Living in Spain: A Day in the Life

Before painting pictures of many of the unusual experiences we’ve had, it will be helpful to share the daily backdrop. I give my own day as an example, and Andrea, whose day is quite similar, will be sending some different stories soon…

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Chapter 2: A Day in the Life

7:15: Wake up before the kids, who gather outside our window waiting for school to start, begin making a clamor, like the sound of a flock of Spanish birds, above which sleeping becomes difficult. The schoolyard is literally a small brick plaza between our apartment building and the school, and the voices echo round and round!

7:20: Get into the shower. We have a very odd polygonal bathroom. It is about 8 ft long, but only 2 ft wide at its entrance and 5 ft wide at the other, pseudo-shower, end. I say pseudo-shower because we only have a few minutes of hot water, no fixed nozzle (but a movable spray head), and a door, which doesn’t quite close (and likes to swing open as you shower) that only covers 4 of the 5 feet of the “enclosure.” And if that weren’t enough, when you sit on the toilet, your knees are only a few inches from the wall. It’s fun to play drums on the wall, or rest your head if you’ve had a long day.

Showers themselves are interesting. You have to get yourself wet, turn off the water, lather up, and quickly rinse. I haven’t had a typical shower since I was in the US. Don’t take them for granted! J

7:30-8:15: Dress, dry my hair, and pack things for the day. The highlight is finding two or three minutes to have tea and a muffin with Andrea. Of course, I should just get up earlier, but…I can’t seem to.

8:20 Leave for work. This requires navigating the

Metro tunnels: miles and miles of subterranean train tracks that serve as the veins and arteries of Madrid. Literally. Last year the Metro drivers went on strike for a few days (until they, themselves, ran out of money) and the whole city quite simply shut down. The Metro system is an amazing affair: dozens of 6 passenger-car trains concurrently and continuously shipping people about the metropolis…each with upwards of hundreds of passengers at any given moment.At rush hours, the Metro cars are packed to discomfort, such that you have to actually cram yourself in.

Faces are all 1 foot apart. Most people listen to music, doze, try to read, or, especially in the morning, simply stare forward with a glazed look. You become anonymous. All these other human beings within touching distance…and they couldn’t be further away. It is a remarkable experience. On any given day, I pass within a few feet of hundreds of human faces I’ve never seen before and I’ll never see again. It’s humbling how few stick out from the crowd. We are all so lucky to be loved.

9:00: Start work at Colegio de Alameda de Osuna, one of the largest, and richest, schools in Madrid. A for-profit school for about 1400 students (pre-school through high school), Alameda de Osuna is geared towards standardized tests and impressing money-leaking parents. And they do that well: a huge campus, excellent staff, an on-campus bar/store, an on-campus Spa and Exercise facility (to which unrelated community members can join), and an impressive theater all catch the eye. Thankfully, I was lucky to work with my first choice: grades 4 through 6. At this age, the kids are cognitively competent and still innocent. When they aren’t too hard to wrangle, it’s delightful. The teachers are also very impressive. They have a command of language syntax far beyond what we are used to the in the States, probably owing to the complexity of Spanish grammar and verb tenses. I’ve also enjoyed learning from them how to approach class management more effectively. It’s a strange thing being a middle-aged philosopher/artist going back to teach kids. It requires such patience and energy!

11:15-11:45: The whole elementary section of the school gets a break. Most teachers grab a café at the bar and a smoke on the sly (from the students). It’s hard to find people in Spain who don’t smoke.

11:45-1:15: Back to classes. My work consists chiefly in taking half of each class to my own classroom and providing English instruction. We focus on conversational abilities foremost, supporting that with writing and reading exercises. I’ve learned a bunch of great interactive games thus far. The work is one of extremes. When it is hard, it drains the soul, but when it is good, it uplifts. The burdens are offset by the enthusiasm I feel being with the kids. They are fresh and they make me laugh. They can be painfully sweet, too. Spain is very physical. It’s like a big family. Some kids just give you hugs out of blue. That’s the best.

1:15-2:45. The most un-American thing of all. Spaniards take 90 minutes for lunch. 90 minutes every day. Luckily, the school food is rather a treat, for me, at least. Today, for instance, I had a tuna and vegetables salad with roasted chicken and peas. My co-workers are very kind and embracing. They have made every effort to make me feel welcome, including speaking English as they can, inviting me to their after lunch (off campus) coffee excursions, and translating stories for me when we’re gathered in a group.

2:45-5:00: The rest of the school day.

5:00-8:00: Depending on the day, return home or, more likely, go to start tutoring classes. There are many Spanish families who, aware of the global value of English fluency, desire their children to have capacities unobtainable through general classroom instruction. There have been many tutoring opportunities that we have taken. Tutoring is fun and lucrative. And one aspect reveals a major difference between US and Spanish culture. Spanish culture is familiar in a way that is more tribal than we tend to see in the impersonal States. For example, 10 minutes after meeting a family to begin tutoring, the parents sent me in to their adolescent girl’s bedroom, closing the door behind me as I entered, for the next hour. Then, after I tutored their 11 year-old son, I found that the parents had simply left the house at some point to make a meeting, letting the boy pay me after we finished. The beautiful trust they have shown me is how society should be.

8:30-9:30: Andrea and I make and have dinner. We usually eat at home to save money, and use the laptop to watch part of a DVD we brought. Andrea’s becoming quite a cook, and it’s awesome!!! I set the table, light a candle, turn the lights low, and we sit by the window, with the city humming beside us, eating our well-won meal, talking of our day, and hoping the morning doesn’t come too quickly. Sometimes we go back to work after dinner – me with philosophy and Andrea with sorting out how we can survive here – but sometimes we just cuddle up and veg out, watching a favorite old movie, Planet Earth, Frasier, or a Sherlock Holmes episode. We cherish the hours between 9 PM and 7 AM! J

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Well, that’s a quick tour of a typical day.

We hope everyone in the States is thriving. We miss you all very much, and more than you might guess. Although we are rather preoccupied with trying to survive in, and adapt to, a new culture, the continual novelty, confusion and challenge of life here keeps us freshly cognizant of how irreplaceable our life-long friends are!

Love from us!