Todo va bien

Nothing new, nothing special, pero todo va bien. I am slowly resigning myself to the fact that nearly everyone in Coria recognizes me, as the lectora and as an extranjera. This is not acceptable in the US: calling someone a foreigner. But it's fine here. I use it as an excuse: I didn't know, I'm foreign... (ah, no sabía, soy extranjera...) Every high school age child recognizes me as English is a required class here. If I doy un paseo, I will hear "Hola Amy hola Amy" more than a few times. It's difficult. I'm used to living in relative anonymity, in addition to being a private person, so that I feel watched in the pueblo makes me uneasy. It's how it's going to be so I'm trying to laugh about it. As one of Jenny's teachers said, "They're savages among themselves". When I changed pisos over two months ago, I went to my bank and changed my address. They continue to send my statements to the old address, even though I have brought it to their attention several times. This last time, the man I was dealing with asked the other teller why this continued to happen. Her answer? Es porque es extranjera. What?! That doesn't even make sense. Por lo menos, the man recognized that it didn't make sense and is "working on it". Entre comillas.

Let's see. More typical of Spain: I got paid for January on the 12th of February. Yes, nearly two weeks into the new month. Yesterday, they finally fixed our shower door after two and a half weeks. Yes, sixteen days of showering without a door, water ALL OVER THE FLOOR. But, we still haven't paid rent for this month. No one seems to care, and I doubt they've realized it yet. Yes, landlords are far superior here (hah, let's see what happens if there's a real problem).

Classes in Torrejoncillo continue... the same. However, I don't really care anymore, so it's not as bad as it was. It's really pretty funny. And I've been working about 9 - 10 hours a week since January, instead of 12. Yeah. Así es España. It's commonplace in both Torrejoncillo and Coria for a teacher to get fed up and spend ten minutes lecturing students in Spanish. It's sad that it comes to that. I learned the other day that these students start learning Spanish between the ages of 3 and 5. Yes, I know. And at 15, they have the about same level of knowledge and pronunciation that I had as a sophomore in high school, having studied Spanish for 2 years. It is absolutely pathetic. I want to blame the students because they're so terrible but if they are all failing like this, it has to be a problem with the whole education system. I never thought that the United States had a particularly good system, but I am incredibly impressed now in comparison. These children can barely use a dictionary!

One month until Semana Santa and my parents come! I can't wait. I know time is just going to continue to fly. I'm starting to think about what will come next, in June.