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...

Year two

Well, here I am once again! I've been back in Madrid for nearly two weeks and have done nothing but look for a place to live and rediscover all of the things that I love about this place. After about a week of searching, I found a new piso near my bus station, cutting about twenty minutes out of my previously hour-long commute. Toma! Here's what my room looks like. It's pretty small, but I have a big comfy bed and an actual closet with a door with a bit of storage space above it, and it doesn't really feel that small until I lie down and look at how small the ceiling actually is. The rest of the apartment is very cozy, and I don't mean cozy in real estate agent terms, but rather that I find it very comfortable. The living room has a giant window across the entire exterior wall, so the afternoons are very warm and sunny. The couches are soft and comfy, and the TV has more than five watchable channels. I've been able to watch Will & Grace a few times so far. No complaints from me. I have an oven this year, too! I haven't yet attempted using it, mostly because I am generally afraid of ovens and this one uses gas so I have to light it by hand which scares me even more. But anyway, my roommates are really nice, too. I'm living with a Spanish girl and a Colombian girl who have both mentioned they'd like to aprovechar living with an American and practice a bit of English. I know that my Spanish suffered by not using it all summer, so hopefully these two will get me back to, if not better than where I was in June.

My favorite roommate, however, is only two years old:

My roommate adopted this cat, seen above napping in my lap, two years ago when she was just a baby. She'd been injured in some way that caused damage to one of her eyes, so a veterinarian had to remove the eye to prevent further injury or infection. Now she is just like any other cat I've seen, and very playful! Plus, her name is Mira... Spanish for "look." How's that for a sense of humor? It's been very comforting having a pet in the house. She's really friendly and likes to follow everybody around. Today she jumped on my bed and snoozed while I read through some papers I received at school today.

Speaking of school... today was my first day back on the job. My schedule was among all of said papers, and it turns out I will have Mondays off this year. I'll also be working exclusively with second grade, therefore I'll be working with the same students and teachers as last year! It seems a bit strange that they won't have Jennifer and me changing each month like before, but I suppose I can't complain. I really enjoy working with these kids and I'll be spending a lot less time trying to figure out which students need that extra push to understand English, which I think will help me in the end. Even though I've only spent one day back, I'm already kind of sad to think that this is the last year!

While it was nice to see my students again, it was especially nice to see the other teachers. I got to be pretty good friends with a few of them so it was exciting to catch up and hear about everybody's holidays. If first days are any sign of things to come, this should be a fun year.

Progress

Today, María and I split our class into two groups, boys and girls. I took the group of boys first and read them a story called The Lucky Duck. In this story, a boy has a toy duck that he loves, but loses one day, and many years later his son finds it in the attic at Grandma's house. The group of boys figured out that attic was ático, but when I read the story to the girls, they couldn't figure it out at all! I did my best to give hints. I said things like, it's a place in a house, very high up, above everything, sometimes you keep old things there, etc etc... and I even told them that it was extremely similar in Spanish. One very clever girl said to me (in Spanish), "Shana, we don't know! Just tell us the word!" Another girl then said, "yeah, we all know you speak Spanish!"

In my school, the director and people in the program ask that I speak no Spanish in front of the kids. When I'm in the classroom or anywhere near my students, it is supposed to be an English-only zone. Of course, in the teacher's room during break I speak Spanish with the other teachers, but all the kids are outside playing. I do try very hard to confine my Spanish only to these areas, or at least if they are nearby I have my back to them and speak a bit more quietly, plus the rest of the teachers know the rules, so they generally don't start a conversation with me in front of the kids unless they can understand a response in English.

My response to the second girl was one that I think only works because my students are in the first grade and don't doubt me yet. I said to them, "No, no, I don't speak Spanish. But I understand it very well. For example, I speak English. Do you understand me?" The group nodded in agreement. "Well, you speak Spanish, and I understand you. It's the same!" A few of the girls exchanged confused looks, but eventually one of them said, "...vale." (okay.)

But one girl was not convinced. She looked at me and said, "Sí, pero... you... Spanish... talk... very good."

Incredible!! It was difficult for me to keep my composure at this point, but I assured her that I did not speak Spanish.

I think they're on to me.

Hala Madrid!

It's a dreary, rainy Sunday in Madrid, after a chilly, mostly uneventful weekend, but quite a busy week! The above photo (click to enlarge) is from Wednesday night's Real Madrid v Real Murcia game. Madrid won, 5-1, but it was far from a dull blow-out game. Madrid scored within the first five minutes and the ref ended up throwing out Madrid coach José Mourinho and giving out eight yellow cards, one of which turned into a red card for Madrid defender Álvaro Arbeloa. It was really interesting to see the highlights after the game, since Bernabeu lacks a replay screen (perhaps an American indulgence but I still really wish there had been one). Mourinho was thrown out of the game--and suspended for the next two games--for badmouthing the ref and stepping outside the coach's area. The entire stadium went wild and started shouting at the referee, who is also notorious for making calls just like this one. Mourinho said in a post-game interview that this ref averages about six yellow cards per match, and considering the first card he gave out in this game was after only about ten minutes of play, many more cards were bound to follow.

Wednesday's game was part of the Copa del Rey, and since Real Murcia is in a lower-ranked division than Madrid, the tickets were absurdly cheap, only ten euros for seats on top! We'd originally planned on spending more for the "good" seats in the lower sections, since they only would have cost us about 20-30 euros each, but we bought our tickets too late and the upper levels were the only seats left. There isn't a bad seat in the house, really... the rows are pretty stacked and each row had a crossbar in front of the seats because they just know we're all going to be jumping out of our chairs every few minutes! The best part was that the upper levels have heaters on the ceilings, so even though it was freezing that night, we were nice and toasty. Overall I had a really great time and I can't wait to go to another game!

The next day at school, we had an excursion to the Parque Europa, a big green space in Torrejón with loads of European monuments in a miniature form. It does seem a bit cheesy, but I think the kids had a lot of fun. I was, however, exhausted after this trip. My normal day at school consists of talking to the kids or telling them to be quiet, but never actually trying to corral them into the room. This was not the case on Thursday. We had to shout so loudly just to get their attention and tell them what monument we were looking at. The first half of the trip I was with Inma, the English teacher, but halfway through I had to switch to be with Inés so that each group would have one teacher speaking English and one speaking Spanish. It's really incredible how easily the kids stop what they are doing to listen to someone speaking Spanish, but I understand that it's so much easier for them to tune out a different language... I was a student in language classes once!

As I mentioned in my last post, I am completely obsessed with the Spanish dish, pimientos de Padrón. Well, at the supermarket on Friday afternoon I saw a packet of these little green peppers that caught my eye, especially the part on the label that said the variety was "PADRON." Naturally, I bought a pack, brought them home, and attempted to make my new favorite dish. Success! They were delicious and just how I'd hoped they would taste. If you can get your hands on these peppers, all you have to do is wash & dry them, fry them in olive oil for a few minutes until they start to blister and shrivel a bit, and then sprinkle them with salt. Pick them up by the stems, take a bite, and hope that they don't pica!

I changed the memory card in my camera this weekend and discovered a long-lost gem--a picture of my first attempt at making a tortilla! After I returned from Spain last summer I was completely enamored with this dish (and still am) so I had some friends from my study abroad group over to my apartment for dinner and tried to have a nice tapas night. I saw this photo and thought, hmm, that looks a lot like the plates from my apartment, but I haven't made a successful tortilla in a long time... so I checked the info on the photo and it was dated 10-10-2009! Incredible! I certainly have something to live up to this time around. And if you're interested in sampling some of my favorite Spanish flavors, my friend Meredith wrote a nice blog post with a recipe for this dish in particular. My advice: don't be timid with the olive oil. You'll need it!!

I think I'm getting the Black Lung, Pop

No, I haven't started smoking or become a coal miner. But it's possible that everyone else in this city has. Smoking, that is. Not coal mining, as far as I know. It's impossible to go almost anywhere in this city without smelling like an ashtray. I had to find a new place to hang my towel because it was hanging next to my scarves, which of course smell like smoke. Yuck. The sad inevitable day finally came: the end of my first month of teaching. And the end of the month means time to switch schedules with the other assistant, Jen. Now I'm working with Inma and first-grade groups A & B. They are fine, but I miss my other classes! The worst/best part about the switch is that my old students always give me hugs and shout my name every time they see me outside or in the hallways. It really makes my day when they start the sports-style cheer: Shaaa-na! Shaaa-na! Shaaa-na!

So, what have I been up to lately? I've started going to a conversation hour type of thing in which we all speak thirty minutes or so in Spanish before switching to English for thirty minutes, and back and forth for about two hours. After last week's session, a group of us went to the Feria de la Cerveza that was held inside the Plaza de Toros. They tried to set it up like Oktoberfest, with long rows of tables and giant beer mugs that hold a full liter!There was also a variety of different types of sausage for sale, but to me they just tasted like hot dogs and breakfast sausage.

I guess that's how it goes when you're trying to eat German food in Spain. Speaking of which, Jen and I are going to Germany in December! We have a long weekend, or puente, at the beginning of the month so we spent an evening looking at cheap flights all around Europe and found some cheap ones to and from Düsseldorf and Frankfurt, but our itinerary between the two stops is currently undetermined, so please send suggestions! We are hoping to see Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, but I am still very open to suggestions. Also, Mom booked her flight to Madrid for Christmas, so we will probably travel for a few days before or after New Year's Eve, which I have decided we must spend here to be a part of the NYE tradition in Puerta del Sol, where the madrileños eat twelve grapes at midnight--one for each chime of the clock.

Yesterday I had my first session teaching the teachers at my school! As part of my program, the school can choose to have the English assistants help with teaching English to the other teachers. On Wednesdays, they meet with an actual English teacher, but on Monday afternoons they meet with Jen and me and we split into two groups for an hour of conversation. Jen has had some experience teaching before and, well, she tends to talk a bit faster than I do, so she has a group of six teachers who already know a bit of English. I have a group of fourteen (!!!) teachers who know less English, but their levels range from a few who really don't know any English to a few who will probably move up to the second class once they feel more comfortable speaking English. One of the teachers in my class, María (not to be confused with the first-grade English teacher María), lives near me and we've gotten the chance to talk on the bus to and from school nearly every day, so it's nice to have a friend in my group to help me relax! The teachers have all told me that they're very nervous and embarrassed to speak English, but yesterday I was extremely nervous to teach them! The class went well and was mostly me getting to know them and answering their questions more than I was asking them questions. Jen and I will be meeting with the Wednesday afternoon English teacher sometime this week to discuss her lesson plans so we can sort of echo what she teaches and reinforce the ideas in practice. Listen to me, all teachery.

This weekend was known as "MTV Week" because the European Music Awards (EMAs) were held in Madrid this year. What does this mean? Parties, concerts, and more parties going on all week, all sponsored by MTV and all free! Well, sort of. A big stage was set up in the city center at Puerta de Alcalá where a bunch of Spanish artists played a show on Saturday, and on Sunday, during the actual EMAs, Katy Perry, Linkin Park, and 30 Seconds to Mars performed. Of course, Kanye West had to show up and do a song in the middle of one of the performances, and Jackass came out and crowdsurfed. My roommate managed to see Snooki and Pauly D from Jersey Shore at a hotel downtown, while I was out and about all weekend and managed to not see anyone. Such is my life. My friend Josh and I tried to go to the EMA afterparty that was held in Parque Retiro, but much to our dismay the doorman told us it was invitation-only, and since it was late on a Sunday night we couldn't stick around to see the celebs arriving.

Aside from celebrity-stalking, I spent most of my weekend with some people from the conversation hour, going out to lunch, visiting the Sunday morning market aka El Rastro, tapas-crawling on Cava Baja and around La Latina, and generally wandering around the city and speaking lots of Spanish. It's just so incredible how much better my Spanish has gotten, not that it was bad before, but I'm not nearly as afraid to use it as I used to be. At times I really miss my family, my friends, and my old routine... I am especially missing Raleigh's fantastic breweries. I haven't found anything to compare to Sweet Josie Brown, and the recent return of Aces & Ates has me feeling extremely nostalgic for tasty beers. But I guess that's why I'm going to Germany!

To be fair, what Spain lacks in amazing wintry brews, it certainly makes up for in fantastic food. I've recently become obsessed with Pimientos de Padrón, a dish of fried peppers from Galicia in the Northwest of Spain. There is a saying about the dish in the local language, Galego: Os pementos de Padrón, uns pican e outros non, which means: Padrón peppers, some are spicy and some are not. Padrón is a town in the community of Galicia where the dish originated. Usually, it tastes like sweet fried peppers, but sometimes you'll get a spicy one. I had some at a small bar near the Plaza Mayor a few weeks ago and have been crazy about them ever since. If you have the means, I highly suggest picking one up.

I have added lots more pictures to my albums online. Click here to see them, and until next time, un beso!