The first five weeks

Hey fam and friends! Sorry it's been a while since my last post...five and half weeks into my time in Spain and the whirlwind hasn't stopped.

It's hard to believe I've been here for almost a month and a half but it's true. So far, life as a L/C Assistant is great. I love my job and am so lucky to be able to spend this year in Spain as a teacher. While there are a lot of similarities between the Spanish school system and American school system, there are many differences and I am learning a lot about myself as a teacher.

Since my school is in a small little town about four or five miles outside of Granada, I have to take the bus to get there. It's mainly me and the older men from the pueblo who ride the bus in the mornings when they're coming back to Víznar from doing some shopping in Granada. There is one man, Pepe, that I think just gets on to ride back and forth between Granada and Víznar and shoot the breeze with the driver and his buddies that are getting on and off throughout the day. The first day I rode out there, they all kind of smiled with a look on their faces like "isn't it nice this girl is coming out to visit our little town". Then for the next few weeks every time I got on the bus, I got looks that said "ok, what are you doing back on the bus?" There really isn't much to do in my town...there is one restaurant and I've yet to see it open...and that's about it. Finally, last week one of the older men got curious enough to ask me what the heck I was still doing going out to Víznar four days a week. So I told them about my job and everything I'm doing at the school. They asked me what my name is and I told them Megan, to which they said was too hard to pronounce, so the driver, two men named Pepe and a few others on the bus said they were just going to call me María from now on. Whenever I get to my stop, the driver now shouts, "OK, María, here you are! See you tomorrow!".

At our orientation in Sevilla we were told to only speak in English with our students, to not even let them know that we can speak Spanish; however, I found out very quickly that wasn't going to work. I did try the whole only talking in English gig for my first few classes but after many blank stares, puzzled looks, and several comments like "es que no sé qué dices" (I don't know what you're saying) I realized that we were going to have to take the whole English only thing slowly. Part of my job this year is going to be getting the students to the point where they will be able to understand more spoken English than they can at this point, but until then, I'm going to have to use as much English as possible and supplement/explain a lot in Spanish when needed.

My favorite part of my job is working with my students. While being at the Elementary level this year is way different than working with high schoolers, I'm loving it just the same. My students call me Maestra, Teacher, Megan or "seño" which is short for señorita. Since my school is so small, I have the chance to work with almost every class and I've been able to get to know the kids really well. For the most part I'm working in the English language classes but I have one class with my third graders where I teach Science in English. Now Science isn't really my best subject so when they first told me that's what I was going to be doing, I was a little nervous. But thank God third grade science is something I can handle. Right now they are learning body parts, so we've been singing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" and playing Simon Says (Simon says touch you nose...). The hardest part about this science class is that the kids are just learning how to write in their own language let alone in English, which makes labeling pictures of the face and body tough.

This building is the whole school...

One of the perks to my job is the schedule. I work four days a week for twelve hours a week. Needless to say, I have a lot of free time. Most days I go home from work, have lunch, maybe take a short siesta, and head into the center of town. I look at the shops, get a café con leche and read the paper, sometimes go visit Conchi and Rocio. I'm hoping to find an intercambio (language exchange partner) soon so that I can start practicing my Spanish more and meet more Spaniards. There are a few L/C Assistants here in Granada that I hang out with but it's hard to go back to speaking Spanish when you've been speaking in English at work and with friends. One of the teachers at my school has a couple of daughters who are studying English in Ireland are getting back to Granada in November so I think we're going to meet up once they get here.

Homemade Sangria in Málaga 

Me, Kerianne, and Jessica in Málaga

I've also been able to get down to Málaga (a city off the Mediterranean about an hour and a half from Granada) to visit some friends I have down there and they've been able to come up here for a weekend. It's been a lot of fun! We've started planning some trips outside of Spain and we're off to Paris the first weekend of November to celebrate our friend Jessica's birthday.

Hope you are all doing well back home!

Besos,
Megan