Week 38

By Aaron

Lost in Translation: I officially paid the entry fee this Monday for a weekly pickup basketball game that one of my students invited me to join.  This was my second week playing, and I realized that I have never learned any Spanish vocabulary related to playing basketball.  ¿Como se dice 'three in the key,' 'stop ball,' and 'good take'?  Thankfully I resisted the impulse of exclaiming "toca la pelota" when I believed the ball had crazed off the fingertips of a player on the other other team.  If you pluralize "pelota" this becomes a common phrase literally about male anatomy used to describe an annoyance.  I'm still new to the group, and don't feel comfortable with either calling out an errant play or expressing disdain for a fellow player.  When addressed directly on the court, I can do little more than nod in agreement whenever a teammate counsels me with an impassioned plan of attack. Most things are universal, and I think that with a little practice I can integrate smoothly into the game.  More material from this activity is almost certainly forthcoming.

Exploring the City: After a whirlwind week in Italy, we were exhausted.  Our flight landed in Madrid last Friday, and by the time we arrived back home it was a little after 6 PM.  By 6:30 we had grown restless were caught up in the festive air of Good Friday and left home in search of some Easter processionals near the city center.  Madrid isn't the epicenter of such celebrations and apparently the city doesn't attract a lot of tourists from other places in the country.  This makes sense, since the population hails from all over, but I was still impressed by the fanfare surrounding the holiday.  We came across three different processionals (out of a total of seven that purportedly walked the streets on Friday), and they all consisted of some variation of community members donning traditional garb carrying religious ephemera while stepping in time with music.  Each group started at a church and covered routes of 5-7 blocks before eventually ending up at the origin.  To our knowledge, no homage was paid to the Easter Bunny in any of these somber parades.

    

Memorable Meal: After singing with our Sometimes Choir at church on Easter Sunday, we joined Ben, Cat and Violet at their apartment for an Easter Dinner.  The food was pretty traditional American fare; deviled eggs, scalloped potatoes, green beans, pulled pork, and carrot cake cookies.  After lunch, Cat, Joni and Violet were politely expelled from the house while Ben and I hid Easter eggs inside the apartment.  I'm happy to report that it took two adult women almost as long to find the eggs as it took two adult men to hide them.  Some particularly impressive locations: inside a jar of sugar, wrapped inside a ball of yarn, inside the large container of dog food, and taped underneath a chair.





 


Later in the day after the hunt and a few rounds of games, we also sampled a seasonal Spanish treat, torrijas. This is essentially a kind of French toast soaked in milk and then doused in a more fluid version of syrup.  It was delicious, but perhaps a bit much after an afternoon of snacking on candy and cookies.

En la clase: For the second time in a month, Joni had a student via VIPKID whose given age did not appear to match the physical aspect of the person who attended a class.  This time the student was just a few years past the age bracket, perhaps 14 instead of the maximum age 12, so Joni had a little less apprehension than she would teaching an adult in his 30s clearly trying to pass for a (surly) 11.  This was a trial class, meaning the student had not committed to a regular slate of classes on the platform.  The student was incredibly engaged with the class and sprinkled in an anecdote of singing "For the First Time in Forever" (from Frozen) at a school talent show.  Almost immediately (and then several times throughout the lesson) he announced "I like you a lot!"  Then at the end of the lesson, he asked Joni if she had WeChat (a Chinese version of Whatsapp).  It sounded a little creepy at first, but as Joni described the interactions it sounded more like a lonely kid glad to have some attention from a novel source.  Today Joni was notified that she received a small bonus for a new student signing up for a "full course" and we think it was the same child.  There may be more to follow from this eager pupil.

Final Notes: We watched our first soccer match (on TV) since arriving in Spain, and frankly it's remarkable it has taken this long.  There always seems to be some match on, with the various permutations of league play that seem to carry on for much of the calendar year.  Our friends Alex and María invited us over to watch the final game in the semifinal round of the UEFA Champions League, with Real Madrid facing elimination against Bayern Munich.  It turned out to be a really compelling game, with extra time and some controversial offside no-calls, and at night's end both Real Madrid and Atlético had triumphed.  I liken these teams to the Yankees and Mets - with Real having a much more storied history while Atlético has found success in the past few years.  Today UEFA announced that the two teams were assigned to play in the semifinals at the beginning of May.  This ensures that one team from our city will be playing in the final come June, and that tensions may likely be elevated as all across the metropolis brothers and sisters and colleagues are pitted against each other in a fight to the death.  Or at least I'm hoping the competitive air will be that palpable.