Every country, region and language has its own colorful expressions. I confess that I am completely enamored of the popular sayings and phrases of Andalusia, which never fail to make me laugh and marvel at the creativity of the human mind. I don't really know if these are uniquely andaluz, common throughout Spain, or just made up by my acquaintances, but wherever they come from, I love them. Here are some of my favorites:
Más lento que el caballo del malo - Slower than the bad guy's horse (what a great visual: really, when is the bad guy's horse EVER faster than the good guy's?)
No sabía si tirarme al tren o al maquinista - I couldn't decide whether to throw myself under the train or at the engineer. An eloquent and slightly salacious expression indicating a state of confusion so great that you don't know whether to throw in the towel or go for broke (in this case, by jumping into the engineer's lap!).
Más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo - Literally, the devil knows more because he's old than because he's the devil. The senior citizen's clever way of saying, "I've been around long enough to know what I'm talking about, you insolent young pup."
Salud y pesetas, lo demás son puñetas - Health and wealth, to hell with everything else. No comment needed.
Es más listo que los ratones coloraos - He's smarter than colored mice. I still haven't figured out why colored mice are supposed to be smart, or exactly where one would find a colored mouse. Maybe because a mouse would have to be pretty smart to figure out a way to dye its fur?
Más contento que un tonto con un lápiz. Literally, "Happier than an idiot with a pencil", the equivalent being our "Happier than a pig in mud".
El que no llora no mama. He who doesn't cry doesn't suckle. Something like, "If you don't speak up you won't get what you want."
Feel free to comment on your own favorites (in Spanish or English)...
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
The Schoolyard Grapevine
Having a child in a foreign school system is quite an experience. And it's more than a bit scary, as you have no frame of reference from your own childhood, no way of knowing what's changed or what's new in the system since you were in school, what is expected of your child or, more importantly at the preschool level, of you as a parent. My almost-5-year-old is now in his second year of "educación infantil", which starts at age 3 and goes through age 5, the last year being equivalent to kindergarten in the States. The first important thing I discovered is that you only have one shot to get your child into the school you want, and if you don't take it at age 3 (say, if you were considering keeping him home until age 5 or 6, when education becomes compulsory) then you are almost certainly going to be stuck with whatever school happens to have an opening. And it's usually the least desirable school in your district. 
Places in schools are awarded based on a complicated points system which changes every few years, so what applied 2 years ago when we filed our son's request may not apply when it comes time to repeat the process for our daughter (now on the verge of turning 1).I say this as a warning to anyone who might read this blog and assume that they can be guided by my experience. Points can be racked up for a number of things: the most points are awarded for having a sibling already at the school of your choice, and your current place of residence and place of work are two other biggies. You also get points for having an annual income under a certain level (based on tax returns from 2 years prior, which makes no sense), for being a single parent, for having a mentally or physically disabled person under your care (or perhaps this only applies to the child applying, I didn't read the fine print on this one), or if one of the parents is employed by the school in question. Quotas for each school are set by the state (by the way, all this rigmarole applies only to public or charter/concertado schools, I'm sure the criteria for private centers is completely different). Under this system, your child is pretty much a shoe-in if he/she has a sibling at your chosen school, and you have an advantage if you are a registered resident in the school district or its "area of influence" (the boundaries of these districts and areas tend to change each year). We were at a disadvantage as this was our first child to enter the school system (no points for siblings), we were still married and living together (I know, odd ducks, right?), and our income was above the cut-off line (though if they took our expenses into account we'd certainly have qualified). So all our hopes were pinned on the points for district residents. Of course a lot of other families had the same number of points, so after handing out the first places to the high scorers the rest of us were left waiting for the lottery. Yes, the lottery!
To solve this problem "fairly", every year the regional authorities come up with a random four-digit decimal which has to be multiplied by the total number of students with the same number of points who are vying for the remaining places. The decimal places are then removed from the resulting number and this plus 1 indicates which position on the alphabetical list is first. Confused? I was. But I eventually figured it out. I'll illustrate with an example. In a school with one room per year, only 25 kids can be admitted to each grade. Say there are 20 kids with 10 points each who applied to the same school, but there are only 15 spots left in the class after the ones with the highest points have already been given a place. The random number for the year's lottery is 0.4080. So 15 x 0.4080 = 6.12. Eliminate the decimal positions and we get 6. Add 1, we have 7. That means that on the list of kids who all have the same points, arranged in alphabetical order, whoever is 7th on the list is the first one to get a spot, and the 14 who come after him in alphabetical order are also in. And numbers 2-6 on the list are out of luck and will be assigned a place at another school in the district that can accommodate them. Here's where it gets nasty: parents have a window of opportunity in which they can challenge the results of this "raffle", and the most common way to do this is by alleging that some of the other contenders don't deserve the points they claim to have. This is often the case, as people have been known to use the addresses of relatives or friends living in the desired district in order to get residency points, and some couples have even filed for divorce to get the single-parent points (and then conveniently "make up" right before school starts). Parents will go to great lengths to get their children into the right school: some hire private detectives to spy on other parents suspected of playing dirty, and others go out and do the digging themselves. I had a first-hand confession of these activities from the mother of one of my son's classmates, whose older son was originally denied a place in the school. She proudly narrated her adventures as an amateur sleuth, digging through town hall records and trailing parents to see if they really lived where they said they lived, and she uncovered enough evidence of skullduggery to bump two kids off the list and get hers in. Legally, she was entirely within her rights, and yes, those cheating parents should be ashamed of their tricks, but I can't see myself playing Sherlock in the boonies of Andalusia and kicking other people's 3-year-olds to the curb. I made a mental note never to cross that particular mommy.
So, to make a long story short, our son got lucky on the wheel of fortune and was admitted to the school we had wanted, one of the town's two charter schools. So far we are happy with the school, though my foreign ignorance and my husband's typically male absent-mindedness has already supplied more than a few funny stories. I don't know if this is a small-town thing or if it's a Spain-wide (or worldwide?) phenomenon, but I have discovered that the mommy grapevine is absolutely vital. Why put something in writing when you know that all the mothers are going to share info at the gate at pick-up time? Sure, it saves paper and the drag of writing out 25 notes to parents, but I seem to be one of the few that never gets the message until it's too late. I seem to be one of the few working mothers in the group, and one of the even smaller group of mothers who don't go to pick up their children every day. As we live about 15 minutes away by car (another anomaly, most people live within walking distance) my husband is usually the chauffeur; my office is at home, whereas he works outside the home, so it makes more sense for him to do the driving whenever possible and save me the hassle of packing up baby and losing a precious hour of work time.
But of course, being a man, he rarely strikes up conversations with the huddled packs of chattering mothers, and so misses all the vital word-of-mouth notifications. Like the day we found a note in our son's backpack asking us to bring one meter of cola de ratón to school the next day. My husband is Spanish, born and bred, but not into crafts, and without any additional information we puzzled over the brief note, wondering why in the world a 3-year-old needed a mouse tail and where on earth we could get one without engaging in animal cruelty. After trolling the internet we discovered that cola de ratón (mouse tail) is a kind of string, which from the pictures online looked like the same kind of cord we used for our clothesline, so we sent along a meter of that. Of course it wasn't the right kind, and everyone had a good laugh at our expense. And on another occasion hubby miraculously opened his ears long enough to hear that all the kids had to come to school the next day wearing a hat. So we dug out our son's adorable baseball cap and sent him on his merry way, only to find the entire class sporting the typical flat-brimmed hat worn by boys and men during the April Fair (it was April, so if we had stopped to think we might have figured it out). Needless to say, the baseball cap quickly disappeared into my husband's briefcase, but not before several of the parents had had a good chuckle. And then there was the day that he showed up at the gate only to find it locked and the schoolyard entirely empty. Standing in the middle of the street with our son dressed in his uniform, backpack and all, he asked a passer-by if he knew why everything was closed up, and the man replied, "Don't you know it's a holiday? Today is the feast day of the town's patron saint!" Not being "locals" and living out in the burbs, we had entirely forgotten--of course, if I had been nattering with the mums the day before, I would have picked up on this. Thankfully our son isn't overly sensitive (more the active, rowdy type) and so far doesn't seem to care that his parents are clueless, but we are trying to tune in more often so that we don't end up making him the laughing-stock of our little town. But I'm sure there will be many more blunders; I just hope we can continue to laugh them off.
Places in schools are awarded based on a complicated points system which changes every few years, so what applied 2 years ago when we filed our son's request may not apply when it comes time to repeat the process for our daughter (now on the verge of turning 1).I say this as a warning to anyone who might read this blog and assume that they can be guided by my experience. Points can be racked up for a number of things: the most points are awarded for having a sibling already at the school of your choice, and your current place of residence and place of work are two other biggies. You also get points for having an annual income under a certain level (based on tax returns from 2 years prior, which makes no sense), for being a single parent, for having a mentally or physically disabled person under your care (or perhaps this only applies to the child applying, I didn't read the fine print on this one), or if one of the parents is employed by the school in question. Quotas for each school are set by the state (by the way, all this rigmarole applies only to public or charter/concertado schools, I'm sure the criteria for private centers is completely different). Under this system, your child is pretty much a shoe-in if he/she has a sibling at your chosen school, and you have an advantage if you are a registered resident in the school district or its "area of influence" (the boundaries of these districts and areas tend to change each year). We were at a disadvantage as this was our first child to enter the school system (no points for siblings), we were still married and living together (I know, odd ducks, right?), and our income was above the cut-off line (though if they took our expenses into account we'd certainly have qualified). So all our hopes were pinned on the points for district residents. Of course a lot of other families had the same number of points, so after handing out the first places to the high scorers the rest of us were left waiting for the lottery. Yes, the lottery!
To solve this problem "fairly", every year the regional authorities come up with a random four-digit decimal which has to be multiplied by the total number of students with the same number of points who are vying for the remaining places. The decimal places are then removed from the resulting number and this plus 1 indicates which position on the alphabetical list is first. Confused? I was. But I eventually figured it out. I'll illustrate with an example. In a school with one room per year, only 25 kids can be admitted to each grade. Say there are 20 kids with 10 points each who applied to the same school, but there are only 15 spots left in the class after the ones with the highest points have already been given a place. The random number for the year's lottery is 0.4080. So 15 x 0.4080 = 6.12. Eliminate the decimal positions and we get 6. Add 1, we have 7. That means that on the list of kids who all have the same points, arranged in alphabetical order, whoever is 7th on the list is the first one to get a spot, and the 14 who come after him in alphabetical order are also in. And numbers 2-6 on the list are out of luck and will be assigned a place at another school in the district that can accommodate them. Here's where it gets nasty: parents have a window of opportunity in which they can challenge the results of this "raffle", and the most common way to do this is by alleging that some of the other contenders don't deserve the points they claim to have. This is often the case, as people have been known to use the addresses of relatives or friends living in the desired district in order to get residency points, and some couples have even filed for divorce to get the single-parent points (and then conveniently "make up" right before school starts). Parents will go to great lengths to get their children into the right school: some hire private detectives to spy on other parents suspected of playing dirty, and others go out and do the digging themselves. I had a first-hand confession of these activities from the mother of one of my son's classmates, whose older son was originally denied a place in the school. She proudly narrated her adventures as an amateur sleuth, digging through town hall records and trailing parents to see if they really lived where they said they lived, and she uncovered enough evidence of skullduggery to bump two kids off the list and get hers in. Legally, she was entirely within her rights, and yes, those cheating parents should be ashamed of their tricks, but I can't see myself playing Sherlock in the boonies of Andalusia and kicking other people's 3-year-olds to the curb. I made a mental note never to cross that particular mommy.
But of course, being a man, he rarely strikes up conversations with the huddled packs of chattering mothers, and so misses all the vital word-of-mouth notifications. Like the day we found a note in our son's backpack asking us to bring one meter of cola de ratón to school the next day. My husband is Spanish, born and bred, but not into crafts, and without any additional information we puzzled over the brief note, wondering why in the world a 3-year-old needed a mouse tail and where on earth we could get one without engaging in animal cruelty. After trolling the internet we discovered that cola de ratón (mouse tail) is a kind of string, which from the pictures online looked like the same kind of cord we used for our clothesline, so we sent along a meter of that. Of course it wasn't the right kind, and everyone had a good laugh at our expense. And on another occasion hubby miraculously opened his ears long enough to hear that all the kids had to come to school the next day wearing a hat. So we dug out our son's adorable baseball cap and sent him on his merry way, only to find the entire class sporting the typical flat-brimmed hat worn by boys and men during the April Fair (it was April, so if we had stopped to think we might have figured it out). Needless to say, the baseball cap quickly disappeared into my husband's briefcase, but not before several of the parents had had a good chuckle. And then there was the day that he showed up at the gate only to find it locked and the schoolyard entirely empty. Standing in the middle of the street with our son dressed in his uniform, backpack and all, he asked a passer-by if he knew why everything was closed up, and the man replied, "Don't you know it's a holiday? Today is the feast day of the town's patron saint!" Not being "locals" and living out in the burbs, we had entirely forgotten--of course, if I had been nattering with the mums the day before, I would have picked up on this. Thankfully our son isn't overly sensitive (more the active, rowdy type) and so far doesn't seem to care that his parents are clueless, but we are trying to tune in more often so that we don't end up making him the laughing-stock of our little town. But I'm sure there will be many more blunders; I just hope we can continue to laugh them off.
Tuesday, January 15, 2013
Learning English: Mission Impossible?
So last night I was watching a game show on Spanish TV, and two of the contestants were the comic duo Los Morancos: 
These guys are brothers, born and raised in the colorful neighborhood of Triana in Seville, and most of the time they crack me up. On the show they were given a series of clues and they had to compete against each other to guess the name of the song, which was Madonna's "Like a Virgin". The first four clues gave them plenty of opportunities to make the audience roar with laughter, but neither one could come up with the song's name (apparently... who knows if it was part of their gag routine). The fifth and final clue was "Como una virgen" and the half-laughing, half-incredulous host said, "Ok guys, all you have to do here is TRANSLATE the phrase into English, it's not that hard." And their answer was "How One Veergeen". You'll only get this if you speak both Spanish and English so I won't bother trying to explain why this is both hilarious and disheartening.
Lately I've seen several news reports about the mental block that many Spaniards seem to have when it comes to learning English. A lot of people think it's hopeless and that Spaniards have some kind of genetic inability to master our language, which I find hard to believe. I've met a lot of people in Spain who have a very good grasp of English and can hold their own in conversations, but it's true that I've met very few who I would describe as totally fluent, and even fewer who can write a one-page letter in English without grammatical mistakes. Is English really that hard to learn? Or are Spaniards just getting started too late in life, or not getting the right kind of instruction? I started learning Spanish when I was almost 12--past the ideal age, according to the experts, but before my brain had cemented itself into monolingual mode, so I was able to become fully bilingual. Of course I think it's virtually impossible to ever completely "know" any language, even one's mother tongue: I am still learning new words in English and Spanish, new expressions and rules. And it's fun and fascinating, a learning process that will hopefully continue for the rest of my life.
The odd thing is that children who start young are supposed to have a head start on learning a second language, but I don't really see the results in the new generation who have been exposed to English since nursery school. My nieces and nephews (the oldest of whom is now 14) have been getting English classes at school since they first enrolled, and most of them are also taking private classes after school. But their pronunciation is dreadful and their listening comprehension is almost nil. Why? Is it because their teachers aren't native English speakers? Is the instruction method deficient? What do they do in all those hours of English class? Why are northern Europeans able to attain such a high level of English proficiency while their southern counterparts continue to lag behind? The Spanish government is pushing for bilingual schools, but their educational workforce belongs to the generation of "genetically-challenged" English speakers, and the current teacher hiring system (a bureaucratic mire of exams with questions that have nothing to do with the job you're competing for, with an obscure points system and open only to EU citizens) makes it impossible for each school to directly recruit the best person for the job. I tremble to think of what my children will go through in their future "English classes" (which they almost certainly will not be excused from taking, no matter how high their level of English is, because the rigid school system in Spain makes no allowances for students who are below or above average... kind of an "every child left behind" policy). If I'm still blogging when the storm breaks, you'll be sure to hear about it.
Lately I've seen several news reports about the mental block that many Spaniards seem to have when it comes to learning English. A lot of people think it's hopeless and that Spaniards have some kind of genetic inability to master our language, which I find hard to believe. I've met a lot of people in Spain who have a very good grasp of English and can hold their own in conversations, but it's true that I've met very few who I would describe as totally fluent, and even fewer who can write a one-page letter in English without grammatical mistakes. Is English really that hard to learn? Or are Spaniards just getting started too late in life, or not getting the right kind of instruction? I started learning Spanish when I was almost 12--past the ideal age, according to the experts, but before my brain had cemented itself into monolingual mode, so I was able to become fully bilingual. Of course I think it's virtually impossible to ever completely "know" any language, even one's mother tongue: I am still learning new words in English and Spanish, new expressions and rules. And it's fun and fascinating, a learning process that will hopefully continue for the rest of my life.
The odd thing is that children who start young are supposed to have a head start on learning a second language, but I don't really see the results in the new generation who have been exposed to English since nursery school. My nieces and nephews (the oldest of whom is now 14) have been getting English classes at school since they first enrolled, and most of them are also taking private classes after school. But their pronunciation is dreadful and their listening comprehension is almost nil. Why? Is it because their teachers aren't native English speakers? Is the instruction method deficient? What do they do in all those hours of English class? Why are northern Europeans able to attain such a high level of English proficiency while their southern counterparts continue to lag behind? The Spanish government is pushing for bilingual schools, but their educational workforce belongs to the generation of "genetically-challenged" English speakers, and the current teacher hiring system (a bureaucratic mire of exams with questions that have nothing to do with the job you're competing for, with an obscure points system and open only to EU citizens) makes it impossible for each school to directly recruit the best person for the job. I tremble to think of what my children will go through in their future "English classes" (which they almost certainly will not be excused from taking, no matter how high their level of English is, because the rigid school system in Spain makes no allowances for students who are below or above average... kind of an "every child left behind" policy). If I'm still blogging when the storm breaks, you'll be sure to hear about it.
Blogged On
So I've decided to join the world of blogging... My only experience so far has been a baby blog to keep people updated on the birth of my first child, which I summarily abandoned once baby arrived (almost 5 years ago now). But I've decided that I have things to say and I need a forum for venting and sharing with whoever decides to tune in. I don't promise that my entries will always be interesting or posted with predictable regularity, but when I get the urge to comment at least I'll have a way of "speaking" to the world. The subject matter will be varied and in many cases you won't get it unless you are or have been an expat in Spain (or at least in a Spanish-speaking country) so I apologize in advance. I must also beg forgiveness for any lapses into British English; though an American by birth, I've been using UK-EN at work for so long now that sometimes I forget which "dialect" I'm supposed to be using.
In any event, I hope that whoever reads this blog will find it enjoyable, and if you don't then I'm sorry, but this blog is mainly for me. Working from home and with two small children in my charge, I don't have many opportunities for adult conversation (and then rarely in English) so this is primarily an outlet for expression.
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