Oooo la gripe

I have to admit. I spent two days stressing out about the swine flu or "la gripe porcina". I read everything I could, I informed my roommate, she laughed as I launched into explanations I had read in the NY Times and the Economist. People began arriving in Spain infected with the flu, and mask-covered pedestrians started sprouting up everywhere on my walks home. A bit unnerving when people are dying in México.

Another principal worry of mine was my friend Margarita and her family, who had returned to México City in January after spending a year working in Seattle. She had sent me a new email in March with their new phone number in the DF house but I had yet to get a hold of them. Increasingly worried, I called them the other day and Diana, her 15 year old daughter picked up. This is a synopsis of the conversation:

Diana: Hello
Maya: Diana!!!!
Diana: Hi Maya, how are you? (Apparently my gringa accent gives me away)
Maya: Oh my gosh, are you ok? Is everyone ok?
Diana: Yeah we are fine.
Maya: Are you sure, everyone is fine??
Diana: Yeah, we are fine, what's up?
Maya: Ummm, I was worried!
Diana: Why?
Maya: The swine flu!
Diana: The what?
Maya: The SWINE FLU!
Diana: Oh, that.

Apparently they weren't really too worried about it, even though everything was shut down, and according to them the subway was practically empty and everyone was walking around in masks. As Mariana, my roommate from Venezuela, put it, "Maya, que nosotros latinos estamos acostumbrados a movidas. Esta gripe no es nada para nosotros." Translation: "We latinos are used to crazy things going down. This flu isn't anything." So I have stopped worrying, and if the flu hits Madrid "a saco" I will deal with it then. No hay que flipar.

Education, or lack thereof

CEIP Pasamonte, the bilingual public elementary school that I work at in the Moratalaz neighborhood of Madrid, does not have document cameras like the Seattle School District. We have one printer for the whole school that rarely works. Our internet connection is spotty. We do not have overhead projectors. We do not even have white boards.

We do, however, use old-school blackboards. The prefix "black" makes me laugh, because they are hardly ever black because no one ever cleans them. And we do not have new erasers, so each time you wipe down the "blackboard" it makes it even more of a mess. Our blackboard in my 3rd grade class is so bad it shakes when you write on it, and it has streaks of green plastic stuff running down it (that chalk can't write on, so it creates a bit of a confusion when we write across it). The state of our chalk supply is also in crisis. Ramón sends kids down to the office to get a box of chalk, "box" being the operative word. The kids return with two pieces of chalk, three if they are lucky.

From this information, one would gather that I work in a poor school that doesn't receive much funding.

So you would be as puzzled as I am to find out that just the other day, a truck load of furniture pulled up outside of CEIP Pasamonte. Good, I thought, maybe they will actually get something that works, like a new chalkboard that isn't about to fall off the wall.

I thought wrong. What they did unload was brand spanking new furniture for the front office. A new workstation for the secretaries. New cabinets for their files. I asked Ramón, what was wrong with their old furniture? His answer-according to the principal was "the office is the first thing parents and community members see when they arrive and we want to give them a good impression".

What did they do with their old furniture? It was moved to the staff room, and was left up for grabs for the teachers for their classrooms. How thoughtful of the principal and the deputy head (or "Devil Woman" as one of my co-worker refers to her).

Just another case of how our incompetent principal puts appearances ahead of education.

More to come, I have only just skimmed the surface.

Toma toma toma, nos vamos para Roma!!!

Tonight, FC Barcelona tied Chelsea in a nerve-wracking down-to-the-wire match, allowing them to advance to the Champion's League finals in Rome on May 27th. And yes, I live in Madrid, but I have been a Barcelona fan ever since I lived in Cádiz from 2003-04. Back then Real Madrid was similar to the NY Yankees, all superstars fighting for attention. Beckam, Figo, Zidane, Ronaldo, and Raúl. People tell me I am a Barça just because they are winning, but that is not true. Same with being a New England Patriots fan. I rooted for the Patriots in the 2002 Super Bowl when everyone thought they had no chance in hell of beating the Rams and Vinatieri ended up winning the game for them with a field goal. I have to stay loyal, they won me a bet!

Here is the tying goal by Iniesta that allowed them to advance to the finals (which led to an eruption of screaming in the bar I was at, and a few tables were almost knocked over):

The heat, oh the heat

It is 27 degrees C outside, which is about 80 degrees F. Summer weather in Seattle. Beach weather, in fact. But here in Madrid? Oh no, to madrileños this is nothing. I walked home from school in shorts and flip flops, and the majority of those on the street were wearing long sleeves, jeans, and shoes. Real shoes. Not sandals. Even  though I was wearing a tshirt-blouse and shorts, I was sweating. A lot. 

This means one thing. We haven't seen anything yet. I am scared. I have been told that madrileños don't think it is hot until it reaches 35 degrees or more (95 F).

Fortunately there are public pools in Madrid and I get off work at 1pm in June...

And by the way, Feliz Cinco de Mayo.

Raise your hand if you're foreign

Living in another country obviously makes you hyper aware of cultural differences, but with this usually an open and accepting attitude is necessary so that you don't start to go insane. Not only do I notice big differences between me and the Spaniards that live here, but also with other foreigners, like my roommate. She and I get along superbly, albeit we have had a few rough patches and misunderstandings, but we have always worked them out. In my case, I don't understand why she throws paper in the garbage. In her case, the "if it's yellow let it mellow" rule that I have always followed doesn't fly. But despite these things, I still feel like I do so many things that people here do not understand at all, but I can't really help it, so thus I continue, sticking out like a sore thumb.

A few examples:

1. I use a nylon bag when I go grocery shopping. My favorite grocer, this Moroccan guy down the street, always giggles and says, oh I forgot, you have your "special" bag. Only twice have I received an "oh that's cool, then you don't waste a bag" out of the 100+ times I have used it.

2. I wear sandals when it is hot outside. This is one thing that tips me off (aside from the obvious fair hair and blue eyes) as a foreigner, or "guiri". It can be 25º (78º F) and everyone is still wearing down jackets and scarves. For me, this is Seattle in July weather, so instead of feeling like I will die of heat stroke, I put on a pair of sandals and show off my pale feet.

3. Which leads me to: I wear tshirts inside school even when it's cold outside, because they have the heater on full blast. Everyone comments to me about this. Every day they get on my case about not bundling up. "You got sick last week because you weren't wearing a scarf". Or "the minute the sun comes out all the guiris think it's summer and take their clothes off".

4. Apparently I don't eat correctly. My friend Alena is constantly being badgered by her Spanish roommate about not eating the right things. Alena got sick with a throat infection and was told that she didn't eat enough fruit. Alena mentions that she eats apples, bananas and oranges almost every day. "Well, that isn't the good fruit. You should be eating pears and kiwis."

5. I am not rude enough in public. While walking down the street I am often cut off by other people who have no awareness of personal space. If I need to get around someone I say "excuse me" which no one ever seems to hear. But the minute someone yells at them "let me by!" then they move over. I still can't bring myself to talk that way, even though it is seemingly the norm.

While I am constantly adapting (and keeping my mouth securely shut to prevent myself from opening criticizing things here) I wish that others here would think for a minute about how many people are in this world, and how many different ways there are to do things. There seem to be a lot of people here set in their ways with not much desire to get out and see other places. If I had an EU passport and a "real" job here, ohhh the things I could do...my friend Chio is always traveling, but never leaves Spain. To me that is a shame. Italy is 2 hours away, Germany 3 hours, Portugal 5 hours driving. But it is all about comfort, I guess.

Ma'aselama

Mallorca

Mallorca is gorgeous.

Let me rephrase that. The part of Mallorca that still hasn't been declared a colony of Germany is gorgeous.

Arriving in our neighborhood of S'Arenal (on Platja de Palma) was like arriving in the place where culture goes to die. German bars with schnitzel lined the streets. An old Spanish castle had been gutted to make way for a German bier-garten with stain glass windows depicting men and women in leiderhosen. Needless to say, it was full of sunburned college students drinking pints. Allison and I were spoken to more times in German than in Spanish, and each time had to politely say that we don't speak German. There was even a fake train to drive around all the "guiris", but it didn't go any further than the beach-front promenade.

Leaving "guiri-landia" we rented a car and were able to see pretty much the entire island. The first weekend was spent with my friends Chio and Javi, who were grateful I had a license (they don't know how to drive even though they are both turning 26), and we went to Cabo de Formentor, Puerto de Alcúdia, Puerto de Sóller and Pollença. Driving through the windy roads of the sierra was beautiful, green, and I couldn't stop saying "ay que bonito!" the entire drive.

Chio and Javi took off on Sunday and Allison and I still had five more days to bask in the sun and go to the beach. Or so we thought. A storm blew through for the next few days, and since we had to wait a few more days to rent our car (a Ford Fiesta that we named "Fabián"), we took the bus into Palma, the ritzy capital of the island and province. We found an amazing restaurant in downtown Palma and ordered duck, potatoes a gratin, humus and pita, and goat cheese with peppers. We shared a bottle of red wine and the entire tab came to 34€. We were in food heaven. Me especially after surviving 6 months on bland Spanish food. The restaurant was situated in a small alley across from a church, and while we were eating, a full-blown Semana Santa penitence procession passed by us, complete with KKK hooded worshippers. Good food AND a show, it made up for the lightning and thunder storm the night before (which turned our street into a river).

We moved hotels (and neighborhoods) because the first one had no heat, no hot water, and was a bit sketchy, and found ourselves still in Germany, but on the border of 2nd Germany and the rest of Mallorca, so we took advantage and found our local Spanish cafetería to eat breakfast and drink coffee. We were the only foreigners in there, which of course meant cheaper and better food. No taco flavored pasta like we had a the "Big Kahuna" restaurant nearby.

A few days before we left we were sitting out on a patio café near our hotel and noticed that TVE1 news reporter and camera guy were wandering from restaurant to restaurant asking people if they spoke Spanish. Apparently no one said yes because when they happened upon us, and asked us if we spoke Spanish, they were suprised to find that we did. Then the full-blown interview began, asking me questions about "La Crisis" and the prices of vacations, and flights, and whether or not they were reasonable. My guess is it never aired, but it was amusing nonetheless.

To see more pictures from Mallorca: Maya's Picasa Album

Spain vs. Turkey

Continuing with my tour of Spanish pastimes (as my Spanish friend Laura says, "Maya, you do more Spanish things than I do"), I attended the Spain-Turkey World Cup 2010 prelim game in Bernabéu Stadium. We gathered a group of about 10 of us and started a botellón outside the stadium amidst tens of thousands of red and yellow clad fans. The streets were pure chaos (despite the rain people showed up hours before) and if this was just a prelim game I can't even imagine what a real World Cup match would look like here. The city would probably shut down and everyone would take to the streets.

I spent the evening chanting "Yo soy español español español" along with my friends, and even though it was a fairly uneventful match, Spain came out victorious (2-0) and we were out until 6am celebrating.

Just another night in Madrid.