settling in

I’ve spent the last couple weeks just trying to get into the swing of life here. It’s a tough adjustment, trying to build a life from scratch in place where I can’t communicate with people on a native level. But I’m off to a good start—getting settled into work, getting to know the town, starting to meet people.

I’m really enjoying work. It’s true; teaching really is gratifying and satisfying and everything they say. But my two classes with the older kids are a real challenge; they really aren’t interested in learning English. It doesn’t help that the fourth-year teacher is just awful. She only speaks Spanish to them—she even teaches English grammar in Spanish. She talks over me and interrupts me to translate for them, so they know they don’t have to listen to me or even try to speak English. They ignore everything I say and just turn to her for translations. I don’t like to just give kids translations when they don’t understand a word; they remember it better if I explain it in English, spend a little more time on it. She refuses to let me do this—she just throws out the translation so they understand what’s going on in that exact moment but forget the meaning of the word two seconds later. This leads to them asking the meaning of the same vocab word five times in one lesson. They’re just not getting anything out of my lessons because of her interference. I talked to my advisor about it and apparently this is a perennial problem with this teacher, but since she’s one of the oldest people on the faculty no one wants to say anything to her. Apparently a girl a few years ago left the class in tears once. I’m working on creative ways to get around her negative influence and hopefully spare my own sanity as well.

But I love working with the younger kids, especially the ones in the bilingual section. Last week I did Halloween lessons for all my classes—I taught them some Halloween vocabulary and we read a story about a Halloween party. The bilingual first years did a better job with it than any of my other classes. They’re eager to learn and practice English, and that makes a huge difference. In their art class on Thursday we took a break from lessons and they worked on Halloween decorations to surprisingly accurate results, considering that they don’t really celebrate the holiday here.


Levi and I have been trying to explore every inch of Zafra. Last weekend we hiked up one of the little mountains on the edge of town, the Sierra del Castellar. At the top of it are the remains of the thirteenth-century Arab fortress that once guarded Zafra. It’s completely in ruins, barely recognizable as a building at all. The place is scattered with bleached animal bones and in one case the rotting wool of an unfortunate sheep whose corpse was discovered by some fortunate vultures. It would have been a truly eerie spot if it hadn’t been so beautiful. To the east lay Zafra, a tiny cluster of stucco, spires, and parapets diced up by an irregular web of zigzagging streets and paths. To the west lay rolling fields, a tree-lined lake, and in the distance, the ranges of imposing mountains blocking Portugal from view.

This weekend we met up with two of the five or so English speakers in this town, a young couple from Belfast. She was in my position three years ago and had stayed around to tutor, and he works odd jobs around Zafra. It was great to be able to speak English with people who understand everything we said, without the circuitous explanations and complex games of charades we find ourselves using to break that language barrier. We also met a friend of theirs who said she could connect us to some students for Levi.

We’ve also had two guests this weekend, a young couple from Lille, France who found us on Couchsurfing. They’re traveling through Spain and Africa on their sabbatical year and are sticking to the off-the-beaten-track spots, a form of travel rare for people my age and certainly admirable. I’ve gotten the feeling that there is more Spain here in Extremadura than we ever would have encountered in Barcelona or Madrid. We’ve had a great time hosting them; they’ve both been practicing English with us and Levi’s had the chance to pull out some long-neglected French skills. We also got a delicious French meal of poached salmon, mushrooms, potatoes, and crème fraiche out of the deal. I love Couchsurfing—it’s the only reason in the world two people from northern France and two from the middle of the United States would ever be eating dinner together in southern Spain.

Monday is All Saints’ Day, so it’s another four-day weekend. Spain is great.

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