The Other Side

Behold the many contradictions of Sevilla.  Unemployment at 22%, and busy bars crowded with laughing, chatting, very well-dressed Sevillanos.  Glorious architecture and religious statues decorated with girls' phone numbers.  Teens nurtured and sheltered in ways Americans would find appalling openly drinking in the parks (prohibited but accepted).  Gift shops inside awe-inspiring cathedrals (seriously).  As one who searches for the bright side, I have hesitated to share our less idyllic reflections.  But, with the sounds of drunken teens practicing for Santa Semana (Holy Week) wafting across the Sevillan night, I embrace the duality of Spain share some of the downsides. 

A sense of adventure and other-worldliness permeated our first weeks in Sevilla.  Few if any obligations cluttered our minds.  Understanding little of the language around us, we floated in our bubble of "otherness,"  breaking through only by our own volition and observing Spanish life from a comfortable distance.   Time spread in waves around us-- time to explore the city, time to travel, time to soak in the sun and inhale the jasmine.  But time never plays fair.  In our second month, we struggled against conflicting sensibilities.  As much as we love and are grateful for the adventure, the longer we stay, the more "real" this  life becomes.

For AJ, foreign student reality comes with its share of disappointments.  Like the knife grinder who still pedals the streets of Sevilla shattering the cool morning air with his shrill whistle,  educational practice in Sevilla exists in a time warp.  Teachers stand at the front of the class and lecture.  White boards grace the walls, (and I hear that one school even has smart boards!), but few written cues appear there until students are called to the board, Little House on the Prairie style, to show their sums. Workbooks suffice for practice, and project-based learning and group work have never darkened the doors of these classrooms. Surprisingly, although the English is a required course, the teachers make little use of the "live demo" available in their classrooms. Even in English class, AJ dutifully fills in workbooks, selecting the proper British verb forms and drawing lines to connect images of dressers and vacuum cleaners in Column A to words like "hoover" and "chest"  in Column B.  Although talking during class is strongly discouraged, AJ's mimicry of his teacher's, "Puedes callar!" (Shut up!) reminds me that kids are kids around the world.  The teacher in me questions the decision to discourage rather than channel this chatter.

Tapas-loving Sevillanos let their trash fall to the street, and while their economy is crumbling, their taxes pay for street cleaners to pick up that same trash the next morning.  Somedays, Sevilla seems to be the city that inspired the phrase "the left hand doesn't see what the right is doing."  AJ has made friends at school and seems to be a bit of a celebrity there. But outside the school doors, those friends lead busy lives filled with soccer practice, English class, music lessons, and kayaking, and few have found time to engage with him outside of school hours. In a land where soccer teams earn more news time than politics and where the stripes on your jersey typecast you as quickly as Cubby Blue and Sox Black, AJ can't find a pick-up soccer game outside the school grounds.  Despite repeated attempts to organize a game, his school friends can't leave their X-Boxes for a futbol game in the park, much less to practice their English with an American.  Ironically, those families that can afford to do so have enrolled their children in private English classes.  And yet, these same parents insist that their children study at home rather than spending time with  AJ, a living, breathing, and FREE English tutorial.   As a result, even as AJ still happily soaks up each new experience and each language victory, he longs for his friends, his own soccer team, his band practice, and even his own schoolwork.

Gentle reader, please hear me. I am not complaining.  All is well,and we are happy. Real life, anywhere, comes with the good and the bad.