ENTRY FROM OLD BLOG (4 OF 4) 9-11-2009

GRANADA´S SELF DESTRUCTION AND A VISIT FROM VERMONT!

Granada´s Self Destruction

    I don´t know if it´s just me, but I believe that Granada is self destructing.  Last year I noticed a couple of construction sites starting.  One was supposed to be a 6 month project to build a skate park and expand the athletic complex near my old flat.  7 months later they are still a ways from finishing.  The larger project however, was to create a metro that should travel from the suburbs to Granada for easier commuting.  I think this is scheduled to take up to 4 years, which doesn´t seem too bad on its own.  But the problem is that the construction sites have effectively closed down a lot of the main roads in the city, and with it a lot of the businesses downtown have lost revenue or closed entirely.  Now I had thought that with such a large project going on they would hire all the construction workers to work on the same project to speed it along, and focus on 1 part of the lines first before moving on to the other lines.  For some reason I don´t understand they have done neither of these.  They are trying to build the entire metro system simultaneously, which is a very noteworthy goal, except that I can see some parts of the line are nearly completed in the suburbs, but in the urban areas (where all the lines are going to lead) they haven´t finished digging up the streets.  So I think it could be a few years before this part of downtown recovers economically (*NB The unemployment rate in Granada in February of 2009 was around 30%, I don’t know what it is today, but I don’t think it’s much lower than that).  On top of that many of the small streets in down town are being torn up and repaved.  I really like the way they are doing it, making the drains in the center of the street, and digging up the old pavement before laying more on, thus avoiding problems where the road becomes 6” (15cm) higher than the 

Bathroom issues

This past week we’ve had several issues with the cuarto baño (bathroom).  First the light went out, which meant a couple of days of darkness in the bathroom, since there isn´t a window there. That has been temporarily improved by putting a small red lamp in there.  It´s enough to shower and stuff by, but anything in the mirror is difficult.  Also, the hot water was not working for a couple of days, and now it´s the toilet that isn´t working so we have to ¨flush¨the toilet by dumping clean water into the toilet.  Not terribly effective but keeps moderately clean water on top.

Visit from a VTer! 

My friend Becky came to visit this weekend.  She is from Essex, VT and is teaching in Madrid.  We made pancakes for lunch for my roommates :)  We went out a little bit, but had a fairly relaxing weekend

ENTRY FROM OLD BLOG (3 OF 4) 23-10-2009

¿ESCANDALÚ? NO LO CREO, PERO TODAVÍA DIVERTIDO

Pepa left us on Tuesday morning to go to her town in Almería because she cannot see out of her left eye.  She is very calm about it, she told us that it has happened before, she just needs to see her doctor and she should be fine in a few weeks.  We think she will be back this weekend.  She seemed to be more concerned that it meant she couldn´t drink alcohol (due to her medication) for about 4 weeks.  

Wednesday night I went to an intercambio, where people go to practice languages.  I obviously went to practice my Spanish, and most of the people there were Spanish or Latin American and wanted to practice their English.  I went with my friend Jen from NC. The intercambio was a lot of fun for me, partially because almost everyone there was a native speaker of English.  Other than Jen and me there was a girl from Texas and another from Iceland.  I spoke with the Icelandic girl for a while about our respective countries because I happened to be wearing my jacket from the University there.

The intercambio was also a lot of fun because I got some compliments about how good my English was because everyone thought I was granadíno (from Granada)

-Thursday night was another very interesting night for me.  I went out to dinner with most of my co-workers from school.  Dinner, in Spanish fashion started around 1030pm.  We ate for a few hours.  It was a fun dynamic because I rarely see more than 2 or 3 of the other teachers at the same time.  Veronica, one of the English teachers is in her late 20s I believe and then there are 3 student teachers and me in our early 20s.  All of the other teachers are at least in their late 30s, but based on Thursday night you would think our ages were reversed.  Some of the older teachers kept joking all night that since we were the newbies in the school it was our turn to do a strip tease for the rest of the teachers, and that we had to pay the bill.  However, in the end they refused any money from me or the student teachers.  After dinner we went to the Plaza de Toros (Bull Ring) and went to a club.  Alvaro (a student teacher), Veronica and I left around 3am because aside from me all the other teachers had to work in the morning.  When we left, there were still about 6 teachers partying it up.

See you later aligators,

After while crocodiles,

Ciao cows!

ENTRY FROM OLD BLOG (2 of 4) 19-10-2009

¡Qué wapo e mi nuevo compañero de piso, Tokki el conejito!

Look how beautiful my new roommate Tokki the rabbit is!

The most noteworthy thing to happen to me this weekend was the arrival of Javi´s pet runny babbit Tokki.  Tokki came to live with us on Saturday so we are now 4 in the flat.  This is the first time my roommates have had a pet since freshman year when we had some 12 rats and a hamster, at least until the fire.  The name Tokki, según Javi, means Rabbit en Korean.

My other roommate, Pepa, aka María José went blind in her left eye this weekend.  She says it is not the first time it´s happened, and it should be better with some medication within a month and that it is somehow related to her illness.  She said that one time she was blind in both eyes for a while, but that after a while it got better.

Sunday the 3 of us, along with about 30 others went to a near by town (Huetor Vega) to plan a haunted house we will all be part of on Halloween night.  Javi and I will be playing the role of corpses and Pepa will be a Zombie I believe.

ENTRY FROM OLD BLOG (1 OF 4) 16-10-2009

Today I cam across an old blog that I tried starting last fall, but stopped after a month or so, because I realized I wasn´t writing that often.  I will shortly be adding the 3 other entries.  They chronicle 1 month of my time in Spain

VISIT FROM THE HOMELAND

My friend Jess at the Mirador de San Nicolas

The past week I got to play host to an amazing friend of mine, the one and only Jess Holmes.  Jess came to visit me on Wednesday the 7th and stayed for a very quick week.  I took her on a whirlwind tour of the beautiful city of Granada.  We visited all the major landmarks that I love like the Alhambra, the Mirador de San Nícolas, el CEIP Sancho Panza (my old school), mi piso (my flat).  I introduced Jess to the 8th and 9th wonders of the world (tapas and kebabs).  I belive she enjoyed these things almost as much as I do, although she was particularly fond of her new friend, the pastry.  She also got to know my roommates, and brought out a side in them that I had not yet seen (the ones that speak English).  

At the weekend we took a journey the far and foreign land of Gibraltar, UK.  There we saw monkeys, tourists and cigarettes galore.  It was a fun adventure, and Jess enjoyed the day of listening to her mother tongue and my favourite language Espanglish.  

Tuesday night we took a bus down to Málaga and stayed in a hostel called La Casa Mata which is run by very nice Italians.  The hostel is where I stayed with Lery Chavez for New Years 08-09.  It is a very interesting hostel with a confusing name.  La Casa Mata in Italian (according to the employees) means The Crazy House.  In Spanish it means The House Kills.  This night Jess and I stayed with 2 German tourists.  They were the first Germans I have ever met who did not speak English as well as I do.  

Upon Jess´s departure Wednesday morning I returned to Granada to muddle my way through Spanish bureaucracy.  I had been told I would receive my NIE or Residency Card and my Tarjeta Sanitaria or Insurance Card by 2 different departments of the Andalucian Government.  I waited in line in both offices and wound up with neither.  At both places I received papers stating that I am entitled to all the rights of someone with these documents as mine are being processed and should be received ¨soon¨ supposedly in the next 25 days.  I love Spain and the very laid back culture I´ve grown accustomed to here in the former Kingdom of Granada, but punctuality is not a trait I take for granted any more.  But as we say in Spain, NO PASA NA  

        This photo is one I really like because in it you can see Spain, UK and Morocco as well as the Straight of Gibraltar, the Atlantic and the Med.  

Noche de talentos Talent Night

Last Friday, the 3rd, we had our Noche de Talentos, or Talent Night.

Kinder (aka Pre-school) class singing the insect version of Head-Shoulders-Knees and Toes

 It was a night filled with songs and a skit performed by students, teachers and community members.  The Salón Parroquial was filled with audience members from parents, to students from other schools and even a few tourists who popped by to see what all the commotion was joined the crowd.

Two colegio students performing a song by Coldplay

The ESI (Spanish as a Second Language) students performing their play

The finale, the teacher dance, aka Baile de las gringas, a melody of songs from the 50s-2000s

But for me, the highlight of the night was the 5th graders singing the school song.  The song is always sung in English and Spanish, but my students added a signed interpretation to the performance

The CEC Song

Up on a hill, there´s a school I know

Where the bellbird calls and the strangler fig grows

The mist is falling from the clouds above

A place where I learn, a place that I love

So come on up to the C-E-C

We love to sing out and be free to be

Que dicha que puedo aprender así

Come have some fun and learn with me

Me gusta jugar con computadoras

O irme buscando guayabas o moras

En la huerta encontramos más comida

Frutas de mi labor son pura vida

Look all around, if you can´t find me

Then look up here, get me out of this tree!

It´s out in the meadow by the soccer field

come see the tree house together we built

Es importante el ambiente cuidar

Los animales y la gente no debemos dañar

Es lindo por fuera y linda por dentro

Vengan todos a ver el Centro

Monteverde brilla y apaga la luz. Monteverde brights up and then the lights go out

Last week we celebrated Monteverde Brilla (Monteverde Lights up).  It is an annual festival celebrated in various parts of the country (at least, that´s what I´m told).  The afternoon is filled with singers and other performers, but the main attraction is the parade.  The parade is consisted mainly of bands from schools from the province of Puntarenas, but a few from Guanacaste came as well, because we are practically on the boarder (some maps actually have us on the wrong side, and some students believe we live in Guanacaste).

I went downtown with my co-worker Jesse and his family and his wife Sandra was telling us where all the buses were from, and where about those towns were, because many of the names were new to me.

We went down and waited for the show to begin.  We wound up meeting with almost all the other gringos on the school staff except my roommates.  We had a great time, cracking up at most of the parade.  First we saw a green Santa who was throwing food at the audience, with overhand throws from about a foot away.  We decided he was an evil Santa.

Evil green Santa

Okay, so at this point I felt a little culturally insensitive, because I thought maybe here in CR they have a green Santa, so I asked the parents from the Parents Commission (basically the PTA).  They said that they´d never seen a green Santa before, and that here people believe it´s baby Jesús who brings presents to children on Christmas day.  Then they explained that the "green Santa" was probably just Peter Pan.  So we either had an evil green Santa or an old, fat, santa-wanna-be Peter Pan, either way it was funny.

Luckily the next Santa we saw was a little less confusing for us.  He was traveling in the back of a pick-up with a few children.  This time however, it was the children who confused us.  The first one was dressed up in a costume that we decided was either a marshmallow, a cloud, or a snow ball.  The second was a cloud, complete with the rainbow wig and the third some sort of lizard.  So we had a few jokes about the land of misfit toys.

Papa Noel con una nube, payasa y un lagartiga

After Red Santa and the kids we saw a band that really confused us.  It was lead by a girl dressed as a corpse.  Most of the band was dressed as nutcrackers from stories.  But among the nutcrackers and toy soldiers there was also a Tinkerbell, Jack Sparrow (from Pirates of the Carribean) and another corpse.  At this point we figured that Brilla was a Tico holiday that combined all the US holidays (fireworks, parades, costumes, Santa, candy).

Sadly we left after was saw the 2nd of who knows how many bands pass, as we had been there over an hour.  So we decided to walk home, where the sights were equally interesting.  On the way up the hill, we were following the parade as they walked casually, without music to the "mall" to be judged.  On the way there we saw one drummer boy peeing through the fence on the side of the street, which for some reason cracked us up.  Then we saw another drummer boy wearing his drum backwards so it looked like a tail, or an extended butt.  He was walking along side a woman who had apparently not been told that Monteverde is cold, and was in heels and shorts that did not cover the last three inches of her butt.  So we had a lot of laughs at the people who were clearly newer to Monteverde than we were.



When I got home, Amy and I started making food when the power went out.  So instead of continuing to cut onions and peppers, I grabbed my flashlight, held it between my chin and neck in order to trim the bottom of candles that I slid into our empty wine bottles and spread throughout the downstairs.  The power returned in the morning.

Old wine bottles function as candle holders when
the lights go out.