I got a roommate a week ago. Susana, one of the teachers I teach with in all the grades from pre-school to third grade, has a sister who had breast cancer (maybe even died from it, I don’t know) and they found a lump on Susana’s breast, so she went into surgery. And from what I understood with my shaky Spanish, they removed her entire breast! Anyway, so they had to get a new teacher, whose name is Inma, and Inma needed a place to stay. It’s nice to be sharing rent for a month. And she’s quiet and clean and I’m cleaner when I know someone else has to live with me. Plus, she has a husband and child in a town an hour or so away and so she goes home every weekend, meaning that she’s only really here 5 days/4nights out of the week. It’s a NICE set-up.
I’m more than halfway through HP4. I love Harry Potter. Period. I would marry him if he would just come out of this damn book.
Carnaval is a blast. Let’s just get that stated. So for Carnaval (which is basically like an extended Mardi Gras, the celebration before the start of Lent), I dressed up three times. Dressing up for Carnaval is very important here. I bought a costume and dressed as an Egyptian for the school, which was pretty fun. Nine grades of kids dressed as Cleopatras and Pharaohs marching down the street. Pretty adorable, albeit cold.
That afternoon I went out for a drink with the teachers, which is always a little awkward, but really pretty fun. I love the teachers in the infant area of the school, because they always take me under their wings at teacher functions, so Toñi told me how cute I looked and she and her husband kept buying me beer. :) I love the phrase “te invito” because I bat my eyelashes and say thank you and get free alcohol. I always liked being a girl in the States because it meant getting drinks for free sometimes, but it’s even more so here. Especially if I stumble over my words adorably when I go to chat with the inviter. :) Yes, I am a woman and I have been taught how to be the beloved.
Anyway, so I went home with a buzz, napped for a couple of hours and went to the supermarket with Milena (the Polish girl) to buy some drinks for that night. Which is to say, a bottle of vodka and some juice.
We had a girl’s evening after finishing working on the third costume that would be worn on Saturday. I went upstairs to the girls’ flat and we sat around and chatted, put on make-up and got dressed up. Bharathi (Indian girl) let me use her sari, so I went as an Indian girl. It was GREAT. And Milena and I started in on our bottle of vodka, and we got a good way into it. The gentlemen from Mexico showed up and escorted us to the main plaza where a tent was set up for the fiesta. We danced all night. Haha, that’s all that need be said.
It was a good time, and then the girls left because they thought I had gone home, so I was left with the three Mexicans and the Spaniard, who were good enough to escort me back to the girls’ flat, where Bharathi got me out of the sari and into bed. I forgot to drink the bottle of water that I left for myself next to the bed and I woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I have experienced to date.
But by 4pm on Saturday we were rolling again, working on the third set of costumes, which was the “Arte Andante,” or “Walking Art.” Katya (Russian girl) and one of the Spaniards had painted 6 well-known paintings on cardboard frames that we decked out with frames. These included the Mona Lisa and the Scream one, as well as some others that are more well-known here in Europe. The guys were the painters and six of us girls had holes cut in the paintings where we put our faces. The result was our faces in the masterpieces of the world!
It was a really cool idea and kind of fun at first, but not having eaten much and being as tired as we were, it got old fast. And the guys, who had the ability to move around all they wanted, throw confetti, etc, without cardboard stuck to their faces, kept doing the same things. They would come to use, pretend to paint the masterpiece, all the while whistling loudly in our faces with the whistles they carried in their mouths. It got really old, yet lasted 2 or 3 hours. By the time it was done, I was ready to come home.
I came back to my flat and intended to just take a nap, but ended up not waking up until 4am. I was supposed to meet the girls at their flat at 1am to go out again. So I missed the second night, but I wasn’t too terribly upset. I didn’t have a plan for a costume that night and I was tired and don’t like to drink two days in a row, so it wasn’t terribly awful that I missed it.
I relaxed the next day and then on Monday we had dinner at the girls’ flat (without Milena, who was in a neighboring town visiting our English friend) and it was delicious. Though I must say, I think that most cultures must not eat hot meals as much as us Americans do. Or maybe they just switch the hot meals. Like, we eat sandwiches in the afternoon and hot meals at night, where it’s opposite in most other places. I don’t think I like it. I like having a hot meal before going to bed. Anyway, so all this Indian food was cold. Good, but cold and not totally satisfying.
The next weekend was Milena’s birthday and we had a party. Katya and Bharathi and I made a cake that turned out to be pretty delightful—something like tiramisu. I was supposed to make spaghetti and did, but it was not wanted. So anyway, Milena made a dish, Bharathi made three dishes, and Katya made a dish, again all cold. We got all dressed up—I wore a new dress that turned out to be a total success!—and sat down to eat.
The Mexicans were supposed to come at 10pm but showed up something like an hour or two late and already drinking. They brought Tequila (Mexicans!) for us to share and another bottle of something called Arrujo, or something like that. Memo, one of the Mexicans, had to be put to sleep after only a little bit because he had had just a bit too much to drink. The birthday girl ended up being the one with him in the bathroom as he threw up. Such a good friend. We danced inside the house for quite a few hours and then headed to the dance club around 3am (no one gets there until that time). We danced at least four hours, putting me home again somewhere around 7am. Good night, great dress, good company.
The next weekend was a fiesta in a pueblo near us called Benquerencia, so we packed some sleeping bags and took off with the Mexicans and the Spaniard to hike to the town and sleep in a youth center. It was great fun, although a little sparse of people, which made dancing awkward. The next day we went to see some cave paintings on a nearby rock wall and the ruins of the castle that stand above the city. Then there was the hike back, which was lovely. I got sunburnt!
Once we got back to Castuera, we sat in the street for a little bit. Two of my boys from school were riding those two-wheeled skate-swivel-board thingys and Orlando, one of the Mexicans, attempted to learn how to use it. He kept saying, “this is the last try, I promise,” “okay, just a couple more tries and then I’ll give it back.” I love walking with my foreign friends when one of my kids recognizes me because the kids always say hello and I feel loved to be singled out as known amongst the group. It’s about the cutest thing ever.
I’m starting to appreciate Castuera more and more and am finding myself even finding things that I will miss, such as the just-mentioned hellos that I receive on my walks home from the kids that I teach. They love to yell my name from down the street just so I’ll yell a salutation back, but little do they know how much I love it to because it makes me feel like I belong a little more. And I’ll miss my foreign friends.
Katya leaves this week and it’s going to be very sad because it will just leave Milena and Bharathi. And of course, I love both of them, but Bharathi can get really annoying to be with for very long. And Milena is my favorite amongst the girls, but I don’t want to get bored of her either. That would be a bummer.
Luckily the Mexicans leave only a few days before I do, so I won’t have to feel too left-behind there, and then Milena and Bharathi will leave after me. It’ll be sad to leave them, but it’s much better than being left by them. :)
And I’ll miss this apartment a little. I’ll miss having total control of it, anyway. I love living by myself and while I’m excited to live with my parents again, I’m also not looking forward to relinquishing the vast personal space I have come to appreciate so greatly. Not that my parents don’t respect my personal space, but you know. There’s something to be said for having the freedom to leave a dirty dish in the sink as long as you want without feeling bad.
I think I’ve grown up a lot. I think I might have changed a little in the past couple of months.
Okay, time for me to go listen to haunting music. :) Love to all. Leave me a comment, tell me something about your life. If, of course, anyone actually reads this. <3 br="">
