I sit on the floor, surrounded by half-packed suitcases. It’s 4pm on a rainy Sunday afternoon, and outside the sky is darkening as the sun sets. In three days I will be climbing into our Ford Galaxy with my 11-year-old and my 10-year-old, and driving to the other side of Europe.
The next five weeks stretch ahead of me like a blank diary waiting to be written in. I feel giddy with a mixture of excitement and vertigo. By the time I’m back here in early March, unpacking these same suitcases, my head will be full of new memories.
What adventures do the next five weeks have in store for us?
Language school and knobbly cucumbers
Eight days and a road trip through Spain later, we sit in the bright, airy atrium of Spark Spanish, a family-run language school in El Puerto de Santa Maria, Andalucía.
A handsome young chico smiles and tells us he will be teaching Spanish to C(11) and J(10) every day for the next four weeks. He introduces himself as Mario, which immediately endears him to my video-game-loving son.
Meanwhile I join four young women, all in their 20’s, in another room. One introduces herself as Marta, our Spanish teacher. An online test has placed me in Marta’s upper-intermediate class. She asks me – in Spanish – where I learned Spanish, and I tell her about my year living in Granada. I spoke the language fluently, but that was 22 years – half my lifetime – ago!
For the next two hours my brain whirs and hums as long-neglected pathways start to wake up. My head aches a little by the time I peek, nervously, into the children’s classroom. Have they enjoyed their class? Has J(10), who hasn’t been in a formal classroom since he left school five years ago, managed to last the morning? Will C(11), who is eager to speak Spanish, be able to learn at the pace she wants, alongside her less enthusiastic brother?
Hurray – they’re both smiling! C(11) proudly recites a list of Spanish numbers. J(10) excitedly tells me how they taught Mario to play Sudoku and created a huge puzzle together. I don’t think he even noticed the numbers were in Spanish.
Opposite Spark we see a tiny shop. We buy fragrant olives scooped from an enormous glass jar, a short, knobbly cucumber, and a golden brown barra still warm to the touch. Our tummies rumble as the scent of bread and garlic fills the car as we drive home.
After lunch we stroll for five minutes through the terracotta and sunshine yellow houses of our new neighbourhood to the beach.
And so our days begin to acquire a new rhythm, and our us-schooling month in Spain unfolds …
Us-schooling in Spain
In the absence of her usual busy schedule of extra-curricular activities, C(11) finds time to paint …
… take photos …
… and record a song, for which she films a video with her brother. The canine members of our family happily join in {video below} …
C(11) makes new friends by helping out with the English classes Spark run after school, and she and J(10) make a film at the language school {video below}. Look out for J(10)’s creepy carnival mask, and for my cameo at around 3 minutes 50 seconds …
J(10), meanwhile, is more of a homebody than his wanderlust mother and sister. So I’m very appreciative of the way he makes the best of our month away.
He attends four weeks of Spanish classes without complaint. When he’s not in class or playing on the beach, he’s happily absorbed at his computer, ascending the levels of World of Warcraft.
He listens to so many audiobooks that I almost forget what he looks like without headphones …
A taste of Spanish culture
My mum joins us for a week and we visit Cádiz, the oldest continuously inhabited city in Spain and one of the oldest in Western Europe …
… and we drive through red mountains to the delightful resort of Estepona, where we bask in the mild Mediterranean air …
… and C(11) and J(10) choreograph some play fighting on the beach {10 second video below} …
Ten-year-old bullfighters
C(11) and I go on a guided tour of El Puerto’s bullring – the third largest in Spain.
We realise how deeply embedded bullfighting is in Spanish culture when we see children brandishing capes in the ring – learning to be a torero is apparently an after-school activity in Spain!
Carnival
My husband James joins us for our final weekend in Spain, and we join the locals celebrating spring Carnivale.
Adios, España
On 28 February the sun blazes down on our Spanish friends flocking to the beach to celebrate Andalucía Day, but it’s time for us to pack up cram into the car and say goodbye – for now – to El Puerto de Santa María.
There are still a few more treats to come, though. I knew nothing about the city of Mérida – I chose it because was convenient for our route. So I am thrilled when we turn a corner to see this enormous Roman aqueduct, through whose arches we watch the sun set on our penultimate day in Spain.
Looking back
I sit on the floor, surrounded by half-unpacked suitcases. I think back to that January afternoon when I wondered, tingling with excitement and adrenaline, what the next five weeks held in store.
I look at the sun-kissed faces of my children and the hundreds of photos I’ve taken, and think of my journal, whose pages record the many tiny joys that together made up our Spanish life. I hear J(10) absent-mindedly say gracias to his sister, and I smile.
See also A Homeschooling Month in Spain – part 1.
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I’m appreciatively linking up here:
History & Geography Meme 162 at All Things Beautiful
Creative Kids Culture Blog Hop #27
Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Collage Friday at Homegrown Learners
