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
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