http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0tnh0xeDzw&feature=relmfu
Sister Rosetta Thorpe

I have a lot of fun teaching. It is always super interesting. I just wish the preparation wasn't so stressful.
Marcelino is always fun. Tonight we studied words for routine daily activities, like getting up, brushing teeth. We had a misunderstanding about which he was asking about - the teeth brushing or the shaving, and I wrote down "to shave", so he said, "I shave my teeth."
Then somehow we ended up telling each other about grandparents: me about my grandfather on my dad's side, and him about his grandfathers, who had fought in the civil war in the 30s. Somebody had cut someone's head off and was actually walking around holding it by the hair. His grandfather ordered that particular person to be shot.
As I walk home and Marcelino takes the opportunity for a walk, we always switch back to Spanish, and this time the subject was the Spartans and their war against the Persians, and the Mongols and their hardiness and efficacy at war.

Today there was a "general strike". Two big national unions called for it. Nearly the entire city was shut down. Paco last night told me it was going to happen, and also told me that in every company above a certain size in Spain, there is something like a union, or a labour representative at least, that is elected by the employees. Anyways, it really was general. Even small businesses closed their doors in support of it. It was basically against the recently elected right wing government's cutting of certain rights or benefits of workers. Public transit and other services were running in a reduced fashion. People that may not have had anything directly to do with a big union were participating by turning off their cell phones to protest the cell phone companies, people were talking about trying not to consume or buy stuff in general, and Rocio didn't go to rehab today, to support the strike. In the morning there were people going around with noisemakers and whistles, in late morning there were people standing around talking in groups and lots of people everywhere in bars.

I have to go cook dinner and plan classes now.

In Geoffrey's bathroom wall just under the shower head there is a hole through the wall just big enough for your eye, that looks out onto someone's abandoned patio below, full of weathered containers and wild plants behind a backdrop of grey concrete wall. Nobody can see through, though if you care to have a view while showering you can stick your eye up to the hole.

Quite a number of the houses that can be seen from the rooftop are needing a coat of paint, which Geoffrey would be more than willing to do, if it were up to him. The whitewash is no longer white and it would not look to most of you like something belonging to an average neighborhood in a first world country.

I knocked some space out of a wall around some pipe fittings that needed to be soldered, helped put up a cupboard, mixed cement and patched a crumbling wall, helped clean a gutter and make speculations about where the leak could be coming from, took the cover off a spray painting machine, which Geoffrey then hardwired onto the power supply or converter, as it was from the US and he had long since removed the useless plug.

Sunday I washed the white paint off the rooftop patio just below the walls, after he sprayed the walls white, and translated for him and his neighbour, the elderly Maria, who has a sparkle in her eye and likes to tease him, though they don't understand a word each other says.

In return he paid my train ticket, bought me drinks at the pena Friday night, made me food the whole weekend and took me out to a venta (definition = place Kim would like to stay forever) yesterday afternoon.

Mara thinks I am weirder than weird, going to Jerez to help a guy I just met work on his house. Mara is correct.

Friday

I am finally starting to get the hang of how Ernesto learns. He tells me exactly what he wants, and what to do and what not to do. Sometimes he just needs to play, or colour, or draw a word, instead of always talking. He asked me to read the alphabet, so I sung it. He knows a lot of words, as do my adult students, but like them, doesn't know how to say each individual letter like we do. (I have had the same problem in Spanish: I can read full length novels, but until recently, forgot how to say "x").

Then he told me to be quiet while he coloured all the letters a different colour.

The lesson was overall quite good. Though at one point he crawled behind me on the couch and either licked or spit-washed a large freckle on my lower back just above my behind, and then told me I had done "caca" on myself. (I tried to tell him unsuccessfully that it was chocolate).

I was laughing to myself as I walked home aftewards. I know my hair is a lot shorter and sits differently - there isn't much curl - it's a less "pretty" look. But I was unprepared for two Chinese boys that passed me and glanced, while one said "Nu de haishi nan de" (man/boy or woman/girl). The other one didn't hesitate a second before answering that I was a woman. But I turned around and said "HUH?!" So they turned around and looked, as they walked away. I laughed, and they said from a distance, "hasta luego". I answered, "zaijian".

I wondered how many more weird things were going to happen to me that day, but luckily I arrived in Jerez and met Geoffrey with only a small delay while he arrived from the airport.

We saw Juana la del Pipa sing at Pena Buleria, which was an event. The first time I've seen her live.

Oil spill in Andalucia...

But I ate it all.

Got a jug of oil - 2L, with a wide mouth, hard to pour out just a little bit. Often end up with a larger oil intake per meal than I intended. After I cut open my luscious but mal white bread and attempted to give it an adequate splash of oil, I looked again, and thought... that was not just a little much like most times, that's technically a spill, even though I was pouring it.

Add tomato slices... no pasa nada. Ate it all no problem.

I got shorn today - look like Ms. Moore, my grade 4 teacher. That was a long time ago. 1970something. My hair is exactly like her.

Rocio went to the hospital on Wednesday. She called me over and told me she couldn't get up, was all dizzy. Called the local health unit and they couldn't understand what street we were on, even though it's central and obvious. She ended up calling the ambulance. Our street fits one car only. Plus a few pedestrians squeezed against the walls on either side. The ambulance drivers sure took their time talking to her, standing there in her room asking questions, letting her talk. Before finally getting her sitting on the convertible chair stretcher and hauling her away.

I had an excellent class today with they boys. They've added a new member. He's more my age. This is the second new member of their group since I started! It's really enjoyable working with them, because they are young and cool, but also really intelligent. Not just good computer programmers, but Rafa asked me some very good questions about Canadian history, the aboriginal people. He even seemed to know that the word "Indian" wasn't polite. Shocking. He seemed very aware of the fact that there might be valid issues and problems with this group of people, which is more than I could say for even some Canadians, let alone Europeans. Some of them over here still admire the conquest of the New World, that their Spanish explorers did, and have even been told by a Latino that a Spaniard spoke to them as if they were a under ancient Spanish governance... under a viceroy of Spain, like they had back then.

The questions came out of a text on British Culture that I gave them to read and then discuss. It was very interesting what they had to say. The article discussed the "stiff upper lip", in trying to explain the character of the British. They knew the song by ACDC. I told them what that phrase meant to me and why I thought ACDC had something to say about it. They note differences between themselves and the British that they see here. They also said in as polite a way as possible, that the British behave very differently from this when they come to Spain, especially in the beach towns. And that in the center of the city you can see British behaving the same way. I've already been told by Sevillanos that they notice bad behaviour of the British, when under the influence of alcohol. These guys told me that in Spain, after the age of 35, people do not drink to excess and behave inappropriately in public, but they had seen more than enough British doing so, and their behaviour at football matches is well known. The guys surmised what we also do, or perhaps know personally: it probably happens because they have the stiff upper lip and keep all the emotions inside.
They also told me how funny they thought it was to see the double decker busses with all the foreigners on the top level with the sun beating down on them, making them red. Andalucians have a very strong sense of self-preservation relating to sun exposure. It is instilled in them since childhood to take care and how exactly to avoid sun as much as possible.

Must sign off and sleep before I have to go out tonight. I taught late last night, saw Sachiko, then got up early this morning.

Today this is what I have to say:

Baby Please Don't Go

Because I want to sing the blues by the cathedral, along with the Spanish guy who can't really pronounce the words well.

This is the guy who wrote this song, sung by many other since: other blues artists, Bob Dylan, Them (Van Morrisson).

No amount of technique and prettiness can equal the incredible amount of soul this man has. Completely blows me away.

Hope you like it.

OLE!
This is what I have to say right now.
In love forever with this music and the place it comes from.
Because if you are ever unsure you want life to go on, this makes that question moot.