Primer encuentro con la poli

Continuation of my culinary tour of South America in Spain...

My friend Rocío invited me to Cosmo Caixa (a hands-on science museum an hour outside of Madrid in Alcobendas) and then to a Peruvian restaurant to eat Pollo a la Brasa (Roasted chicken). The museum was pretty funny (there was a huge T-Rex outside) but most of it was closed. The food, however, was amazing, and I got to meet Rocío's boyfriend Félix (who is Basque) and her friends Brian, Jairina, and Marita who are all from Perú.

I ate: Ceviche (raw fish cooked with lemon juice), Pollo a la Brasa, Chicha Morada (a really sweet purple colored drink), anticucho (cow heart), rachi (cow stomach), and leche de tigre (a drink that apparently helps kick a hangover), and picarones for dessert (fried dough with anis syrup). Everything was amazing, but I was done with the cow stomach after one bite. It tastes like the ham legs here smell. Bad.

After a leisurely lunch (three hours almost) and coffee, we all decided to extend the day and go to Parque Retiro to listen to the drum circles that play there every Sunday. There are six of us, but we decide to pack into Félix's tiny car meant for 5 people. We figure it isn't a very long ride, so we should be fine. Halfway to the park, along Paseo de La Castellana, we are stopped by cops. Our attempts to duck down and hide apparently were in vain. In the end, Félix received a fine of what we figured was either 9€, 90€ or 900€ (the ticket was very cryptic). Aside from the fine, he was deducted 4 points. In Spain each driver begins with 12 points. They can lose points for various things. If they lose all 12 points, their license is taken away for one year. However, you can only get 6 points taken away in one day. So if someone leads the cops in a high speed chase, while drunk and stoned, and hits someone with their car, all in the same day, they are only deducted 6 points. So, obviously, Félix was a little pissed that they took off 4 points when he was completely sober, not driving recklessly, but happened to have one more person in the car (all of us with seatbelts on). I have to say I am slightly suspicious that this had something to do with the fact that Félix was the only Spaniard in the car...I am not the only one who felt this suspicion.

Banda Sonora

My morning subway ride soundtrack (click on the links to hear each song):

1. Caraluna by Bacilos

2. Reino Andalusí by Sergio Contreras

3. La Casa por el Tejado by Fito y Fitipaldis

4. Te lo agradezco pero no by Alejandro Sanz and Shakira

5. El último Vals by La Oreja de Van Gogh

6. Ojú by Las Niñas

7. Como la vida by Hanna

8. Pokito a Poco by Chambao

9. Por la boca vive el pez by Fito y Fitipaldis

10. Insoportable by El Canto del Loco

It is interesting to listen to the differences between Spanish music and Latin American music. I am fairly sure that every one of these artists is Spanish except for Shakira. You can hear such a difference in the sound, and how much of an influence flamenco is in pop music here.

Reggaetón y Las Elecciones Estadounidenses

Reading about the election from abroad has been an interesting experience. Many of my friends from South America who are living here have been following the elections pretty closely. Recently, Daddy Yankee, a reggaetón artist from Puerto Rico, endorsed John McCain, citing his support for immigration reform. While reggaetón is a popular genre in Latin America, the lyrics, although catchy (and fun to dance to), are reminiscent of mainstream hip hop in the U.S. and hardly warrants artists like Daddy Yankee ambassadors to their respective countries. Many of my friends here hate reggaetón and complain about its over-commercialization. Much like hip hop, anyone can be a reggaetón artist. Give them an Anglicized name, a beat, and you have a hit in Latin MTV. A good example is Nigga, a reggaetón artist who was extremely popular when I was in DF (México City) in the summer of 2007. His voice as well as his name is awful, the songs are provincial but catchy, but he was everywhere and on every ring tone I heard for three weeks. My friends here think it is absurd that reggaetón artists are representing the Latino voice in this year's election. Saying that artists like Nigga represent Latino voters is like saying Nas represents all of African Americans.

Other influential non-reggaetón Latino artists have joined a campaign to get Latinos in the U.S. to vote: Podemos Con Obama

An interesting article in Upside Down World, a political and social justice blog about Latin America: Reggaetón artists influencing U.S. elections

¿Qué pasa con el tiempo?

This city can't make up its mind. Two days ago it was warm and sunny. Today a wind storm arrived and it has been pouring down rain for the last few hours. Tomorrow it is supposed to be really cold (14 degrees celsius) and this weekend it is supposed to be sunny and hot...

Yesterday Christopher (the gitano boy who has major behavior issues and never has a book) completed an activity in his workbook without ANY help. None of the other kids had done it, and he said he didn't do it at home. We were flabbergasted. There is hope in this world.

The other day I bought cromos, which are soccer trading cards that you stick into a big magazine that has each team in La Liga, the Spanish soccer league. I had a duplicate card, so I brought it to school to trade with Alejandro (the boy who plays soccer games on his desk with clay). I brought the card over to him and he at first started yelling because he thought I took his card. Ramón (the teacher I assist) had to explain to him in Spanish that it was my card. I am the only girl in the whole school who trades cromos.

Things that are pretty cool about Madrid:

1. The Subway system. It is amazing. I am so spoiled now. If I arrive at the platform and I see that the wait is over 3 minutes I get impatient. If a train somehow breaks down, it just magically backs up (where does it go?) and a new one comes in 5 minutes. In Seattle, the buses run every half hour if you are lucky and if one breaks down, you are screwed.
2. Toilets never clog here. I don't understand it, it is magic.
3. People don't need sleep to function. The streets are busier at midnight on a Wednesday than on Sunday afternoon. For some reason people can go to sleep at 1 am and still wake up, go to work and function as though they slept for 10 hours.
4. Although people rush around a lot more here than in Andalucía, things are way more laid back than in the States. The other day I was complaining to Ramón after lunch that I ate too much. He told me to skip the first 15 minutes of class and go get a tea at the bar across the street. I declined, my guilty American work ethic unable to allow me to skip work.

Madrid Forecast

La marcha interminable

I woke up at 7:15 this morning and got in the shower only to realize I don't have to get to work until 10am on Mondays. That is one more hour I could have slept. But I made up for it by drinking two café con leche at the half hour break. This city could turn the biggest homebody into a nightowl. In Seattle I stay up until around 10:30 on weeknights and maybe midnight or 1am on weekends, depending on the week. Here I go to bed at midnight at the earliest on weeknights and 7am on weekends, if I am lucky. The past two weekends I haven't slept on Friday nights because by the time we get home I am so wired I can't fall asleep. I can't help it though, it is just how things work here. I am here to meet people, not to stay cooped up in my apartment, so the result is lethargy alternating with this wired energy that is probably due to my over-consumption of coffee. I am trying to somehow reconcile my lifestyle in Seattle with Madrid's before I give myself a stress-related illness like mono or develop that eye twitch I use to have. My search for a decent gym with yoga classes has been pretty much unsuccessful so far. Last Friday I went to a complimentary introductory yoga class at the "Body Factory Mujeres" gym. I am led down to the studio and I grab a mat and sit down. There is no one in the class. The mat is super thick and short, I try to warm up and do a downward-facing dog, and slip off because the mat is so tiny. After 20 minutes of sitting and stretching, the teacher still hasn't shown up so I put the mat back, gather my things and start to leave. I pass by the front desk and I am asked, in alarm "You left the class?!?" When I explained to her that there was no one there, she was so embarassed and quickly gave me a card for another free class. I definitely will not be going back there. My spoiled Seattle self has some high standards for her yoga classes.

Discussion at the daily staff breakfast (half hour of coffee, yogurt, fruit, tomato slices on toast) brought new insights into the gitano situation at the school. I have been spending a lot of time complaining about the many students who don't have books and how this would never happen in the States, etc. Today I was informed that the state provides gitanos with a variety of services including housing, scholarships for books, and health insurance. What happens is, many, at least at our school, choose to use the money for other things. There were some complaints from the teachers because while gitanos receive government support, many of them have jobs that are under the table or on the black market, and don't have to pay taxes. Since their jobs are not registered in the system, it appears that they are unemployed and eligible for government handouts. I had originally thought that a lot of gitanos were in poverty and discriminated against, but according to Silvia a lot of the kids come to school with no books, but with tons of toys and games. Silvia also expressed frustration on behalf of families who are lower-middle class who aren't given government subsidies but truly value their children's education and have to spend a big chunk of money on books, which aren't cheap in the least. They have two books for each subject, a workbook and a text book. Each one costs 20€ and they have 5 subjects. The school doesn't provide them with any resources so they also have to buy backpacks, scissors, crayons, paper, rulers, etc. One day we had a project and Ramón had to tell the kids the day before to ask their parents to buy them a pair of scissors or else they wouldn't be able to participate and make a mini-book.

Tomorrow we are going on a field trip. I am so excited! I am not sure where we are going and what we are doing, but I am sure it will be interesting. We'll see how the kids behave in public while in large groups. Maybe they will surprise me and behave like little angels

Piojos

There is a lice outbreak in my 1st grade class. The minute I heard about it my head started itching and I am feeling kind of paranoid. It's been hard, but I have avoided touching any of the kid's heads, which is generally my method of getting them to pay attention. Apparently the kids don't stay home when they have lice, which is great for everyone else.

A few other differences I have noticed:

A good portion of the kids have backpacks on wheels (I would say 3/4). It makes sense because they have so many books, but also causes chaos afterschool with all the kids running around, knocking things over with their rolling bags.

There is no nurse and nowhere for the kids to lie down. Elsa, one of my 3rd graders, threw up on the floor under her desk today and had to sit through the rest of the class, periodically leaving the classroom to go vomit in the bathroom. About halfway through the class, someone came to clean up the mess, and Elsa has not yet gone home. Ramón laughed at me when I asked him if there was a school nurse.

Alejandro, the gitano kid who acts out all the time because he has no book, was at it again today. This time, he created a mini soccer field on his desk with clay and spent a half hour playing a Real Madrid-Barcelona match, complete with play-by-play commentary. I told Ramón and he said to just leave him because "at least he isn't making a lot of noise".

I wanted to take a picture of some of my students today but they are not allowed unless you have written permission from the parents. I mostly wanted to take a picture of my student with the mullet, but petitioning the secretary seems like a bit too much work. Sad. I also noticed that in newspapers here, the kids' faces are blocked out, unless it is an article about a specific child or family.

Teachers move around from class to class and we usually end up wasting about 5 to 10 minutes every hour waiting for the next instructor. If one class gets out late, it affects every other class.

My schedule Monday through Thursday (more or less)

9-10 Class
10-11 Class
11-11:30 Breakfast/Coffee Break
11:30-12:30 Class
12:30-2:30 Break/Lunch
2:30-3:15 Class
3:15-4:00 Class

When do the kids learn? Beats me.

Noche Madrileña

The arrival of this Friday marked one month since I arrived in Madrid. In celebration, I decided to go out and spend a true noche madrileña (Madrid night). Mariana (my roommate), Greg (Rachel's friend and current occupant of our couch), Erin (my Aussie friend) and I headed out to a bar in the Malasaña neighborhood (Manu Chao sings about this neighborhood in his song "Me gustas tú") to meet up with Mariana's friends, who were mostly from Latin America--Colombia, Venezuela, Cuba, and then the lone Madrileño, Jaime.

Two bars and one club later it it 6am and we are leaving the club to head home. The whole night Jaime, who is a musician, has been carrying around his flamenco box and a drum because on the weekends before going out he plays in the Metro with his friends in a mini ensemble (including the violin). I am not sure if this is for the money or just for the sheer desire to perform for the thousands of people who pass through the metros every night.

It is 6am outside this club in some random alley and Jaime sets down the box, gives the drum to some guy, and within ten minutes the whole alley is full of people joining in on an impromptu flamenco dance party. Everyone is clapping, dancing there is a guy singing flamenco, and they switch it up and different people come to play the drum. In true Madrid fashion, this party lasts for about an hour, and finally at 7am I head home, happy, exhausted, and wondering exactly how Madrileños can pull this off every weekend and still have enough energy to get up and function at work.

P.D. I had the most random small-world encounter during my night out. I ran into Natalia who studied in Cádiz with me four years ago. She was with her now-husband Javier (they met in Cádiz). Last time I ran into them was at a club in Seattle and they told me they were planning to move back to Cádiz. But apparently they ended up in Madrid and are living in La Latina neighborhood. That was the first night they had gone out since they moved to Madrid. What are the odds?

Hummus

I think it is kind of crazy that there are two countries warring over my favorite food:

Lebanon and Israel sue each other over hummus

Los niños me van a matar

I just got back from teaching four 4 year olds English. It was only an hour long but I feel like I just worked a full day. First of all, they live across the street from me on the 7th floor (top floor penthouse style) that has an outdoor terrace with a view. The kids are all in their private school uniforms. Jaime, Gonzalo, Celia and Alvaro are a handful. I felt like I spent an hour babysitting instead of teaching English. Every five minutes Gonzalo was up grabbing at toys and pouting. Afterward the moms came to pick them up and insisted it was just because it was the first lesson. I am hoping they are right or else I am going to be pulling my hair out. Or earning 26 euro for an hour of babysitting instead of actual teaching, which is where this is looking like it's going. 

The next job I search for will be with kids who are able to read and write. That is my goal. I admire those who have patience to teach preschool, because I don't think I have it.

On my way home I always see the same two kids on the subway and to them the Metro is a jungle gym. They simultaneously climb up the poles in the middle and then swing over to the other bar and fall down. It actually looks kind of fun, but STILL.

I have encountered many spoiled, crazy children so far and I am beginning to wonder if this is the norm...

Ahí estoy yo

I might need to just go get certified and teach because being an assistant is starting to get frustrating, especially when there are kids who sit through an entire class without a book or activity while the rest of us are working.

Today, Christopher, a 5 year old who has no English book, sat at his desk while we were doing an activity. Of course he is bored so he starts to play with markers (at one point they are stuck to his lip and dangling out of his mouth), stands on his chair, talks incessantly, and then bangs on his desk. Obviously this distracts the other students and they begin to talk as well. What does the teacher do? He ignores him and tells other kids to be quiet. I follow along with this, thinking maybe his method of dealing with him is ignoring him. But Christopher doesn't stop. The entire hour this goes on. So he ends up leaving with the principal and comes back at the end of the class with part of his book colored. As far as I know this happens every day until he gets suspended and spends a few days at home, which for us means a few days without distractions.

But what worries me the most is the fact that it is normal to let a kid sit there and do nothing for an hour. In no way would that be permissible in the U.S. (if you know of a school that would allow that, please let me know) and it pains me to sit here and watch these kids, the majority of them gitanos from lower class families.

Fernando, another gitano, arrives at school and smells like he hasn't bathed and looks exhausted because he hasn't eaten breakfast. It is not surprising when I ask him a question in English and he has no idea what I am saying.

Then there are students like Bori, a 7 year old girl whose parents are from Africa. She is already speaking in full sentences and I am probably correct in assuming that English is her third language.

Oh and then there is Ciro, an 8 year old in my 3rd grade class. We were doing an activity about Jupiter. "If you were to fly to Jupiter, what are ten things you would bring?" While other kids were asking me how to say "my friends" or "a pizza" he was asking me to translate "astronaut suit", "solar panels" and "electricity".

The gaps are astounding, and it seems as though there is either little awareness of what to do, or little drive to bridge the gap. But then again, I guess it would be hard to try when the support of the parents is pretty much absent.

Posdata

Education has been a main topic of discussion this week, especially the comparison between school systems in the U.S. versus here in Spain. My friends, most of them from South America, have been asking me about universities in the States and why they are so inaccessible to many people. I was unable to give them a concrete reason why (higher administrative costs, higher professor salaries, maybe more money put into research?) but was shocked to find out how much a B.A. or M.A. equivalent is here in Madrid. My roommate, Mariana, is attending the Complutense University of Madrid, one of the largest and most reputable here in the capital. Her carrera, or degree in public relations takes roughly 3-4 years. Each year her tuition is 1,000€ ($1,500). Two years ago she got such high marks that they decided to waive most of her tuition, so last year she paid no more than 300€. For an ENTIRE year. Almost makes me want to stay here to do grad school so that I don't end up with $20,000 of debt after graduation.

Where is all the money going to in universities in the States? Why don't they offer subsidies for those who go into fields like education or social work or medicine? I know there are a lot of scholarships and fellowships out there, but still! Our government subsidizes its farmers. Couldn't we offer a break to those who are educating or caring for the future generations of our country?

An interesting article I read in the NY Times: http://lessonplans.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/well-paid-teachers-im-on-board/

Pokito a poko entendiendo que no vale la pena andar por andar

This year will definitely be interesting. That I can say already. I am currently at work on my TWO hour lunch break. I feel a bit like I won the lottery with my situation, minus a few bureaucratic bumps in the road. I am slowly getting used to how things work, especially in regards to the school system here. Things are a lot less strict and there is an attitude of "let the kids be kids" which results in students running around the hallways, throwing mini cars down the stairs, and not listening to teachers when they are up front clapping, shouting, or doing whatever they can to get their attention.

So far my favorite student is a 6 year old named Kevin, complete with white tennis shoes, a denim jacket, and a sweet mullet. I will try to get a picture.

Social relations are also a bit different, as there are few immigrant students in the school, including Moroccans and South Americans. But so far the relations with the gitanos (the word for gypsies, and although the PC word is Roma, all the teachers refer to the kids as gitanos, therefore I will use that term). According to the teacher I work with, Ramón, education is not highly valued in the gypsy community, or at least not formal schooling. In order to motivate parents to send their kids to school, the government gives them a stipend. There is an attendance requirement, which isn't the full amount of school days, so often the kids are only there the exact amount of days required to receive money. Books are not provided by the school district for kids, and so many of the gitano kids don't have the workbooks and texts needed to do assignments, so while we are working on an activity, they just sit there and do nothing. By nothing I mean spinning around in their chairs, throwing stuff, talking, or mostly bothering everyone around them. This would never fly in the U.S. and is one thing that I am having a lot of trouble getting used to. When parents are brought in to discuss behavior issues, I am told that they are not super cooperative and basically tell the teachers that it is the instructor's problem, not theirs. While I know that discrimination of gitanos as well as immigrants is pretty rampant in this country, it also seems like a huge dilemma of, how do we teach these kids whose parents only send them here to get a stipend. They show up every so often, therefore they don't follow the lesson, are confused, and instead of trying, obviously, they act out. Interestingly enough, each kid who had major behavior issues I later found out was gitano.

Since the classes are a bit crazy I walk around and make the kids pay attention, by taking stuff from them, physically moving them, or staring at them until they listen. They probably think I am the strictest assistant they have ever had, but so far I think they like me. Every time I walk down the hall I hear "Hell-oooo Maya, hell-ooo". It is nice that here I can hug the students, or be affectionate without worrying about getting accused of something. I guess that is one aspect that is better...I will keep searching for more...

They still think I speak no Spanish even though they talk to me in Spanish, then I respond to them in English. Even the 3rd graders haven't picked up on that. One kid today asked me (in Spanish) "Can I go poop?" I stifled my smile and pointed to the toilet paper roll on the counter.

Now I am off to eat salad, fried fish, paella, spaghetti...all free...not too shabby.