Angry Expat re-post

Hey everyone, I know I owe you all a post about Amsterdam, but this is an important issue that I want to spread the word about. I don't have the best things to say about the program I work for, I just lucked out by getting placed in a fantastic school that looks out for me when issues like this come up. A lot of people in my program are not getting paid even though we come here with student visas that do not allow us to find other work legally. Liz, a fellow auxiliar living in Logroño, La Rioja, has written a post about how we are quickly approaching the holidays and she still has not been paid for the last three months of work she's done.

"As most of you already know, I am in Spain on a teaching grant from the Spanish Ministry of Education called Auxiliares de Conversación or English Language and Culture Assistants. I wrote this long blog post last March with my thoughts on the program. So much has changed since then, and now I am going to tell you what I really think. I would say about 95% of people who do this program do it because they want to live in Spain. Not because they want to be teachers, not because they want teaching experience, not to help little children learn about English language and culture. Sure, that may be part of it, but I bet you the main reason is because they want to live in Spain, and it's one of the only ways to live legally in Spain as an American. And you know what? The Spanish government takes FULL advantage of that.

Our contract says that we are to work 12 hours a week and be paid 700 euros a month as a stipend from October 1 to May 31. Really awesome, right? The program also tells us that we should come with about $1000 saved up to live off of for the first month until we get paid at the end of the first month, around November 1. However, it is almost Christmas and many of the auxiliares around Spain have still not been paid. The program has been around for years, and yet, this issue comes up every year. Not with every region, but for many. Last year in Andalucía, my school just paid me every month and then kept the checks when they finally arrived from the government, but after all the budget cuts going on, few schools are willing to do this. After so many years, how can the Ministry of Education still be so disorganized?

Thousands of foreigners come to Spain every year with this scholarship, it is not a small group of people who is affected. And thousands more apply and don't even get a spot. This program has become extremely popular, especially in the States as an ideal post-college pre-real world second study-abroad opportunity. The Ministry of Education knows this and knows how much we want to be here, and I think they take advantage of that by making us put up with a lot of bureaucratic bull****, knowing that we can't and won't do anything about. Not getting paid for 3 months? It's not like we'll stop working and go home. We can't even afford a flight since we've used all our savings to live off of. Want to complain to someone about it? The majority of government don't answer their phones or emails. Ever."

Read the rest of Liz's post at her blog, Memoirs of a Young Adventuress.

What do you guys think? I've been lucky that my school can afford to pay me and the other assistant out of pocket while they wait for the government to reimburse them, but the fact is that they just should not have to do that. We'll see what happens...

Shana's super simple spaghetti

I love to cook. When I'm home, my mom and I cook all the time, from old favorites to weird new recipes. While I might not be the best cook in the world (yeah right), I have a lot of fun when I cook and this is my all-time favorite thing to cook because it's super easy to make, it always tastes good, and it makes me feel like I'm at home.

You will need:

  • Pasta of your choice (I use spaghetti, obvs)
  • bread (duhh)
  • butter
  • olive oil
  • tasty, fruity red wine (another duh)
  • a spoonful of sugar (makes the medicine go down)
  • oregano
  • salt & pepper
  • 1 big can of crushed tomatoes
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 shallot, chopped
  • garlic (your call - I use loads), chopped
  • red pepper flakes (optional)

Preparation

To begin, heat some olive oil and a bit of butter in a large saucepan (or a giant pot if, like me, that's all you have) and toss in the chopped onion, shallot, and garlic. Cook these until the butter is fully melted and all the ingredients are soft and semi-translucent.

Then, pour in your can o' tomatoes. I like to use crushed tomatoes because I prefer a chunkier sauce (plus it tends to be more tomato-y), but you can use pureed tomatoes if you like a smoother sauce. Remember - the onions will cause chunks in your sauce if you cut them too big or don't cook them long enough!

Now, the fun part. If you haven't already poured yourself a glass of wine, do it now, because I'm sure you feel like you deserve it after a good onion cry. This part - spicing up your sauce - is entirely up to your tastes. I usually take a few sips of my red wine before pouring the rest of the glass into the sauce.* At this point, I add the sugar, oregano, and salt & pepper. I also add a generous amount of red pepper flakes here because I love the fight between the heat of the red pepper and the sweetness of the wine and sugar. But again - this is your sauce.

Make it your own! Let this sauce simmer, uncovered, for as long as it takes to get to optimum viscosity. Ten points for that word! I don't like to start cooking my pasta until my sauce is simmering, so they finish at around the same time. After draining the pasta, it goes directly into the sauce so every noodle can bathe in tomato-y goodness.

Normally, my spaghetti story ends here, but on the particular occasion that my friend Laura took these photos, we decided to make meatballs and garlic bread as well. If you want to make the meatballs, take a shallot, some garlic, and about half an onion and grate them into a bowl with some ground meat - we used beef, but you could use pretty much anything. I think beef and pork would work best in this situation. Add to that bowl spices of your choice (salt & pepper, etc... of course red pepper flakes. that's-a spicy meatball!), grated parmesan cheese and breadcrumbs (I used ones with garlic and parsley added), and using your hands (ew), mix it all up with one egg. I added a picture of when I mixed the meatballs because I know my mom won't believe I actually touched raw meat by choice. To cook the meatballs, I cooked them in a pan with olive oil until they were a nice brown color, then put them on a pan and cooked them in the oven on low heat for about ten minutes, turning them over halfway through. Once finished, the meatballs also went directly into the sauce with the cooked spaghetti.

To make the garlic bread, we cut a loaf of bread in half to make two long slices, rubbed the surface with garlic, drizzled olive oil all over them, and layered very thin slices of butter across the top, and sprinkled it with parmesan cheese and the leftover garlic pieces. This went into the oven for about five minutes as the meatballs finished cooking and came out crunchy and delicious.

So, there you have it! My not-so secret spaghetti recipe! I make this at least once a month and if nobody is around to eat it, the entire batch makes about five or six meals.

*Don't tell my Uncle Dave about that. He would shut down my kitchen.

A que mola?

image Check out this cool little guy - a robot clock on a necklace chain. I picked him up at El Rastro on Sunday. This weekend I'm heading north to the Basque country, and he's coming with me...more updates when I return!

The Challenge

Hi everyone! Please post your challenge ideas in the comments section below. Don't forget your name!! About the Challenge: I'll be abroad for about a year, so this is your chance to give me ideas of fun and interesting things to do while I'm gone. I will try to complete all of your requested tasks and blog about it as I go, hopefully with some photo evidence, of course.

Get creative! Think of it as a dare--something funny, interesting, outrageous, embarrassing, silly--that I should do.

Want me to try a weird food? Hike the Sierra Nevada? Marry Rafa Nadal?

Let me know!!