Various stages of culture shock

Culture Shock::Yes, I expected it...but I feel as if I am handling it better than I thought!  I've been through culture shock before a few times and I can say that because of my endless research and preparation for Spain, I have been very content in these past two weeks.  I'd have to say moving to New Orleans from Iowa was a bigger shock to me than Spain has been.  I have great roommates, several other Auxiliares in my area, support from home and most importantly support from my teachers in my school. 

The most disappointing thing so far has been my awareness of how much of the Spanish language I don't know. In college, I understood my professors.  In Costa Rica, I understood my host family.  In Spain? Sometimes I think they are speaking Chinese.  Spain may be a very small country but they have such a huge variety of cultures, dialects, accents and even other languages all packed into one.  Depending on the area, they pronounce things very different.  For example, here in Badajoz they don't pronounce the endings of words, D's, or S's.  It has been pretty difficult for me but I have high hopes that after 8 months I will have adjusted to their accents. 

Badajoz

My city of Badajoz is cute, clean, safe and the people are very friendly.  We have everything we need packed into one smaller sized city.  I am very happy with how everything has worked out so far and I ended up living with 3 other teaching assistants (Auxiliares) like myself.  One girl from Canada, one girl from New Jersey and a guy from Ireland.  Our rent is very affordable, we have a nice little set up. I'd say my first culture shock was grocery shopping.  It was hard to not know where to go and what to get in order to eat how you are use to. 

HAM!

 

I enjoyed my first week at school and I love my schedule even more.  I always have Mondays off and I work from 9-2 on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.  On Wednesday I work from 11-2.  I spent most of my week introducing myself to the students with simple things like; where I'm from, my favorite color, etc.  (Their English is limited) I was also thrown into teaching the reproductive organs in science class, yay.  It was a little awkward trying to explain to the kids what certain parts of the body were in a language that they don't know so well! Next week; I will be giving lessons on recipes, pregnancy, and animals.

This weekend I will be off to the beach for our first "Puente".  A puente is when you have an extended weekend due to a holiday :)  We have Friday off so my roommates and other auxiliares are headed to the south of Andalucia.