Beach Bum, and reflections on my experience

If asked to define the past few days, I would have to call it a beach marathon. Yes, I am now an expert lazer, sunbather, ocean-swimmer, beach-ball-thrower, and all around beach bum. And proud of it! Of course, I didn’t do it alone! I was aided by the masterful skill of a great collection of friends. And to be perfectly frank, these hang-out, good-bye dates decided my fate as a sand-dweller. Wednesday with Alex was delicious –the trip to the Chocolatería afterward contributes to this descriptor! Alex is another exchange student like myself who made a trip over here to enjoy the beach with me and talk of our experiences. I think we were out there for a good five hours! You should have seen her eternal grin in those shallows; now there’s a true beach-lover. Thursday found Alberto and I at the beach, accompanied after a time by his younger siblings who served as excellent entertainment with their constant struggle over the floaty play-thing. That was the day when we made the trip out to the line of buoys that mark the furthest out you are allowed to go. Today, Friday, I said goodbye to Xaro, Teresa, and Jorge at the beach. Xaro and Teresa are my best girlfriends here. I will miss them. Good thing I have you guys to return to! Jorge brought a boogey-board and Xaro her beach ball. :-) Good times! Especially trying to get three of use standing on top of the boogey-board all at the same time amongst the waves. *sigh* I may never see any of them again. But Teresa assures me that one of these summers she’s going to pop up at my door in Cali and I just won’t we able to get rid of her until school starts. I told her I wouldn’t mind that.
Aside from floating on the aquamarine undulations and burrowing my playful toes in the sand, I have done little this week. I bought the next set of text booklets from my Spanish class so that I can continue to study them when I get back. I’ve set aside my Spanish reading for the time –I figure four books during four months is good enough on the Spanish front- and have delved back into a Hemmingway book about the Spanish civil war. (I appreciate having studied this topic in my history class.) I baked cookies with my younger host sister, Saioa, but they came out suspiciously liquidy, even after adding extra flour and sugar. Hmmm…I blame the new type of butter we used. It jeered at me when I put the milk back in the fridge. *glares at the memory of said guilty butter* But they still tasted good; grandpa said so.
Any time now I will start packing, because dad comes on Sunday. On Saturday I will madrugar –get up early- to go to yoga again before heading off to the mountain for climbing. In the evening we will celebrate Grandma’s birthday over dinner and then dad will be here by lunch the next day and a gift exchange. For the next few days after that, we will take up temporary residence in Ignacio’s house, see the city, and climb. Then we head up to Tarragona for a few days, fly up to Switzerland, and then it’s over to England for five days of show filled, sightseeing glory. We’ll be back for the 4th of July fireworks. So, this is one of my last posts before my Europe traveling adventures.

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I was just watching my host sister bustle around to gather her things to head out with her friends tonight and maybe it was due in part to the slower Queen song playing on my ipod, but I felt a swelling of sadness inside me; a bitter-sweetness. I’m going to miss her. When she found me crying one night in our room, she listened to what I had to say, told me about similar experiences of her own, and made me laugh. And other days when I just needed a good healthy cry and some time alone, she didn’t make a deal of it or invade my space. She is always making jokes and goofing around. She makes for excellent conversation and helped me learn my Spanish vocab list. We’ve shared a couple side-splitting late-night conversations and the meticulous cleaning of a couple cookie-dough bowls –with our fingers, of course! She is, truly, like a sister to me. La quiero.

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So, what parts of Spanish culture are going to influence my life in the US? Well, I am now going to take shorter showers in order to waste less water and be more frugal with my use of electricity in the house. I’ll probably keep eating yogurt and fruit for dessert, but I will miss the chocolate shops here. I hope to keep taking yoga classes and centering myself every week. I have more awareness of my personal needs now and the ways to treat myself well. I have greater perspective and know how to keep a healthy mindset. I have learned to relax better, which I hope I can still remember next year around midterms! I have, of course, come a long way in speaking, reading, and writing Spanish. I want to keep it up and practice it when I can. These past months have made me more tolerant of cigarette smoke –for better or worse- and made me not to quick to judge someone who parties, smokes, or drinks. I am more confident of my will and my values, but my spiritual beliefs are more hazy than ever. But I think that’s something that comes with my age also. I am tanner than before and my hair is a brighter red. I have a greater appreciation of my friends and family and know much more about Velazquez and Garcia Lorca than ever. I am buoyed by my new-found ability to pass almost all my classes in Spanish with the equivalent of a B. I have realized how important it is to have certain Jack Johnson CDs on my ipod, because I somehow managed to miss putting them on here before I left and have been missing them and craving them for the past four months. I have fallen in love once again with simple sunrises, clear oceans, rugged mountains, blue sky, dappled shade, and the twitter of birds. I have confirmed the impossibility of categorizing me or boxing me into one definition. I have realized how easy it is to spend money quickly, even when you contain yourself to necessities, gifts, and the occasional tea or dinner. The miracle of digital cameras and internet has set in and the importance of the Spanish dictionary is clear to me. Language is inexact and meaning is relative. Misunderstandings are easily made and love is the most important gift. Communication is imperative to the attainment of peace and generosity of time and efforts is something that each of us owe the world for the gift of comfort it has given us in our nice houses and cushy beds. We are citizens of humanity and being American or Spanish means nothing. I wish everyone would stop judging their neighbors by appearances or mannerisms.

Well, that´s about it for now.

Much love!

Besos,

Jocelyn

PS Alberto, you had better leave a comment this time or I will disown you as one of my best Spanish friends. So there! (Me disfruté de hablar contigo este tarde en la playa. Adios.)

Teaching How To Make Cookies and Homelife

Today I taught my host sister Janire how to make oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Although she has little experience in good, thorough stirring and beating -and aside from her need for practice in the art of scraping cookies off the sheet with a spatula- they came out great! We had fun whipping out the hammer again and breaking the chocolate bar to pieces (I mentioned that she might take to baking this sort of cookie when she is in need of a little stress release!). And thus, after a day of baking, my mind is on food.

My host mom prepares two meals a day for us: lunch and dinner. Lunchtime is an hour that I hold in high regard, and rightly so. The usual heavy, lunch dishes are lentils or garbanzo beans, each served in soup/stew form with mild, green peppers, carrots –always extra for me-, and meat (steak is frequent and chorizo –a sort of chunk of pepperoni- is a must). Other usuals are the Spanish omelet, Spanish rice (garlic flavored rice served with tomato sauce and a fried egg), fish of every sort, puree of vegetables, and fillet of steak or pork. Many of these are also served for dinner, but practically never the garbanzo beans or lentils since they are considered too strong for right before bed. As a first dish, a salad of lettuce, tuna, tomato, olives, pickled leeks, canned corn, oil, vinegar, and salt is common and french-fries are served with almost every meal. We’ve also dinned on hamburgers that are more like a hamburger and BLT all in one from time to time and French omelets (which are like our regular omelets). Frozen pizza and breaded and fried rolls of ham and cheese are also part of our diet. My favorite dishes are the garbanzo beans, Spanish omelet, Spanish rice, puree of vegetables, and salads. Desert is always yogurt or fruit (apple, melon, pear, banana, cherries, strawberries…) with an occasional ice-cream thrown in.

Aside from cooking for us, my host mom also does the laundry (put the clothes in the washing machine, hang them on the clothes line, take them down, iron, fold, and distribute to the appropriate rooms) and cleans the house (sweeping, mopping, scrubbing, wiping down…). She would like to work (perhaps as a hostess at a hotel or in retail) but since they are relatively new to the area, she has not found an opportunity. So, she spends her time on the computer communicating with her friends back home in the North of Spain in Bilbao. My host dad works in the Civil Guard, which means he does hard work and suffers a lot of tragedies. In his off time, he goes running, bicycling, plays Paddle, fixes little electronic things, helps his daughters with homework, and does odd jobs around the house. He helps my host mom with dishes and does the weekly shopping trip with her. He is also the only one with a working driver’s license, so he takes people places if they aren’t using the usual methods of transportation –walking, bus, or tram. Since we only go shopping once a week but eat bread with every meal, we keep loaves of bread in the freezer to make them keep through the week and place them out over the clothes line or in front of the portable heater to thaw a few hours before we expect to eat them. We also use scissors to cut our spaghetti to pieces, but I am assured that this is not normal. Janire, my 15-year-old host sister, is not old enough to go clubbing like all of my friends. She prefers shopping, hanging out around the city, and going to the beach to tan, bathe, play volleyball, or chat with friends –but above all to tan. She’ll also go to an occasional movie, but usually opts for TV shows or the movies that are shown on a variety of channels. We watch Los Simpsons over lunch most every day, unless there is a soccer game, which is first priority, or car races, which are second. Over dinner, we watch Cámara Café (Coffee Camera) which is an imitation of a French show where they use one fixed camera set up where the coffee machine would be in an office and every show is made up of witty scenarios that could or could not take place in a similar situation. It is very funny, but I didn’t start getting the jokes until after a few months. We also watch the news during many meals. As you might guess, this is not conducive to lengthy discussions, but we do chat.

Well, ttfn! Ta-ta for now!

Love,

Jocelyn

Good Old American Cookies (and the disabled)

Gooey oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, fresh from the oven and steaming; Mmmmm! I had to admit: I had done pretty well this time, managing to remove the precious goodies from the oven before they burnt to a crisp or some other malady, and my unique American oddity was a smashing hit! Everyone loved the cookies and the cookie dough, so the extra work of whipping out the hammer to break the chocolate bar into chocolate bits –since they don’t have chocolate chips here- and converting all the cups and tablespoons into fractions of liters melted away like the cookies in the mouths of my host sisters. Now, Janire and my host mom want to learn how to make them, so we’ll probably have a tutorial session some time this next week. The neighbors lent me some vanilla and baking soda, but I still had to walk to the store to get the brown sugar, chocolate, and oatmeal. At any rate, I’m going to give the recipe to my family before I go –translated, of course- so that they can appreciate real American cookies whenever they please! And, yes, cookies are very uncommon here. You can occasionally find one in a bakery, but nobody makes them at home. Light cakes are common, and brownies are occasional, but cookies are rare. The people eat an excess of flat, store-bought sorts of cookies that really have more resemblance to a sweet cracker than a cookies. They consume these every morning for breakfast and most evening for merienda, or snack, along with hot chocolate or coffee, but our good old cookies are hard-found. I’m just glad that I could contribute something new and interesting to their lives –and yummy!- before I go. Some other foods that are a little more uncommon here are pancakes and peanut butter.

On an entirely different note, my mom had mentioned her curiosity over how the Spanish incorporate the disabled into their society. Well, they do much the same as us: they provide ramps in most areas, including down to the beach, and many intersections beep or chirp to notify the blind of when they can cross. And you do occasionally see a blind or wheelchair bound person making their way around the city alone. In schools, disabled students have a different schedule than other kids, but they are integrated into the normal classes for at least part of every day. At Saioa’s elementary school, there are disabled kids around and in the usual classes. However, there are not students with down-syndrome. In other schools, children with mild cases of down-syndrome are incorporated into parts of the usual daily schedule, but children with more severe disabilities go to different schools especially for disabled students. I don’t know what they consider a “severe disability,” but it is clear that a fair percentage of disabled children do get to participate in the regular classes. It does not appear that any disabled student actually studies in the same class with the other kids all day, like they sometimes do in the states with only the help of an aid.

All right, a few random nuances:

-Climbing shoes are called pies de gato here, which literally translates as “cat´s feet.”

-The Sound of Music can also be found in movie form here, but it, like many other movies, goes by a different title. Here, it is called Sonrisas y Lagrimas, which translates to “Smiles and Tears.” They find our version of the title very odd and consider theirs much more beautiful.

See you all soon!

Love,

Jocelyn

PS Those lovely ladies in the photo above happen to be myself and my host sisters: Janire (15) and Saioa (8).

Photos: Saioa and my room

My eight-year-old host sister (with her breakfast cereal in hand!) Saioa.The room that I share with my host sister Janire:

That closet part over there is my little enclave of stuff:

This is our lovely bultein board, including our favorites of my photos, my art, remnants of love from my family, a reminder to me about my upcoming trip to Paris (!), my sister´s daily schedule, and so on...

My host sister just got back from nearly a week in Italy! She has had her schedule for this trip posted on our buletin board since February and she was so excited to go. This trip marks her first time traveling outside of Spain. The darling brought me back some white chocolate that is to die for! (dad, you and I will have to pick up some of this european white chocolate when you come. You´ll love it!) She also brought back t-shirts for herself and her sister and pasta for her mom, among other things.