Why immigration is a putada...

Upon re-entering Spain a few days ago, I was worried that there would be a problem with immigration. Since I had left suddenly on the 8th of December, and I had an appointment to receive my NIE (residency card) on the 19th (which I had to skip), I thought they wouldn't let me back in with a visa that had expired on December 1st. So I made all kinds of preparations, I brought a copy of the letter from the Comunidad de Madrid, explaining why I was in Madrid and how long my program was, etc. I had worked out the explanation in Spanish in my head so it would come out in a coherent way (authorities make me nervous, even if I have nothing to hide). I arrive at customs and present my passport. The official looks at my passport, stamps it, and says "Welcome to Madrid". What?!? That's it? I went to all that trouble and they don't even ask me a single question, they just look at my U.S. passport and assume I would never be there illegally. 

The next day I am sitting with Mariana and her family, and she says to me, "remember I told you that my friend from Caracas was going to come and stay with us?" I respond yes, and she launches into a story about how her friend got to the Madrid airport, Venezuelan passport in hand, and they wouldn't let her into the country. They took her into a room and she had to stay there, sitting in a chair for over 12 hours explaining what she was doing in Spain. They wouldn't let her call Mariana, and they ended up sending her back to Caracas, because even though she had a hotel reservation in Madrid, she hadn't paid for it. All because of her South American passport...

Que putada tía, que putada.

de vuelta por Madriz

3 week hiatus is over and I am back in Madrid. First weekend of December I was in a swimsuit in Las Palmas on the island of Gran Canaria. One week later I was shoveling snow in Seattle in below-freezing temperature. Now I am in Madrid sharing my apartment with my roommate's entire Venezuelan family whose Caribbean/Equator blood can't take the cold here so our apartment is an oven. I am back in shorts and a tank top.

Although my trip was sudden and under some sad circumstances, it was still really nice to spend time with my family. Lots of crying, lots of laughter, lots of Asian food, lots of games, and lots of snow. That is how I will remember Christmas of 2008.

I do a lot of complaining about Madrid (especially the rude people I encounter) but I remembered today why I love this city. Yesterday I walked roughly 6 miles, wandering from my house, through the park, and over to the center of the city to check out some stores (everything is "de rebajas" or on clearance). No matter what time of the day or night, there is always something going on in this city. Since I make hardly any money, this helps me out a bit, since all I have to do to amuse myself is walk around for a bit and I will happen upon something. A free opera in open-air Plaza Mayor, a Mexican mariachi band in Sol, people running around in masks (don't really know why), a protest march through Calle Alcalá, and there are always free museums to see on the weekend or the drum circles in Parque Retiro. This city is full of life. 

And it doesn't take a car or good weather or a lot of money to be able to get around and see it. 

Within the last month I have seen three separate times different women holding their young daughters in their arms over the sidewalk so said daughter can pee on the street without wetting herself. 

After 2 solid months of arguing with Ono, our internet/phone provider, we finally have Wifi. Ono is the worst company I have ever dealt with, and I don't really understand how they can still be in business with such horrible customer service. Two separate times I waited 3 hours for them to bring us a Wifi router, and they never showed up. When we called them to find out why, they said the order was messed up, or the order wasn't right. After Mariana called them and yelled at them for a straight 15 minutes, they finally got it together to send us a router and give us a few months of internet free due to the inconvenience.

Happy New Year's Eve to everyone, I will be eating a traditional Venezuelan/Colombian dinner with Mariana's family (plus her brother's Colombian girlfriend) and then probably going to Sol to welcome the New Year by eating 12 grapes (to signify each month of the year). Mariana's mom ran down this morning to buy grapes so the stores didn't run out. 

I had a good discussion with Mariana's dad about politics. He hates Chávez and thinks he is crazy and told us a few Chávez jokes. We all stayed up talking until about 1 am and then I finally woke up the next morning around 11:30 am to find that no one was awake yet. I was surprised that I woke up before the parents...that usually doesn't happen at home. 

Qué descanses en paz, mi querida nana, siempre recordaré tu sonrisa, tu ánimo, siempre estarás conmigo, querida bendita nana. Besos, te quiero.

Feliz Día de Acción de Gracias

(At right: yes, I am brining the turkey in a garbage bag)

This weekend I pulled off the nearly-impossible. 

I made Thanksgiving dinner,

in Madrid,

for 17 people. 

By myself.

I have a newfound respect for my mom and aunts who pull this off every year. I picked up the pre-ordered 10 lb. turkey on Friday afternoon at 4 with my friend Rocío and she helped me do some grocery shopping until 8pm. I then cooked from 8pm until 2am. Woke up at 9am and started cooking until people got there at 3pm. 

The menu:

Turkey

Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes

Gravy

Salad (with apples, gorgonzola and walnuts)

Apple Pie

Cider (spiked with rum) and cinnamon

The turkey came out really well because I brined it the night before in salt/sugar water with onions and parsley. Then instead of putting stuffing in it, I put a few carrots, celery stalks and parsley sprigs and put the turkey breast-down. I read on someone's blog that this makes the turkey more moist because all the juices run down into that part of the turkey. It was such an ordeal trying to make all of this because our oven is TINY and we have only ONE burner that works. Halfway through the roasting process, Jeffrey and Javi helped me transfer the turkey from a tray to a big pan that they bought at the Chinos (shops run mainly by Chinese people, thus the stores are called "Chinos") and they almost dropped the turkey on the floor. That was a bit hectic.

It all came together though, and fortunately everyone was happy and we had enough food. We were a mix of people from the States, Australia, Perú, Venezuela, Poland and Spain. It was cool to have everyone together saying what they were thankful for. I explained the happy story of the first Thanksgiving (before they massacred the Native Americans) and all was well...until a heated discussion about immigration ensued, pitting the Spaniards in the room versus the Venezuelans. I normally would jump in, but when everyone is spitting out their opinion at rapid speeds I can't get a word in. 

P.D. Back in Seattle when we had a dinner party most of our guy friends would help clean up the kitchen voluntarily. After Thanksgiving dinner everyone who helped out in the kitchen afterward was female. I made a comment to my roommate's friend Melisa about it and she said "I think this problem is universal."

¿Dónde está la bombilla, boludo?

I was invited to my friend Eliseo's house a few Sundays ago to eat pupusas, a Salvadorean thick-stuffed tortilla-like thing filled with either refried beans, or meat (in this case chorizo, since we are in Spain). Eliseo's girlfriend's family arrived a few weeks ago from El Salvador to look for jobs, so they decided to all have a feast and teach me how to make pupusas. I couldn't refuse because I am a huge fan of all Latin American food. Basically you take masa (which is corn-flour mixed with water to make a dough) and form it into a ball, then make a pocket and put the filling in it, then make it back into a ball and flatten it into a fry pan...sooo good. My friend Erin and I ended up hanging out there all Sunday afternoon playing with Daniela, the cutest 1-year old ever, and talking about how funny British and Spanish accents are (it always ends up being the Americas vs. Europe...), and learning about how immigration works in Spain (a lot easier and safer to be undocumented or "clandestino" here than it is back in the States).

I am proud to say that I am the new owner of a Madrid Public Library card! I discovered a branch close to my house and immediately went in to find out how to sign up. All you need is a passport and a Madrid address and you are set. So I have been frequenting the library every few days or so, stocking up on dvds (I plan on studying Spanish culture through film) and books about linguistics and Spanish grammar.

The school system here (or maybe just our school?) doesn't cease to surprise me...the other day the water system just stopped working. Completely. Fortunately the toilets here work differently, so they never overflow (they are amazing, I don't know why we don't have them in the States), but I still couldn't believe that they kept the school open. Then I look out the window and see the principal carrying buckets of water from the preschool to the primary school. Seems interesting to me that he was doing that job...don't principals have more important things to do? Not here I guess. 

I am now included in the teacher's gossip circle and I have come to realize that the administration is not exactly super liked or competent (nothing I am a stranger to in the States, hello Fairmount Park Elementary) and whenever I tell someone I have to go talk to the principal they say to me, oh god, you will be in there for an hour. He likes to talk. About nothing in particular. Or about the same topic over and over again. On the first day of work he gave me a tour of every single classroom in the primary and preschool, telling me about each decorated wall in the hallway and every name of every teacher (I think it took about an hour). 

One day last week they forgot to send in a sub to the other 1st grade class and the kids were running around and rowdy, so I asked Ramón if I should go over and keep them quiet (we share a doorway). So I ended up spending 45 minutes teaching them Math in Spanish. It was pretty amusing, I had them make a "cocodrilo"with their arms to "eat" the bigger number. I had fun, but that is not in my job description (or my contract) and the assistant principal caught me in the hallway to apologize, saying she had forgotten to give the note to a sub.

P.D. They subtract double-digit numbers differently here than in the States. I wish I could somehow draw a picture into my blog, but I don't think that is going to happen anytime soon.

Pull the aluminum lever to release the oregano

I have been informed that I speak English in a funny way. I say thir-dy, instead of thirty, and I say carrrr instead of "cah" or eraser instead of "rubber". This Friday night I was out with my Australian friend Erin and her British roommate, Emma. Even though all three of us speak the same language, we were having trouble communicating. Though Australia and Britain are worlds away, for some reason I ended up being the odd one out. I was asked to say the sentence "Pull the aluminee-um leever to release the oreGAHno" just so they could laugh at how I say the words. I am constantly saying "huh"? whenever Erin says something because she will use words that I don't know, or say it in a way I am not used to. I tell her that my ear is not tuned to the linguistic patterns of Australian English and she says that I am lazy or deaf. But being around so much English that isn't American, I realize that it is starting to permeate my vocabulary. The other day I was walking down Gran Vía, a pretty large thoroughfare in downtown Madrid, and I saw a huge line going out of a business. I asked myself "what are they queueing up for?" Other words I am starting to use are: dodgy instead of sketchy, trousers instead of pants, trainers instead of tennis shoes, underground instead of subway...but one that I am resisting is using rubber intead of eraser. THAT I will never use.

It is interesting to talk to people who are native Spanish speakers about learning English and different accents. In Spain, everyone learns British English so the teacher I work with, Ramon, tells me it is easier to understand the accent, and he also thinks it sounds more intelligent (I guess if you compare Tony Blair to George Bush, our accent doesn't really hold up). When I talk to my friends from Central and South America they are more in tune to American English, since there is an abundance of television programs and products from the States. My friend from El Salvador was joking around about how snobby British English sounds. I guess it all depends on what you are used to, because to me, Spanish from México is way easier to understand, and I tend to make fun of the Spain Spanish accent (when I am not around Spaniards, jaja).

The other week Alena, the other auxiliar (assistant) at my school, took me to get our paychecks cashed at the Ibercaja bank. We took a different way back to school, and she showed me the makeshift gypsy community that is located on the slope running from the school to the highway. It looked like something straight out of the outskirts of DF, México City. Wooden boards slapped together with metal sheets as roofs, and garbage littered everywhere. It looked semi-abandoned, except for the kids toys strewn about in the grass and weeds. Alena says that the government is in the process of razing the favela (Portuguese for shanty town). Apparently a couple of our students live down there so I am not sure what is going to happen to them.

Last week with my third grade class I did a class activity to learn the difference between a "map" and a "plan". I had them draw a plan of their bedroom and label everything in it. I noticed that one of the students, Agustín, wasn't doing the activity, and was sitting there half covering his paper. I then realized that maybe he didn't have his own room...or maybe he didn't have a home. This is something I am ultra sensitive to in the States, since we had a few students from Ethiopia who lived in a shelter. But being here around a lot of kids who live pretty comfortably, the idea had slipped my mind. So I had to modify the activity a bit to include any room...maybe your classroom, or the "comedor" (the lunchroom).

Next up: Learning how to make El Salvadoran pupusas (like Mexican sopes stuffed with black refried beans)

More cooking...

Ok so the picture makes it look like a pretty disgusting mash of food, which I know is my "trademark" (I  love being able to eat everything with a spoon and a bowl), but please take my word for it, this dish was mm mm good.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, as I had to improvise (we have no measuring cups, and everything is in metric and celsius), but it was really good anyway. Mariana and her friend Chio tried it and now my nickname is "La Abuela" (The Grandma) because the Abuela always has something good cooking in the kitchen.

I got this recipe from cooks.com:

Baked Chicken Breasts with Gruyere and Mushrooms

2 to 3 chicken breasts, boned & skinned (3 is good)

4 eggs, well beaten

1/2 tsp salt

1 c. fine bread crumbs

8 tbsp. butter

1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, sliced (the more mushrooms, the better)

4 oz. Gruyere cheese, shredded

1 c. chicken stock

Juice of 1 lemon

Cut boned breasts into strips. Marinate in egg and salt mixture for 1 hour. Roll chicken in bread crumbs to coat. Brown lightly in butter in small pan. Transfer to 1 1/2 quart casserole dish. Slice mushrooms over chicken. Sprinkle cheese over mushrooms. Pour chicken stock over all. Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 minutes or until heated through. Pour fresh lemon juice over casserole just before serving.

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies, 

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

'Cause I walk like I've got oil

wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend

you?

Don't you take it awful hard

'Cause I laugh like I've got gold

mines

Diggin' in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your

words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your

hatefulness,

But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I've got 

diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history's shame

I rise

Up from a past that's rooted in

pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and

wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in

the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror

and fear

I rise

into a daybreak that's

wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my

ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of

the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.