Back in time..

Having just left a culture where cell phones are not the center of the universe and are often forgotten about and seldomly used, it was quite a shock to return to America for a visit and be surrounded not only by my family and friends, but by their cell phones as well. It is incredible how the use and necessity of the cell phone sky rocketed within the past year. Everyone is so accesible and so needed. I guess that's one of the reasons people cling to their phones as if this device is an extension of their arm. People like to feel needed and important. But I can't help but wonder if with that sense of importance also comes the annoyance of feeling obligated to answer. People know you are within reach and expect your immediate response.


Now having returned back to the tiny pueblos of Andalucía, I am reminded of the means of communication available here. I walk through the steep and narrow streets of Alcalá la Real and say hello to the elderly couples sitting right outside their front doors in what look like broken and faded lawn chairs. Instead of doors concealing the entrance to their cement and stucco houses, long sheets of plastic streamer-looking strips hang down. Everything is open and everyone is welcome. Why shouldn't they be? They have all known each other since their childhood when they ran through those very same streets.


I continue walking down towards the center of town where the children of this generation are riding their bikes and running and skipping around the fountain in the main square of the town. Their parents don't have to worry about using their cell phones to call the other parents to set up play dates. The children leave the house and find all the friends they could possibly ask for all together in the center of town. Meanwhile, their parents stroll around town saying hello to the people they know and sharing the latest gossip about their neighbors and updates about their parents' health. They pass by the tables of the cafes lining the main square and pull up extra chairs to join their friends and aquaintances for some coffee or a beer. Their children zoom by on their scooters chasing little dogs who have been released from their leashes to run free and play.

I suppose in the midst of all of this, some of these people are receiving text messages but they certainly don't know it yet.



A couple of weeks ago, I went with a friend to an outdoor cafe for some tapas. We were talking about our lives and differences between languages and the ways to express things. (We didn't have our cell phones out and laying on the table.) What was interesting was that instead of getting interrupted by incoming text messages, we were interrupted by people passing and saying hello from afar or physically stopping at our table to talk with my friend. You see, she was born and raised in this town and therefore knows everyone. It would be impossible to have an uninterrupted conversation anywhere in public with her because the people would constantly be saying hello. It is exactly like being in America and constantly receiving text messages begging for immediate responses. Someone says "hello" to you if they see you sitting at an outdoor cafe and you feel kind of rude to just ignore them to continue your conversation with the person you're with. If someone sends you a text message saying "what's up?" while you're visiting with a friend who has been out of the country for a while, you would also be rude to just ignore that message. That feeling of obligation exists in both cases. The only difference is the medium in which the salutation is received and then returned.

Neither place is better than the other but the intimacy of the relationships and friendships can certainly be compared. While the average American may be able to keep in touch with and constantly communicate with over a thousand people from all around the world, the average Spaniard from a small pueblo only communicates with about a hundred people but on a much more personal level. This could be good or bad depending on how involved in your life you want other people to be.



Disclaimer: In order to not sound like too much of a hypocrite, I will admit that by the end of my 6 weeks back in America, I was able to get my speedy text messaging skills back up to par.

Patios- Córdoba

In May, the people in Córdoba who live in the oldest part of town enter into a Patio competition. It is a time of year when they let people into their houses to walk to the center to see their patio. (The patios are usually in the center and the house is built around the patio instead of being in the front or back.) Everyone decorates their patios with as many flowers at possible. It was really pretty.

VIDEOS (Under the Sea & Jump Down Turn Around

A few months ago, we entered our 2nd grade and 5th grade students in "singing in English" competition. The competition will be through videos so we had to record the students singing their songs and then send it to the judges. If they get selected, they will be asked to perform it in the capital of our province, Córdoba, for the public. We have been working really hard in the bilingual music classes, learning the lyrics slowly, and creating some coreography to go with it. The parents came up with wonderful costumes and Bram and I and some other teachers put together the backdrops for this competition. The first video is of the 2 second grade classes singing together. "Jump Down, Turn Around" The second video is the 5th grade class singing "Under the Sea."


"Jump Down, Turn Around"




"Under the Sea"

Home Sweet Spain

It's my second year in Spain. Things are a lot less scary this year. Instead of feeling like I am fighting to survive the language, I am feeling comfortable and adjusted. I feel like I can actually enjoy meeting people and getting involved in activities through the community and in my school. This year I am teaching music to first, second, third, and fifth graders. I'm also teaching math and science and I'm loving it all. I feel more prepared before I go into the classes now that I have the experience and I feel closer to the students so it's easier to get through to them. For Christmas, we are prepared Carols and traipsed around the school caroling and knocking on the doors of other classes to sing our songs. Click play on the video below. :)





I haven't been traveling as far and wide as I did last year but I have been able to start accomplishing my goal of exploring more places within Spain. So far, that has included Monturque, Cadiz, Valencia, and Tenerife. I've also been on a few trips with one of the choirs to sing in some nearby towns such as Benemejí, Moriles and Doña Mencía. They are all small towns similar to my town, Cabra. We sang in concerts or masses for different events in each of the towns.

Monturque & Cadiz

Monturque is a small town very close to where I live in Cabra. In fact, we went there by bicycle. Me, Bram and Josecarlos rode from Lucena, where Josecarlos lives, to Monturque, explored a bit of the castle and museum there, and then rode home to Cabra. Monturque sits up high kind of on a small mountain, which is cool because from up there, you can see really far and the view is very beautiful. The castle is neat, too, but the coolest thing about Monturque is that is has these underground cisterns that the Romans used as their water source.
They have it set up so you can walk through and read about how the cisterns were built and how the people accessed them.



Cadiz was also beautiful but in a different way. It is an island off the coast of Spain but connected to the mainland by a large bridge. One part of the island was the inspiration for the construction of an area of Cuba right along the coast. Apparently it looks exactly the same, so much so, that Hollywood movies have been filmed in Cadiz, appearing to be set in Cuba since Americans can't actually film in Cuba but create plots that take place there.

fruit

I just bought 5 apples, 5 oranges, 3 potatoes and a cucumber for only 3 Euros.

2 continents, 3 countries, 4 days

I have never smelled so many different scents in so few minutes. With each step I took through the Medina of Tetuan, Morocco, I felt like I was going further and further back in time. The Medina is the oldest part of the city, where the streets are the smallest and you feel like you are in a labyrinth of food and spices and smells. One of the neatest parts of the day was when we heard the call to pray, ringing out from the little mosques in all corners of the Medina. But, it wasn't a bell or a clock tower striking. It was more like a monotone cry that almost sounded like the voices were electronic. The sounds of these men traveled through the market from whichever mosque they were occupying. Many of the men stop what they are doing to gather 5 times a day on the old Persian rugs, leaving their shoes at the door behind them, just to pray.
We started the trip by driving down the coast of Spain. Then we got in a boat and traveled across the water from Europe to Africa. The first city was Ceuta, which is still in Spain but on the continent of Africa. It was beautiful. It is basically a little strip of land that sticks out from the continent and is surrounded by water. You have the option of swimming in the Atlantic ocean or the the Mediterranean Sea. It was really cool to stand on the land and look to my right to see one body of water and to my left to see the other.
Next, we crossed the border to enter Morocco and drove to Tetuan. The view from the hotel was spectacular. The mountains we were facing were called elephant mountains (or something like that...) because one of the mountains kind of looks like an elephant. :)
Tetuan was where I tried my first Arab tea at a tea salon. The tea is drenched with sugar and floating mint leaves. During this experience, I was surrounded by men. It is very rare to see a woman out at night. Even during the day, I was one of the few women without my head covered.
The Medina was filled with little trinkets to buy and different types of dried fruits and nuts and other foods to eat. The streets were so filled with people that at some points we couldn't move. Every corner led to another corner which led to another corner and every hole in the wall was a window or a door of someone's house. People actually live that closely packed together. Above the streets were hanging sheets, I suppose to protect from rain or sun and the ground held stray cats and garbage.
I was met with the same feelings when we entered the Medina in Tanger the following day. It didn't feel quite as old or packed with people but the size of the streets were the same. The Medina in Tanger led us to this amazing lookout point where you could see the Northern coast of Africa and look over at the city of Tarifa. We also stumbled across a small tea room where about 7 or 8 men were about to gather to play some music and have some tea. (In Morocco, there is absolutely no alcohol.) We were fortunate enough to be invited into this tea room to listen. The walls and floors were covered in Persian rugs and instead of tables, there were spokes in the ground to hold up the tea. The music was wonderful and some of the instruments, I had either never seen before or only seen in my music history text book. On the wall were written words in Arabic for one of the songs/chants and they played very lengthy tunes without any music at all.

The rest of that night was filled with tasting some of the Moroccan food and being surrounded during dinner by people watching the Barcelona soccer game. (Barcelona won, of course.) There was also some souvenir shopping and chasing sheep down the tiny streets to try to get a picture.


The next day we crossed back over to Europe and then crossed the border into another country. Although Gibraltar is located in the Southern part of Spain (Andalucia), it is British territory. My dream of someday seeing and walking on the Rock of Gibraltar was finally fulfilled. :)
There were monkeys roaming around freely, climbing on the cars and stealing people's food.
Another wonderful moment was driving to the southern most point of Europe to see the lighthouse.

I think one of the coolest aspects of the trip was to be able to clearly see the influence of the Arab culture that was left behind, all throughout Andalucia, after they were forced to leave that area. I have been living in an area of Spain where much of the original Arab architecture still remains. The old tiny streets, the patios decorated with flowers, the walls lined with tile.... These things may appear to be very "Spanish" but actually came from the Arab influence. Even in a now English city, sits a Mosque, seeming to be out of place in front of the famous "Rock of Gibraltar" and the modernity of the city, but instead is untouched and still used.