Lo que estoy leyendo ahora

Lo más importante, sin embargo, era que cada día realizaba el gran sueño de su vida: viajar. Cuando se cansara de los campos de Andalucía podía vender sus ovejas y hacerse marinero. Cuando se cansara del mar ya había conocido muchas cuidades, a muchas mujeres y muchas oportunidades de ser feliz.

from El Alquimista by Paulo Coelho

I am starting it for the second time. I checked it out this summer and didn't finish it so I am starting again. I am only on page 38 but I am enjoying it immensely. It is a very unique and incredible experience to be reading a book set in the same province in Spain that I have been in, and in the same language that is all around me. What makes it even more incredible is that it is about a boy who becomes a shepherd to travel and walk around Andalucía and beyond. I have been walking through the same fields and countrysides as the ones the author sets his protagonist.

Concurso de logotipo por Las Cabezas

The town next the Lebrija is going to have a bicentennial celebration in 3 years but for some reason they are really on their stuff, so they had a Logo Contest. I went there today to submit my materials to the Ayuntamiento. Here it is. Fingers crossed. The winner will be selected Monday.

The Walkabout part II...

(click to enlarge)

This weekend my roommates and I set out on another walking trek, but this time was south to the ocean.

Friday afternoon we set off outside of Lebrija to the Rio Guadalquivir where we would follow it most of the way to the sea. The beginning of the treks always seems to start out so barren and vacant but the end is always rewarding.

We didn't leave until 3:30 because Bijan worked. Well, the sun starts going down around 6:30 so not much progress was made day 1, especially since we tried to take shortcuts through farm land and had to jump some small irrigation ditches. We made it to the riverside and walked until sunset and stopped to eat and make camp. We found a palette and started a wee fire just to have something to do.

We awoke a few times in the night to barges going down the river...well, maybe the boats interrupted our "we are trying to sleep but it is cold, cramped, and earlier than we expected". When it is dark by 7:30 and you are on the trail there aren't many things to do. We all woke up at one point and had a guess at the hour. "Calvin- 4? Bijan- No its just 1:15. Shit, we have all night yet."

In the morning we started our journey onwards. There isn't really much to talk about. We just walked. Talking here and there. A bit of singing. Mostly "On the road again...something something, cause we're on the road again," or other variations such as "on the road again. Bijan, Cal, and Boone are on the road again." Other times movie quotes and comedy skits.

Along the road we met a middle aged couple who was touring the south. We saw riders from the Jerez Equestrian school going out on rides. Close to El Parque Natural de Doñana we saw flamingos in the marshes (not nearly as close as I could have seen them though). In the middle of the nothingness we entered the Doñana pine forest and emerged on the outskirts of Sánlucar. In Sánlucar we hit the market to refresh our supplies and hit the beach to walk to Chipiona on the coast.

We all took a quick liking to Chipiona for its cool lighthoused/cathedraled boardwalk. Apparently the city is always dead in the off season because half the property is owned by people in Sevilla, so now, in the winter, it felt very quaint and calm, much to our liking.

We walked along the coast until we weren't close to the houses and bars that litter the coast and made camp. The tide was out and it looked rather far away, but there was a line were the wet sand was and the dry sand was 5 feet from where we put the tent. We didn't have other options because further back wasn't level ground and the fence and dunes were there. We scavenged another palette (I tell you what, with out palettes, we would be bored as hell) and started a beach fire. A little later we went to bed, but I was super-paranoid about the tide and poked out of the tent every time I noticed the tide was closer. In the end, the tide never got near and we all passed out much harder than the night before after a very full day of walking.

I leave you with our homemade postcard, and blame it on guys being guys especially when in the wilderness and bored.



Click HERE to see other photos from the walk.

Busy little beavers...

It has only a little over 2 weeks since I have moved to Lebrija, although, it feels much longer. I went back to Sevilla the other day to run some errands and had mixed feelings. I do not miss traffic jams and commuting to work or the amount of time it took to get from one place to another. However, now that I live across the street I can go to class a few minutes before it starts and go home in between classes, so I see the teachers alot less than before. But that is a simple fix. I can just stay in the lounge in between classes. Also, in Sevilla I left the house more often than I do here in Lebrija, which isn't saying much. I have more reason to stay at home than ever. My roommates and I have been scheming projects for the house.

Project ^#1- The herb garden rack.



Soon we hope to start growing Basil, Cilantro, Oregano, and the like, on our terrace. We built it out of palettes and found timbers.

Project ^#2- Jamón



A house isn't a home without the ole pig haunch in the kitchen...at least in Spain. Spanish are nuts over the jamón. They take immense pride in jamón iberico, which comes form pigs that are fed strictly acorns. It quite the sight to walk into Museo de Jamón and see 100 pig legs hanging from the ceiling. The best part is that they are all no cooking or refrigeration required, because the meat is cured.

In order to get jamón, first you need a Ham Holder, which costs money, which we have little of, SO, just take some scrap wood and throw that haunch right on it.

Project ^#3- The rooftop cabana.




As of yesterday we have installed a rooftop cabana complete with palette benches and a fire pit. The fire will keep us warm during the winter months, and the cabana will shade us during the hot summer months. Unfortunately, it just adds one more reason not to leave the house.

Oh, and I am a teacher...

So I have been here a while now and haven't really mentioned anything about the teaching part of my Spain experience, which is the reason why I came...well, not really the reason why I came, but the means by which I am able to be here. I haven't talked much about cultural things either, but I will save that for another day.

For those who don't know, I work at IES, (Instituto Educación Secundaría), El Fontanal, for a strenuous 12 hours a week. The Spanish school system is broken down a little bit different than home. They start prescolar around 3-4-years old, which is comparable to our Kindergarten; primería follows, which is our Elementary; instituto is kind of like Middle school and the first half of High school because it is 12-16-year olds, this is where I work; bachillerato is the kids from 17-18, and is optional, it is mostly for kids who want to go on to a trade school or university. Within my level of instituto there is primero, 7th graders; segundo, 8th graders; tercero, 9th graders; and cuarto, 10th graders.

I have a core group which is primero bilingüe. I have them for 5 hrs of the 12, so I know them better then the rest, who I only have for one hour a week. I have the primeros in English, Social Studies, Science, PE, and Math. The other 7 hours are all English classes with mostly terceros and cuartos, which are not bilingual groups. (Don't let the name "bilingual" deceive you, none of the bilingüe are bilingual, but their teachers hardly talk to them in Spanish, almost completely in English. It is really impressive, it has to be really hard, but it is probably the best way to learn.

In the beginning my role in the classroom was mostly the "perfect" English pronunciation parrot, the teacher taught and looked to me for confirmation. Slowly it phased a little more into the teachers handing me a textbook or worksheet a few minutes before class and giving me full reign of the class, but Spain didn't bring 1,300 of us over to cover textbooks, which the current teachers are perfectly capable of covering...or at least most of them are capable of doing. So upon the arrival of Halloween I took the opportunity to start creating crazyfunbutstillinformative lesson plans.

I presented a slide show of last years Halloween party and had the kiddos guess who or what the people were. I didn't think about how much would be to old or uniquely American. So two California Raisins were unidentifiable, Amy, the dancing silhouette from the iPod commericials, became a primitive in their minds because she had painted herself jet black (gosh), but they got Tetris, (cheers Mar)...which I happened to steal for my costume this year...money and time mandated it.

This week is my greatest lesson yet, and I have had a lot of fun teaching it. We cover Obama, the Presidents, and the Election process. We vote in the class for "Which American President had the coolest facial hair?" I am usually a beard man, but my personal fav is B., Martin Van Buren, however, most of the kids go for the Taft-stache, I think it is a cultural thing...I then try to demonstrate the differences in tallying the results in a style of complete democracy, or a republic, or a tyranny, which means that since I like B, Martin Van Buren was the best facially haired president to date, period. I then try to convey the subtle difference in a democratic-republic, but think that it isn't very important and harder to explain. I have already gotten noise complaints from teachers in the neighboring room. Always a sign of some hands on learning going on next door...

Today me and the primeros had a blast in Math moving numbers on the positive/negative integer line. I kind of just wish they were the only class I have. They are too young to constantly ask me if I get high. They are more respectful and quiet.

Also, I have started helping out a little in the art classroom, not too much yet though. The art classroom is incredibly overwhelming, the behaviour of the students is absurd sometimes. But one thing has come out if it thus far and that is first hand accounts of a Spanish educational system policy that we should perhaps look into, which is regarding mentally challenged and autistic kids in the classroom. So far as I have observed there are no "special ed" teachers or classrooms, the handicapped children sit in the class just the same as all of the other children.

When first arriving in Spain I had thought, and others, the same, that Spain had an abnormally high handicap percentage. Upon further thinking, the new theory is that Spain doesn't have a higher percentage, but rather a higher rate of inclusion of the handicap into the flow of things. I have heard incredible stories from other auxiliares about how students who can't use their arms are fed by other peers and wheelchaired to and fro, etc. It shows obvious benefits for both of the parties.

Next week I will be going over my Uganda trip and tying it in with our recent geography lessons. I am excited to see what else comes of my role in the classroom.

I've Moved...now, I live right HERE.

View Larger Map

Boone Sommerfeld
Avda de Océano Atlántico, 3-B
41740, Lebrija (Sevilla)
España

I lived in Sevilla for the past month, but I couldn't take it anymore. My average day was waking up at 6:20, (which isn't bad in the states, but everything is later here. Dinner isn't until 9pm) then riding my bike 40min to a carpool meeting point, then a 45min carpool, work, then do the same trip back, hit the library to use internet. I then would arrive home at 5 and make lunch, which wasn't ready until 6, and that was the first thing I would have eaten all day...of course I could go eat lunch instead of going to the library and just go in the evening, but that adds one more hours of bike riding to the day, plus it fills up in the evening with students and you have to wait in line to enter the library. SO, myself, and two other Auxiliares decided to move to the pueblo where we work.

I have only been here since Saturday, but we all love our place, and have no regrets.

Here is the comparison between what I paid €200 in Sevilla and what I am paying €110 now in Lebrija.

The living room in Sevilla...

The living room in Lebrija...

My room in Sevilla...

My room in Lebrija...

not to mention our own rooftop, and a kitchen for a king...



We are all surprisingly like-minded. It is the house consensus that we start a garden next door, an herb garden indoors, and get a fire pit to the roof.

An added bonus is large community meals. Last night we roasted a chicken, with baked potatoes, a large avocado-roasted bell pepper salad, baguette, and Moroccan oranges for desert. All of which was by the light of a small lamp in the kitchen, because we are all equally cheap. It feels a lot like living in a cabin actually, because there is no heat in houses here, so we have been wearing our scarves, sweaters, wool socks, and sometimes mittens inside. We huddle around the oven after the cooking is done to warm our appendages, then scurry off the the sleeping bags and blankets that live on our couches.

All in all, a good decision, I hope you all can come visit someday soon.

I Think I'll Go On A Walkabout...

"A walk could cure most all my blues
bare feet or in my two shoes.
I think I'll go on a walkabout
Find out what it's all about."

~Excerpt from "Walkabout" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

(click to enlarge)

What does one do for fun when they have a three day weekend, and a tight budget. Walk. I suppose there are many other things to day, but walking is what I chose.

From the edge of my town, Lerbija, you can see some "mountains" in the distance, I have wanted to go explore a bit, and decided to make a weekend out of it. Well, a fellow teacher recommended that I make it to Arcos de la Frontera. Arcos is in the same direction as the moutain/hills I want to go to so I figured I would B-line it over the hill/mountains and walk to Arcos. I looked at Google maps and such to consult distances and how long to plan for, etc. A professor volunteered to drive me to the next pueblo, El Cuervo, because the walk from here to there is rather boring. Half way between El Cuervo and Arcos, is a small town called Gibalbín. It is at the base of the hill/mountains I was walking towards. Google said that the first half was 16km, the second stretch was 14km. I planned to split it up into two days to take time to read and wander.

So Friday morning I packed up my things and arrived at school. After his class, Juan Viel drove me to the next town. There in El Cuervo I picked up €9 of fruit, bread, cheese and started along the road. Not 10 minutes down the road and someone pulled over asking if I wanted a ride to Arcos, which I turned down because I wanted to walk to see the country side at a slower pace. I was surprised, because I had heard that hitching was difficult in Spain these days. We chatted for a minute or two until the car behind him started honking, he ended up being a good friend of the PE teacher here at El Fontanal, my school.

I continued down the road until I cross there highway, where then started to make my way through the country side, mostly farmland. I ran into one of the owners at a gate and asked if I could pass through. She said no because of the bulls in the fields, it would be too dangerous. But the bulls are in their pens so I walked a little further down the road and jumped the fence when she was gone.

I could see some bulls up ahead and tried to make sure that there weren't more than I knew about. As I was walking up the fence row, in case I needed to get on the otherside quick, I saw a few lumps in the shade. I had seen some lumps early in the distance and when I had passed them made sure they weren't bulls, but I didn't want to assume the same about every lump. So I pulled out my camera and took a picture and then in the preview mode zoomed in to get a be view. I couldn't quite make it out what it/they were. It was then that I saw these tracks. I stood and thought for a moment and couldn't decide if they were bull or not so I figured I better just keep going and make for the fence if the lumps in the distance move. Upon closer examination the lumps were just logs, so no problem there. On I went until the next fence, where I started up a water channel in a vineyard.

I had to duck and run the first bit because there was a farmer in a tractor below. I quickly realized that the countryside was not the fastest route. The brown countryside that I thought would be covered in dead grass was mostly dirt, or at least it was dirt two days before, but it had rained the previous day.

After crossing through the vineyard and another mucky field or two I was considerably closer to the mountains than I thought, and that they didn't seem like mountains at all from the new proximity. They were just hills, but at least they were greener and that meant less mud. I started up the greener fields and found a service road that went to the cell phone towers. I didn't get on the road because I think from that side of the fence there was nothing stopping the bulls from wondering my way. I was walking and heard a vehicle coming up the road. I debated running to a bush or something but it sounded too close, they would probably just see me and be more pissed that I am on their land and trying to hide it. It is better to just claim ignorance. The man asked me where I was going and what I was doing and where I was headed. I couldn't tell whether his response was that I couldn't go that way because a. it was his land and he didn't want me on it, or b. there just isn't a road that goes to the town I was headed to. So he said to turn around and take the road, but at this point I had already invested 2-3 hours walking through the countryside and wasn't going to backtrack. I waited for him to leave and had lunch in an abandoned shack. I continued up the hill and found something that put me both at ease and on edge, a horde of used shotgun shells. 1. Comforting because it meant that people walked there and didn't get gored by bulls. 2. It meant that the people whose land I was trespassing were armed.


Well kept trekking and crossing over the ridge wasn't as easy as excepted. It is not that it was steep or anything, just that I was neck deep in thick Holly-ish-painful bushes, but I wadded through and crossed an Olive grove, and through a field of dead sunflowers until I finally made it to Gibalbín. I arrived in the town around 4:30 and was tired. Kicking the mud off my shoes every 5min will interrupt the flow and joy of walking. I wasn't thrilled with the country route not only because of the mud and torro scares but because it felt dishonest sneaking around hiding from farmers, and I hate dishonesty. I found a bar to rest in a while to think about the weekend. (there aren't really many restaurants, mostly bars that serve tapas)

For €1.50 in Gibalbín you can get a glass of wine, refill you hydration system, refill the ole TP stash, and find out which road goes to Arcos...really the only thing that you have to pay for is the wine. After a good sit and the wine, I felt much more energized and ready to walk some more. Back to the road and I planned to stay the the roads from then on...I think it is fast the trying to walk as the crow flies anyway. The road after Gibalbín was much pretty which is also a great motivator. Well it was nearing 6:30 at that point and sundown is 8:30 so I was starting to look for a place to pitch a tent so that I would have time to read a bit before the light went away, but at the same time I wanted to make it to Arcos in the first day. So I stuck my thumb out and a few cars later I was traveling 100km/hr as opposed to 6km/hr. Curro picked me up and we made it to Arcos in no time. He was very knowledgeable about the trees and wildlife and pointed out what tree was what, all of which was forgotten in a matter of seconds because I can't learn it unless I see it spelled, but cool nonetheless. He is a Geologist in Sevilla, which explains knowing of the name of every tree we passed.




















































Well, he didn't just take me to Arcos but about 20km further, to a campground in a gorgeous area called Algar. I told him how very grateful I was for the lift and he said it was nothing. He was just driving home and didn't mind taking the long way since it had been a while since he had been in that area and it was a beautiful drive. He had been in my same situation before, a poor traveling 20-something, and every country he visited there was always someone willing to go out of their way to show him the best of their country, I suppose the one redeeming thing about patriotism, and they are his examples about how to treat a foreigner. You really couldn't ask for a better first hitching experience. In Algar I walked down to a lake to camp for the night under a cliff. I did a little exploring before sundown and found a lot of what I am sure is natural marble. Super guay.

I stopped in the town of Algar the next morning
and had the cheapest cafe in Spain thus far, €.80. The bar was full of old timers with the sweater vests and wool caps, and then there was me with my frisbee jersey, short athletic shorts and chacos, and my backpack in the corner.

Back on the road I was able to see all of the beautiful things we had driven past the night before but at foot-pace. The area was beautiful. Grazalema, a mountain, was off in the distance, there are fields of sheep, and old timers ridding their bicycles around the roads, it seemed to have more of a Irish feel that Spain.

I walked and walked and walked. I stopped to take pictures of a cow here and there, or the Eucalyptus trees (brought here years ago). Algar is the only area I have seen those. When I got tired I would stop for some avocado on bread, or a plum, or whathaveyou.

Finally I arrived in Arcos de la Frontera, a beautiful small town on the top side of a cliff. I arrived at siesta time so I had to sit and wait a while to get into the tourist center to get a map and a find the nearest cheapest campgrounds. I was directed to the Lagos de Arcos Camping, really close to a lake. I spent the evening reading and drying wet clothes.

The last day, Sunday, I walked up into town in search of the bus station. Curro, my hitching guide, told me to call him because he was going to return to Sevilla that Sunday and that I could ride back if I wanted. I tried calling numerous times but it always said that he was unavailable and to call back another time. I debated walking out to the highway where he found me and waiting until he came by, but by this point I was tired and just wanted to get home. So on the next bus I hoped. Of course, 5 min after leaving, he called and said he was going to be leaving soon if I wanted to come. Oh well, the bus back was only €7.60. So in all my weekend cost me around €20 I think including 2 nights of camping, my meals and 156km. Not too bad.

It wasn't the most eventful of weekends, but that isn't what I was looking for. I was once railed for expressing my opinion that exercise is great for mental health, and happiness, which I still stick to, and the beginning of the week I noticed I was happier and more energetic...however, I am biased and could have been looking for my confirmation. The comment was made to a group of female friends, so suggesting more exercise to girls was maybe not the smartest idea, because the word is inextricably connected to physical fitness and body-image, touchier subjects for women than for men...I could have worded and prepped the thought a lot better, but I am pretty sure it is scientific. I need to find more things to do to keep physically active and now that I am moving to Lebrija, I will have considerably more time. I think that I would like to get a road bike while I am here...I could see a lot more in the same amount of time. Our apartment is right on the edge of town so I could be touring the countryside in a matter of minutes if I decided...perhaps once I start doing the private English lessons I can save up for one.

See the rest of the journey HERE.