After school today I went to one of the seaside restaurants on the boardwalk underneath us for a glass of rioja, my favorite type of Spanish red wine, and watched the sunset. While I was sitting there I saw this little boy in the photo below. The sign says "Prohibido Perros", which means dogs prohibited.
In preparation for Christmas our first graders are learning a song called, "Mi Burrito Sabanero", which is about the trek to Bethlehem. Yes, I guess I just called it a trek. Horrible. My English isn't very good today. I'm in a Spanish mindset. If you remember from past posts, Ricardo is playing the guitar in this picture and Veronica is sitting down. These are two of the teachers I have become friends with at my school.
Today was El Dia de la Lectura in Andalucia, the region of Spain I am living in.This means that it was the Day of Stories in the region of Spain I'm in. The kids at my school looked at the cover of a variety of books and chose which one they wanted to hear. Each teacher chose a different one and told it to the class. Javi and I read It's Not Easy Being a Bunny.
I think it would be safe to say that Javi and I talk more than we teach together in our classes. The little boy in the top right, David (curly blonde hair with his hand up), is one of my favorite students. We color and draw together a lot. I know I'm not supposed to have favorites but honestly, he's just too cute.
This past Thursday I was teaching one of my favorite 1st grade classes with Ricardo, one of the younger teachers I have befriended at my school. We had been teaching the class about English vocabulary relating to clothes (the children thought that underwear was quite funny) when they started misbehaving. Because of their bad behavior, their lesson quickly turned from fun games to writing the vocabulary words repeatedly on a blank piece of paper in silence for a half hour.
This left a half hour of time for Ricardo and I to converse in what I'm sure would be a very interesting Spanglish exchange for someone else to hear. Just like all of the teachers at my school (except the one 55-year-old woman who refuses to address me as a human being), Ricardo is amazing. Whenever he and I teach together our conversations venture towards personal topics from relationships to our love of the outdoors.
Thursday our conversation ventured to relationships all because I asked him where he had learned English. He told me he had learned from people like myself, the "giddies" of La Costa del Sol. A giddy, as I've been told, is a vacationer or non-native to this region of Spain. Many people only live here in the summer on the Mediterranean and then venture back to their homelands for the winter.
Ricardo, born and raised here, told me he had played his own version of the game "Risk" by dating different girls from different European countries. I laughed, but he told me when he told one of his German girlfriends the same thing he had gotten a slap across the face. I still think it's funny. Either way, these girls and Ricardo had only had English to communicate with one another, so this is the way he learned the language so well. I didn't expect him to get introspective with me about love and relationships, but I ended up getting some words of advice from this Spaniard and work partner.
Throughout his dating career, he told me he had dated three girls similar to himself. I must tell you that Ricardo is an extremely low-key, surfer/guitarist in a band who sports Converse All Stars, a plaid shirt and worn leather jacket to work everyday. He's never in a hurry and is the definition of relaxed, intuitive and artistic. I think he knows I understand the type of guy he is, and I think I do too. Anyways, he told me he had dated these previous girls similar to himself in relationships full of passion, and that each had ended in disaster. In fact after he went to live with one of the German girlfriends for a month there, he left after only five days (not the same girl who slapped him). This is where his words of advice, or more correctly put, personal observation, came in. He tried to explain that relationships like this just couldn't last and then he looked to an old adage to describe it better. This was the funny part as he and I battled back and forth in English and Spanish to try to come up with the phrase that he said had to do with candles. On the bus ride home I finally remembered it.
"The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long."
When I got home on Thursday from my last day of work beginning my ten day vacation I decided to look into this little saying. I found some very interesting information and famous metaphors and similes relating to candles. My search led me to an American poet, Edna St. Vincent Millay, who wrote a famous poem on the topic of "candles" as well. Her life story as a bi-sexual, swinger wife in the early 1900's is a testament of a bright light if you feel like reading and hitting up the ever-trustworthy Wikipedia page about her.
My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.- Edna St. Vincent Millay
- "A Few Figs from Thistles", 1920
I don't think I'll delve into my own personal thoughts on the themes presented in this old famous adage and this famous poem. Everyone has their own opinion and personal experiences to go off of. Just thought I would pass on the life knowledge this Spaniard colleague and friend felt the need to convey to me. Maybe you'll take something different from it than I did, but at least I passed on some words to provoke thoughts from a person from a different culture across the world to yourself.
Oh yes, I leave for Prague and Budapest tomorrow for what is bound to be an interesting trip of night trains and odd flights. Wish me luck!
Besitos (kisses),
Kenz
