Some other observations (Its the final countdown)

Hello, friends.

So, back in October/November, I wrote a post about my personal observations/things I have noticed and learned here in Spain. Now, with just one month left in this awesome country, I thought I would write a continuation of that post, because as expected, I have learned and observed a lot more compared to when I first arrived here.  Am I more cultured and experienced than I was 7-8 months ago? Probably not.  Do I have more to talk about? Always.

So sit back, grab some tinto de Verano and enjoy.

1. Family is very important here. Of course, family is important in America too, but here even more so. Maybe its just the fact that people tend to live closer to their relatives here, but it is very common to frequently get together for meals and other events here with your extended family. Most young children don’t go to day care either and they are usually watched every day by their grandparents or other family members. People also eat together more often that we do in America. My host family eats every meal together, every day. I’m sure there are families that do this in America, but here it is unusual to eat alone or to want to spend time alone. For my family back home, we all have very different schedules with work and school, so doing things such as eating meals together doesn’t happen as often as we would like. Overall, Spain has a very family-oriented culture (which is a good thing).
2. There are a lot of different social rules. I mentioned in the earlier post that people are very physical, with touching and with proximity. When people speak to each other, they get quite close to you (like only a foot or so apart). Personally, I am someone who really values personal space so this made me uncomfortable at times, especially if it was someone who I was unfamiliar with. Also, in public, people are loud, even at restaurants and on public transportation. In America, its considered rude to be speak loudly in shared places, but here, it is how you are heard. I had difficulty with this and often people have asked me to speak up. There are also different social rules on what is appropriate to wear and what isn’t. People in Spain and in most European countries tend to be more well dressed compared to Americans, and it is often easy to tell who are the foreigners in the city. But there are also unspoken rules on what season is it appropriate to wear certain items. Even though I live in a very warm region (the usual high was around 60-65 degrees F in the winter) people would still wear winter clothing and coats. It is considered weird to wear short and “summer” clothes outside of summer. For example, I have only recently started to see people wearing shorts and shorter skirts in public and it is mid- May (and in the 90’s). I would get strange looks from neighbors when I would wear shorts on runs in February. To me, it was warm, but to them, I was committing a fashion faux pas. Oh well.
3. There is not a lot of variety. Let me explain. If you go to a grocery store in America, there is always a ton of different flavors to choose from for things like cereal, ice cream, yogurt, chips, cookies, etc. Americans love their variety. We love having a bazillion options for flavors and are always coming up with new flavors for things (ever had chicken and waffles flavored chips? Its life changing).

Here in Spain, it is very different. If you go to the soda section, there are two types to pick from: Coke (diet and regular) and Fanta (orange and Lemon). If you go to the cereal section, there are maybe 4-5 different types. Go to the ice cream section, you can pick from a couple. And there aren’t any flavors or brands that are exclusive to one store. Pretty much every grocery store in Spain is the same. If you go into a restaurant, the menu will more or less be the same in the restaurant next door (unless it is a specialty restaurant). Go to an ice cream shop, the flavors are the same in the other shop that you went to last time. Even with things like pizza, it’s the same flavors at every shop.  Also, things like flavored coffee doesn’t exist here. Its either café con leche or café sin leche (with or without milk). People here like what they know, and what they have is good. If its not broke, why fix it?

(why are most of my observations food related?)

4. Going along with food… Special diet things are hard to come by here. This might just be because I live with a host family and I don’t have too much control over what I can eat, but if you have a dietary restriction or choose to eat a certain way, it can be difficult. At stores, it is more common now to find gluten free things and some lactose free things, but it can only be really found at the larger grocery stores (what’s up, Super Carrefour?) And compared to America, there is not a lot of variety. Also, if you are vegetarian/ vegan, good luck. Personally, I don’t like eating a lot of meat. I try to make the majority of my diet plant based, especially when I was living on my own in College. Here, that is not an option. It is super hard to find good vegetarian/vegan options at restaurants. I have been to restaurants where there were no vegetarian options. Even the salads have meat or fish on them, or things are cooked with chicken broth or something similar. Prior to my arrival, I had considered becoming a vegetarian. I am glad I put off that, because it would’ve been almost too difficult to manage, especially because I don’t live alone and have to eat what my host family eats. Also, if you don’t like fish, don’t come to Southern Spain. Just saying.

Moving on from food…

5. Race/religion and identity is different here. America is a country made up of many different races, cultures, religions and social identities. We are taught from a young age that racism is wrong, to be aware of those different from us and always be respectful of other cultures/religions/ races/ identities and use proper terminology. While unfortunately not everyone does this in the US, the majority of people are aware and know that it is the right thing to do. It is the normalized culture to be very sensitive to other’s differences and to try your best to be as politically correct as possible. From my observations, this is not often the case in Spain. In the region I live in, it is not very culturally diverse. There are a small handful of people of Asian descent, a small amount of people who immigrated from different parts of Africa, but other than that, it is mostly native Spaniards. In Huelva, there are very few people who speak English (outside of my school) and it is rare to hear any other language besides Spanish being spoken in the streets. I have been told off before by strangers when they hear me trying to speak in Spanish or when I have a friend/ family member translate for me. They say something along the lines of “You’re in Spain! Learn Spanish!” People here can sometimes be dismissive if you are not comfortable using Spanish. Also, I have noticed that they are not as culturally aware or sensitive as we are in America. I am sure they do not mean to do this or don’t intend to come off as insensitive or rude, but I have noticed them say and do some things that would not be socially okay in the US. An example of this is how they refer to what we would call “African Americans”, “Black” or how they call all Asians “Chinese”. Also, on the Three Kings day (El Dia de Los Reyes), often in parades when they have people dressed as the three wise men, they will have someone wear blackface to represent the King that was from Africa. As everyone knows, in the US, you CANNOT wear a black face. It is super racist. The people here don’t view it as racist though.

Also, because this country is predominantly Catholic, people here don’t really learn about or exposed to other religions or faiths. It might just be the school I work at, but for the most part, the students don’t learn about other religions or holidays. I remember in school we would at several times have a unit in class about world religions (the main ones, primarily). In the US, it is super common to see different houses of worship (synagogues, temples, churches, etc.) and to know people who go there. Here, I have never seen a Jewish synagogue, a Muslim mosque, or a Protestant church. Again, not a bad thing, but the concept of separation of church and state that is really enforced in the US is not such a priority or a necessity here.

6. People take their time here. The US is known for being super-fast paced and everything is on the go. Not here. If you go to a restaurant, you will most likely be there for at least 2 or 3 hours. If you go get coffee with someone, you will be there for an hour. On a walk? 2 hours. Meeting up with a friend? All afternoon. Saying goodbye? That’ll put you back a good 45 minutes. People are also often late for things. If you tell someone to meet up at 5, they will be there for 5:30. Even at school, if the class starts at 9, the teacher gets to the room at 9:05-9:10. My students asked me in the beginning of the school year, “Miss Jordan, why are you always so early?” when I arrived to class at the time it was suppose to begin.
7. People aren’t as polite here as they are in other countries. I am not saying that they are rude, but if someone bumps into you, they aren’t going to say anything. I have been told that in places like the US and England, we are over polite and say things like, “sorry” and “excuse me” a lot. My Spanish teacher told me to stop apologizing every time I made a mistake. It’s something I don’t even think of, its just an automatic response.
8. As an outsider of the Spanish language, and being someone who is teaching a foreign language, I have noticed collectively there are some funny/interesting mistakes that are super common with Spanish ESL learners (with kids and adults). These are a few common mistakes that I personally find kind of funny and I can understand where they are coming from, but it still makes me laugh to myself none the less (I am not making fun of my students by the way, these are just things I have noticed a lot of them do).

–          They call balloons “gloves”. This is because the Spanish word for balloon is Globo

–          They often confuse the two verbs, To make and to do. So it is super common to hear someone say “I make the homework” and “Can we do cookies?” That is because in Spanish it is the same verb, Hacer .

–          I have heard so many students describe swimming in the pool as “Having a bath in the swimming pool”. I try to explain to them, no you don’t have a bath in the pool, you swim. This is because the Spanish verb you use to describe going into the pool is bañarse (para bañarse en la piscina) which means bathing.

–          They get pronouns confused a lot. Like, they will point to a girl and say he or his. Or if they are referring to their parents or to a group of children they will say “fathers” or “boys”. In Spanish, parents is padres (which also means fathers) and to refer to a group of both boy and girl children you use the masculine word which here is ninos and also means “boys”

Jordan, why are you pointing out your student’s mistakes? Well, I am honestly excited with my Spanish ability that I am able to understand the reasoning behind their minor errors. Slowly but surely, I am becoming able to connect these two languages together and to be able to successfully teach and explain things so they understand.

So yeah. One month left and then I return to the good old US of A. Me and my nuggets are going to be super busy with the Cambridge exams this week and next week. I am not allowed to give them their speaking test, but I have to do things like organizing them and doing paper work and such. Should be wild. Stay tuned for more.

Adios.