point.
Everyday, I cross a wide marble checkered plaza bordered by orange trees and backed by dramatically sheer mountains. I climb 33 marble stairs in a brightly tiled staircase to my brightly tiled apartment which looks out across the plaza and towards the valley. My lunch, always exquisitely prepared by my two roommates, sometimes with my contribution, lasts for 2 hours followed by a siesta for another two hours. I give a private lesson in English or go to choral rehearsal or flamenco class.
Everynight, I close my eyes to the sound of wind pushing hard on the thin glass and weathered wood of my two balcony windows, or to the sound of goat bells tinkling off the mountain behind me, or to the sound of trickling water in the fountain below.
Then I wake up…usually, to the sounds of someone laying on their car horn for more than 30 seconds. That’s never enough, so then they give it another blow. Forty seconds this time. There is always someone parked in the middle of the busy street corner under my window where the fruit shop and the butcher shop receive their daily deliveries and the construction workers must pass with heavy loads. Loud. These people are so loud. And they like to be in your business. But sometimes it’s for the best because whenever there is a downpour and I arrived too late to take my clothes down from the line, rest assured, the neighbor will have already gone to the roof and gathered all my clothes before the downpour.
I came into this country inevitably with preordained expectations. Expectations that I felt were reasonable, but entering into a foreign situation with any expectations is always dangerous because one can always depend on being greatly disappointed by his or her own expectations. The opposite, however, can also be true and one can be pleasantly surprised by what a place and its people have to offer.
I am leaving Spain in 1 week.
Every morning, I walk to school alone but along the way, I am hardly alone. If my timing is right, I am greeted by a timid little dog, name Curro who inches irresistibly towards me so I can give him a few good scruffs for which he invariably performs a sprightly little dance of excitement and gratitude. And if not Curro, it is the peacock who greets me, looking like some great cobalt and emerald seraph for his utterly disinterested and plain looking lover. And if not the peacock, it is the little goat herder with whom I see eye to eye. His skin is a perfect weathered caramel from the sun and his eyes always glisten out of the depths of his profoundly carved crows feet. I am always met by his smile and some emphatic and incomprehensible greeting before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of candies and shoves them in my hand shouting, “Caramelos!” No rules against taking candy from strangers here, though he is hardly a stranger at this point.
Everyday, I cross a wide marble checkered plaza bordered by orange trees and backed by dramatically sheer mountains. I climb 33 marble stairs in a brightly tiled staircase to my brightly tiled apartment which looks out across the plaza and towards the valley. My lunch, always exquisitely prepared by my two roommates, sometimes with my contribution, lasts for 2 hours followed by a siesta for another two hours. I give a private lesson in English or go to choral rehearsal or flamenco class.
Everynight, I close my eyes to the sound of wind pushing hard on the thin glass and weathered wood of my two balcony windows, or to the sound of goat bells tinkling off the mountain behind me, or to the sound of trickling water in the fountain below.
Then I wake up…usually, to the sounds of someone laying on their car horn for more than 30 seconds. That’s never enough, so then they give it another blow. Forty seconds this time. There is always someone parked in the middle of the busy street corner under my window where the fruit shop and the butcher shop receive their daily deliveries and the construction workers must pass with heavy loads. Loud. These people are so loud. And they like to be in your business. But sometimes it’s for the best because whenever there is a downpour and I arrived too late to take my clothes down from the line, rest assured, the neighbor will have already gone to the roof and gathered all my clothes before the downpour.
Elvis Lives
That’s right folks. Elvis indeed continues living upon this earth and he, in fact, lives here in the little town of Ubrique in the middle of nowhere Andalucia, Spain. He, of course, has permed his hair into ringlets and made some changes to his repertoire: he is a professional flamenco dancer and instructor and looks about 60 years younger than he should look at this point (must have traded in his fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches for celery).
But it is DEFINITELY him. I know it because, when he dances, he wears a white suit and has not one pair of blue suede shoes…but two!
Furthermore, Kate, another language assistant, swears she has seen Sadam Hussein at the grocery store and I personally believe there is a whole colony of Yetis living in these mountains because there is just no way the goats around here can leave as much poo as that which is so generously sprinkled all over the mountainside.
But it is DEFINITELY him. I know it because, when he dances, he wears a white suit and has not one pair of blue suede shoes…but two!
Furthermore, Kate, another language assistant, swears she has seen Sadam Hussein at the grocery store and I personally believe there is a whole colony of Yetis living in these mountains because there is just no way the goats around here can leave as much poo as that which is so generously sprinkled all over the mountainside.
A Bird in the Hand
PART I
Pickpockets are the world’s best sociologist and psychologist. They know exactly how to read people, whether individually or in groups according to their actions, ethnicity, the clothes they are wearing and whatever other visual clues they get from a person’s appearance. They have to have this precise understanding, of course, because they make a living off of it. Essentially, they get paid on commission for being experts in the field of other people’s obliviousness.
If there is one thing to know about pickpockets, it’s that they are always looking. They are looking for weak spots, time warps when one person’s attention has fallen momentarily into a black hole, where they can slip in and out in a second and instantaneously extract the most important paper and plastic components of your life from wherever you have them stashed and then swiftly disappear into the surrounding fabric of conventional space and time.
Sunday morning. Madrid metro station. Pockets are loaded with cash for perusing the weekly open market. Ripe for the picking. Supremely juicy. Having warned them about Madrid’s notorious purse and wallet disappearing acts, my mother and my aunt stand conversing without suspicion or worry as the thin subway crowd seems relatively relaxed and unthreatening. I, however, didn’t engage myself in the conversation and, instead, scan the people around us. I come across the gaze of an ordinary-looking, young man doing the same thing: scanning. I watch him, see him give my mom and aunt the “once over” and then make a comment, rather inconspicuously, to an older gentleman who passes by him. My little antennas go up.
When the train arrives, the two get on separately. I see the younger man go to the far end of the car while the older man plants himself rather snuggly beside my mother. My little radar starts buzzing. I instinctively grab my mom’s purse which is hanging by her side and WHAM! Catch of the day, I am holding, rather un-amorously, hands with a pickpocket!
Now, very rarely do I reach my rage threshold, but, with the right combination of fear, surprise, and frusteration, I have found that I can create enough adrenaline to issue forth lasers from my eyeballs and fire from my mouth.
I looked at the man with wild eyes and scream “F%*# OFF!!!” (still clutching the man’s hand) then acusedly, “What did you steal!!! What did you steal!!!”
He looks at me, completely bewildered, I am sure, by the elf-like girl about to pierce the skin on his knuckles with her little claws and quickly retracts his hand before running away to the other side of the subway car.
Needless to say, nothing was stolen.
PART II
The Common Swift is the most aerial species of bird in the world. It eats drinks, sleeps and mates in the air. It never deliberately lands on a horizontal surface. Its wingspan and its short legs make it nearly impossible for the Swift to take off from the ground and I’ve been told that if ever to find one on the ground, I should toss it up to give is some air under its wings so it can fly.
Unexpectedly, I found one on the ground. She was on her back, awkwardly struggling to right herself. So I picked her up, wished her well and launched her into the air. She fluttered successfully for a moment and then crashed. I picked her up again and looked at her wings. One wing was not quite right. So, I held her. I kept her close, put her in a shoebox and optimistically did my best to feed her and give her water throughout the day.
But as evening fell, the sky-scraping cries of the swifts outside awakened her anxiety. I realized that I couldn’t keep the poor thing in a box and I knew that without the ability to fly, she was deprived of all things vital and I knew I had to let her go. I decided the best place to leave her was close to the cliffs where she would have joined the other birds if she could fly. So, up the mountain we went. Found a grassy knoll and that’s where I left her. I know she didn’t survive, but I am reminded of my little friend every morning and evening as the Swifts take to the air, their fast jet bodies with their chevron wings sewing wide loops in and out of the peripheries of the plaza.
Pickpockets are the world’s best sociologist and psychologist. They know exactly how to read people, whether individually or in groups according to their actions, ethnicity, the clothes they are wearing and whatever other visual clues they get from a person’s appearance. They have to have this precise understanding, of course, because they make a living off of it. Essentially, they get paid on commission for being experts in the field of other people’s obliviousness.
If there is one thing to know about pickpockets, it’s that they are always looking. They are looking for weak spots, time warps when one person’s attention has fallen momentarily into a black hole, where they can slip in and out in a second and instantaneously extract the most important paper and plastic components of your life from wherever you have them stashed and then swiftly disappear into the surrounding fabric of conventional space and time.
Sunday morning. Madrid metro station. Pockets are loaded with cash for perusing the weekly open market. Ripe for the picking. Supremely juicy. Having warned them about Madrid’s notorious purse and wallet disappearing acts, my mother and my aunt stand conversing without suspicion or worry as the thin subway crowd seems relatively relaxed and unthreatening. I, however, didn’t engage myself in the conversation and, instead, scan the people around us. I come across the gaze of an ordinary-looking, young man doing the same thing: scanning. I watch him, see him give my mom and aunt the “once over” and then make a comment, rather inconspicuously, to an older gentleman who passes by him. My little antennas go up.
When the train arrives, the two get on separately. I see the younger man go to the far end of the car while the older man plants himself rather snuggly beside my mother. My little radar starts buzzing. I instinctively grab my mom’s purse which is hanging by her side and WHAM! Catch of the day, I am holding, rather un-amorously, hands with a pickpocket!
Now, very rarely do I reach my rage threshold, but, with the right combination of fear, surprise, and frusteration, I have found that I can create enough adrenaline to issue forth lasers from my eyeballs and fire from my mouth.
I looked at the man with wild eyes and scream “F%*# OFF!!!” (still clutching the man’s hand) then acusedly, “What did you steal!!! What did you steal!!!”
He looks at me, completely bewildered, I am sure, by the elf-like girl about to pierce the skin on his knuckles with her little claws and quickly retracts his hand before running away to the other side of the subway car.
Needless to say, nothing was stolen.
PART II
The Common Swift is the most aerial species of bird in the world. It eats drinks, sleeps and mates in the air. It never deliberately lands on a horizontal surface. Its wingspan and its short legs make it nearly impossible for the Swift to take off from the ground and I’ve been told that if ever to find one on the ground, I should toss it up to give is some air under its wings so it can fly.
Unexpectedly, I found one on the ground. She was on her back, awkwardly struggling to right herself. So I picked her up, wished her well and launched her into the air. She fluttered successfully for a moment and then crashed. I picked her up again and looked at her wings. One wing was not quite right. So, I held her. I kept her close, put her in a shoebox and optimistically did my best to feed her and give her water throughout the day.
But as evening fell, the sky-scraping cries of the swifts outside awakened her anxiety. I realized that I couldn’t keep the poor thing in a box and I knew that without the ability to fly, she was deprived of all things vital and I knew I had to let her go. I decided the best place to leave her was close to the cliffs where she would have joined the other birds if she could fly. So, up the mountain we went. Found a grassy knoll and that’s where I left her. I know she didn’t survive, but I am reminded of my little friend every morning and evening as the Swifts take to the air, their fast jet bodies with their chevron wings sewing wide loops in and out of the peripheries of the plaza.
Feliz navidad
It’s Christmas time and I ‘tis the season to update you all on my latest happenings. I will try to be brief but interesting. I left many of you with my last mass email in the summer of 2006 during the course of a beautiful summer spent in Tuscany as a nanny, enjoying life with a great family with two little boys, Tom and Elliott. After taking full advantage of summer festivities including Italy’s World Cup win, the Palio in Siena and outdoor summer dance parties, as well as visits from the Saupe’s, the family in whose basement apartment I lived back in Athens, from a favorite old friend, Stephen Bailey and from my mom-climber of mountains and sister-climber of Sienese towers, I ventured to Bulgaria for a visit to my friend, David Elden in the Peace Corps. I returned to Cortona in September for a stint working for the same study abroad program of which I was a student the previous year. All went so pleasantly well, topping it all off with a visit to beautiful Switzerland just before returning to the states to find myself completely dumbfounded with what to do with myself. So, for 10 months I remained in this state before being visited by a twist of fate (or rather, a favorite professor of mine) who presented to me an opportunity of which I am currently taking advantage. This opportunity involves teaching English to Spanish high school students and though I made genuine attempts to prepare myself for this tank, it seems that there were a “few” things which I was not prepared to anticipate…
El habla "d'andalu"
I thought I learned Spanish in high school and college. And I thought what I learned applied to Spain and most of South and Central America but apparently, the brand of Spanish that they speak in Andalucia of southern Spain is of a different breed…”el habla d’andalu,” is a distant relative of school-book Spanish. Even more distant, however, is the Spanish spoken in the small town of Ubrique, where I have been assigned to teach. Words are amputated and spoken rapidly and loud enough to break the sound barrier. The Castillian lisp, or “zeta” (pronounced [theta] ) is used profusely, and consonants that I thought were vital to the understanding and pronunciation of Spanish are completely left out. When someone from Ubrique is shown on the national news, for example, their famous bullfighter, Jesulin, he is always given Spanish subtitles for the sake the understanding of all other Spaniards. So, needless to say, I spent my first month in Ubrique smiling and nodding, shedding my former knowledge of Spanish for an understanding of a different version of Spanish. After after a few months, however, my brain has wrapped itself around the sport of listening and speaking Ubriqueno by dissecting and removing certain sounds from words and leaving gasps of air at the ends of my sentences.
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