Just under a year ago I made myself a promise. I had recently completed a week's teaching on an English immersion programme in Spain for a company called, at that point in time, Pueblo Ingles (now known as 'Diverbo'). On that programme I met a lovely American woman from New York who, much like myself, had reached the age of 40 and, as I understand it (although I hate to put words in her own, very eloquent mouth), thought 'well, what now?' Her answer to this question had been to pack up and ship out around the world, taking her extensive skills in internet technology and marketing with her, and writing her own blog as she went. As she already knows, she served as something of an inspiration to me; primarily to start blogging in my own right, although truthfully, I think her influence has gone a lot further than that.So what did I promise myself? Well, essentially, I promised that, having completed my second round with the same programme, I would write about the first. The fact is, weeks or months after completing the first there was no way I could write about it. It inspired me to write, sure, but there was so much running around in my head after my first experience with this programme that I simply couldn't bring myself to open up and explore it all. To be totally honest, I wasn't sure I liked everything that was going on in there. To be even more brutally honest, I think the blogs I did write at the beginning of this year were partly a way of escaping the pain I felt at missing the people I met whilst there. I don't know how obvious it might be to the outsider, but everything I wrote was, in some way, coloured by the experience I had in Spain. Even when I tried to escape it, it was there, via some coded reference to an individual or feeling that I experienced. That last sentence contains some code of it's own but I will try to be honest and explain why and how my first experience both enriched and challenged me, and ultimately led to to a change which is ongoing and, I suspect, permanent.
The great dilemma about a programme like Pueblo Ingles is that it is almost certainly going to shake up your life in some way and, despite being a wonderful opportunity and amazing experience, a little of you wonders if it is all worth it. I know that to most rational people this sounds incomprehensible and even a little pathetic. After all, it is simply a week-long, volunteer teaching programme, albeit in one of the greatest countries in the world (actually, they do also operate in Germany and Ireland but that is of little concern to me). In some ways, my experience at the last Pueblo Ingles led to one of the best years of my life, if only because I spent all of it trying to compensate for something that, I felt at least, was missing. A year on, I realise that all my compensatory tactics actually went somewhere. They forced me to look at the world differently and, as a result, the person who landed in Madrid, ready to embark on the programme this time round, was very different to the one who ended up there a year ago. Having just had a totally different experience on the same programme, I wonder if what follows can measure up. Everything about this one was so fulfilling, I wonder if I will simply spend this year basking in the loveliness of it all and forgetting that I have anything to fight for. Time, I guess, will tell. I would love to talk about the experience I had this year because it really was wonderful but, I suspect, I can only talk with hindsight, so that is what I intend to do.
So what is the Spanish Pueblo Ingles (I'm going to stick with the old name for now, on the grounds that it is both Spanish and prettier)? As I've already said, it is really just an English immersion programme, hosted in Spain for Spanish speakers wishing to improve their conversational English. So far, so straightforward right? And it is. On a typical summer programme, you will have approximately 50 people staying in one place; 25 Spanish speakers against 25 'Anglos' (any English speaker from any part of the world). Basically, a typical day on a Pueblo Ingles programme consists of meeting people for 1:1 chats, possibly a bit of leading on telephone conversations, a possible spot of note-taking, taking part in some fairly ridiculous but lighthearted group activities and, finally, between conversations, getting lightly plastered on the cheap wine provided over dinner and whatever your after-dinner tipple happens to be. Without going into too much detail, that is what it all boils down to. Putting it like that, it hardly sounds life changing but, if you are open to it, it really can be. Why? Well, because of the people you meet there of course.
Before I go any further, I should probably explain that I am engaged in a long-running love affair with Spain. Yes, I realise that if I move in, the love affair might turn sour, but right now, and for the last several years, I have been radiating in it's glow. I've been using that expression a lot over the last year: the 'love affair' expression. If you've read any of my blogs, you will see it cropping up all over the place. In the interests of honesty I should also point out that, like a large proportion of the western and eastern world, I have a horrible weakness for Spanish men - actually, not just Spanish men, but men of a Latino persuasion in general. Hence, my mantra immediately prior to setting out on the last Pueblo Ingles of 'don't meet any men, don't meet any men'. Of course, I met a man and developed, over the next few days, what can only be described as a slightly irritating at times and definitely distracting holiday crush. So far, so typical of me really. My first thought on seeing this individual was 'oh shit, there's trouble'. In a way I was right, although not quite in the way that I thought. The great, interesting and challenging thing about this programme, is that it continually turns your expectations on their head. This is down to people, really, more than the programme itself. For a start, and I might as well start here as much as anywhere else, having the opportunity to have a detached, professional conversation with that person allowed me to see someone I wasn't expecting to see at all. I actually saw something of myself in him. I didn't fully realise it at the time, but that is completely normal; on the whole we all have more similarities than differences and, in any group of people, at least a group of people all similarly interested in meeting others and developing an understanding of another culture and language, you will make connections. Also, and this is the bit that has continued to affect me, during the course of our conversation he let me off the hook.
The hook, the one that I have swimming on for most of my life, is that I should have done more travelling by now. I've spent my life believing that our country of origin is only an accident of birth. As a child, my mother, in an act of prophetic wisdom that I doubt she is even aware of, hung a dodgy 1970s cross-stitch 'painting' of people in national costume on my bedroom wall. That was it for me really. I became obsessed with wanting to experience the rest of the world. It was also an act of cruel irony, as my parents almost never travelled for the course of their entire marriage and actually never took me anywhere outside of the UK. I didn't set foot in another country until the age of 11 when, thanks to a school trip (ok, my parents paid for that, so I guess they did do something to satiate my wanderlust) I finally found myself in France. Going to France was exhilarating but also, to my surprise, my first and possibly strongest experience of 'culture shock'. Actually, what shocked me about France wasn't so much it's differences compared to the UK (although some of those, like cutting off baby chicks' heads in the middle of a bustling market, were fairly shocking) but it's ordinariness. My problem was, I had spent my entire youth flicking longingly through holiday brochures strewn about the place by my older siblings and their friends. I fully expected France to be some kind of tropical paradise. For god's sake, I think I even expected dragons.
What I got, of course, was something far more real, subtle and interesting. I have never experienced that kind of culture shock again because, in my somewhat limited experience of travel, I have learnt to just open my eyes and (to use a popular Pueblo Ingles idiom) 'go with the flow'. I also have a habit of falling in love with wherever it is I happen to be. It doesn't really matter how great or crap the country is, I usually find something to love about it. One thing that I have never done, however, is really live in or experience a country for an extended period of time. This, in a sense, was the 'hook' that I was released from. One thing the Pueblo Ingles 1:1 does is make you open up about yourself and consider things that you hadn't even realised were there. Having already been disarmed by having my expectations turned on their head, the above conversation was my first real experience of the 1:1 'confessional' and I found myself talking about a long-held regret at not taking an opportunity to spend a year in another country when it was presented to me. Of course, being kind and Spanish and, I suspect by now, starting to slightly come on to me, my holiday crush reassured me that the timing and the place was wrong, that at a young age and being a lone, blond, blue-eyed (I'm not, by the way, my eyes are green) traveller, I would have been a 'target' and so on. As I said, it let me off the hook; although only, I'm starting to think, temporarily.
I am kind of digressing because, in a way, this only explains part of the journey I went on during my first Pueblo Ingles. It is a significant part, I suppose, because that holiday crush went on to become one of a comparatively smallish circle of people I really connected with and spent time with over that week and, therefore, one of those that I ended up feeling bereft of once the experience was over. That, by the way, is the downside of any Pueblo Ingles programme. Somehow, I think, no matter what shape or form the programme takes, you will always end up with a small pit of loneliness and loss that nothing can totally fill (although a weekend in Poland with one of them did a lot to alleviate that). Even writing this blog is an attempt to fill some of that hole from the last one, which only ended two weeks ago. Looking back on my first though, one thing that has intrigued me is how few of the people who were genuinely important to me at the time have kept in touch, whereas others, those I more or less took for granted, are still there. Two of them even accompanied me on this programme and I am delighted to report that, thanks to our Facebook contact, the minute we saw each other, it was clear that we had all become friends. We all had a similar feeling when coming across two more of our number (one Spanish, one 'Anglo') when the next week's 'intake' arrived. This is one of the mysteries and, in some ways, excitements of the programme. You genuinely don't know who will remain in your life. Of course, having just had such a wonderful experience on the last one, I hope all of my recent contacts will remain in touch. It depends on so many things though; willingness, busy lives, means of communication and sheer number being the primary factors. Honestly, they were all so great, I will be happy if it is only a few; or even one or two. In a way I've learnt not to care because, I do know that, one way or another, even if I only keep in touch with one more person out of the 50 on this programme, my life will be a little shinier for knowing that person.
It is that small, black hole, of course, that is also responsible for initiating change. I put so much energy last year into filling it, that everything started to flow in a different direction; my attitude to work, my students and my colleagues (I became more honest and self-assured, even in the face of criticism), my attitude to the Flamenco dancing I love (from intimidation to passion), my attitude to learning Spanish (from fear to determination); and, fired by the sudden lack of people in my life, a desire to keep socialising, socialising, socialising to the point of exhaustion. In a way, and I only really appreciated this after 'returning to the scene of the crime' (this is genuinely what I thought of my decision to do it again), I've learnt to stop being so hard on myself and to keep learning and growing. I felt a huge sense of confidence last year but I've realised that this pales into insignificance next to the person I have become since.
So, apart from a desire to push myself and keep really, really busy, what else did I take away from last year's programme? Well, in addition to an explosion of an already existing smoking habit, I mainly took away a burgeoning affection for Madrid, which has since been transformed into a full on 'love affair' (here we go again) with that crazy town. I love it for many reasons. Firstly it is home to many people that I now have a lot of affection for - that goes without saying, although who knows how many of them I will remain in contact with? I would love to go back soon and catch up with some of them, although my attempts to catch up with the Madrid -dwellers I met last year eventually fell flat. So, despite being populated by a number of people I love, I can't say it is only about the people I know who live there. What I loved most this year was being able to communicate (badly, but reasonably effectively for my needs) in Spanish. Obviously, I can go anywhere in the Spanish-speaking world and experience that but, what was so special, was the way it helped me engage with the town and the strangers in it. Even getting a taxi to the Diverbo office was a delight because I could sort of communicate with the taxi driver (who was kind of sweet, now I come to think of it). Of course, a lot of the things I love about Madrid are probably just typical of Spain; I love the clubbing culture (open to everyone, regardless of upward age, class, culture, whatever); I love the fact that, for about 7 euros, you can stay up until dawn if you want to (and dawn comes late in Spain, I've discovered); I love the little old shops and bars adorned with wood carvings. I love all of that, but I also love it's layout and structure; the fact that you can easily walk everywhere in the centre, the amazing metro system, the abundance of people willing to just chat or help you out, even as you speak really crap Spanish at them. I love La Latina, with small, sudden fights breaking out outside bars and onlookers barely raising an eyebrow. I also love that you can be walking home at around 4am, get stopped for a light and find yourself talking to a guy from Gran Canaria who spent three years studying in your home town, simply because he recognises your accent (the Spanish, I've noticed, have a talent for instantaneously recognising Kent accents - it is both reassuring and a tiny bit alarming - I hate my accent).
However, as one of our recent Spanish students pointed out on Facebook the other day, Spain isn't just Madrid; well, of course not. The thing that I really love and can't wait to discover about Spain is it's mass of contradictions and diversity. It is in everything: from the way Spanish people move (spend a few years dancing Flamenco and you might start to understand this - languid one minute, like liquid mercury the next), to it's turbulent history, to it's mixture of tolerance and intolerance, to architecture - well to everything really. I think, on balance, it is always good to end any really positive experience with a plan. Last year my plan was to start learning Spanish in all seriousness - work in progress, obviously. This year my plan is to definitely do another Pueblo Ingles and then spend at least a week travelling in the South - I know this is crazy and that it will be really hot at this time of year but my mind is made up: Cordoba, Sevilla and possibly, if there's time, Toledo. I won't go through all of my reasons and inspirations for doing this but it has everything to do with dancing, food, architecture and art. I will take a fan, of course.
About this year's programme, I can only be sure of one thing - something about me will change as a result over the coming year; it has to just by the nature of the beast. All I can say at the moment is that I am expecting the coming year to be difficult, professionally at least. I don't say that with a sense of doom, however, but with the knowledge that I am better equipped now to deal with it. Even if everything were to implode (it won't, I'm being dramatic now), I know I won't become a victim to it. One thing that struck me about this year's programme was what was described by one of my fellow 'Anglos' as an 'emotional maturity' within the group. I'm not sure how much of this I can lay claim to myself, but I knew exactly what she meant. I think it helped that a lot of us had done it before. Minor slights, misdemeanours and differences were quickly resolved and forgotten, nobody tried to dominate, everyone made sure they took time to get to know everyone else and people generally just looked after each other. There was no awkwardness, from my perspective anyway, and the teaching experience alone was one of the best I've ever had. To say that, though, almost glosses over the fact that I also got to meet and know another 25 fantastic Spanish people, who taught me more than I could probably ever teach them. Hopefully, I will carry some of this with me into next year. I also really do hope to keep in touch with more than just one of the people I met. I have to say, I've loved seeing the updates and photos on Facebook; already one of the Spanish people has completed the 'El Camino Santiago' since we last saw him - a massive achievement. Me? Well, right now, I just want to spend more time in Spain and give up smoking before I do that. Anything's possible. One day, I might even permanently release myself from that other hook I mentioned earlier. If I do any or all of this, there will be a few a people I want to thank. On the other hand, I'm not sure that's necessary. They probably already know who they are.
