During my time teaching English in Spain, I journaled almost every day. I’m so glad I did this because not only was it a good way to keep track of my experience and my feelings, it has brought back a lot of memories as I’ve had to reread it for my blog. I’ve got entries about the school, cultural differences, trips to other cities/countries, and my host family. And I also stumbled across a few random stories that brought about some funny memories! Here are a few of those hidden gems...
On my very first day at my host family’s house, they offered to show me around the neighborhood just as a mini-tour. Literally, as we stepped outside to begin our walk, we see a random horse just casually strolling the street. Of course, it's my first day so I’m like “Is this normal?” Y’all have horses in your neighborhood?” Turns out, this wasn’t normal at all! Apparently, it had broken out of one of the nearby farms! My host dad had to lead the horse to a nearby tennis court where they locked it in until they could figure out who the owner was. What an interesting start to my time abroad LOL.
On my first day at the school, my school coordinator shared info about the school, the city, and the culture. I don’t recall how exactly the topic was brought up, but one of the things he was explaining to me was Spanish Holy Week. Holy Week is one of the best-known Catholic traditions for the Easter celebration. The celebration involves processions on horseback, sermons in the city center, fiestas, parades, and customary attire. When the school coordinator tried to describe the traditional attire for Holy Week, he excitedly (and very proudly) said “They dress like the Ku Klux Klan!!!” In that moment, all of my ancestors collectively whispered “Oh H*LL NAH!” It’s unfortunate because I’m sure this tradition far predated the KKK but my Blackity Black self was not interested (or amused) in the slightest. Ain’t no way I’m gonna intentionally surround myself with people that look like the KKK. My history taught me better than that. I’m good love, enjoy!
During my time with my host family, I got to meet and interact with a lot of their friends and their church community. One day, about halfway into my stay, we went to a birthday party for one of the family’s friends. Of course, because I was still the new person in the group, a lot of the interactions with me were asking me questions about myself or explaining things about themselves to me. Towards the end of the party, I ended up talking to the friend’s husband asking basic questions and practicing my Spanish when the friend walked up. As we were preparing to leave, I noticed the friend and her husband staring at me while they were talking. I still wasn’t fluent in Spanish so I often had to wait for someone to translate for me so I could know what’s going on. The only word I could understand out of the whole conversation was “naranja (orange).” I looked to the family friend to translate and she awkwardly explained that her hometown, Valencia, was known for having very sweet oranges and the husband wanted to send me off with one. So I got an orange as a parting gift LOL.
Last but not least, every day for school, my host mom and I would carpool with another teacher. One day after school, the other teacher got out of the school building earlier than us so she pulled the car around to pick us up. As I was taking my bag off to put it in the car, I felt this sudden, extreme pressure on my foot. I don’t know how but all of the sudden, the tire was driving over my foot and then she stopped while it was still on me! I’m panicking and screaming “Ow!” but my brain couldn’t function enough to actually explain that the car was on my foot. So I’m screaming and they're panicking while sitting very confused. I just kept screaming until somehow, I made it known that it was the car. But it took way too long for me to get the words out. Once she got off of my foot, I realized the situation scared me more than it hurt me. I’m so happy that I was okay because I’ve never broken a bone and was terrified at the idea of having a severe medical emergency in a foreign country.
Reading through these journal entries gave me a good little laugh. Teaching abroad really was a unique experience!
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I didn’t know most of these ! These were hilarious 😄😄. Thank you for sharing