Un-official Senior?

Yesterday, I finished my program in Madrid. This means that I am no longer a junior - so does mean that I am a senior? That's a scary thought, since people think I'm still in high school (I'm just going to take that as a compliment for my young-looking face). Anyways, this semester has been ridiculously fast, especially April (that was the month of heavy-duty traveling). I feel like I should do a mini-evaluation on this semester like the evaluations I had to do for my classes.

I studied abroad through the Syracuse University's abroad program. Since it was geared towards beginner/intermediate Spanish level students and offered multiple history classes, I decided to go with SU Madrid. Was I academically challenged? No (if I wanted to be academically challenged, I would have stayed at Williams). Looking back, I probably didn't learn as much Spanish through this program than if I went to another one. First of all, half my classes were in English and I was surrounded by students who refused to speak Spanish well or at all. My señora was barely home and didn´t eat meals with us (that´s rare - most señoras eat with the students). I probably learned most of my Spanish working in the Fulbright office.

Did I learn a lot? Yes, but not in ways that I expected. From my history classes, I learned how Spanish historians (at least the ones I was exposed to) think about history. They like to hold on to chronology, patterns of cause-and-effect, and revolve history around the "great men." This was a dramatic change from my last history class at Williams, and was probably why I questioned everything my Spanish history professors said. I was one of the more cynical students in my history classes, but hearing these professors also made me appreciate the different ways to interpret, processes and teach history (the feeling I get is that Williams history students in general are cynical when they study the "past"). One class that I absolutely loved was my art class with Patricia. Patricia reminds me of a female, older Peter Pan: she has short hair, likes to prance around when explaining things, is petite, and has an enthusiasm for anything. Classes at the Prado Museum also made the class amazing; you're in lecture on Monday and then you see the actual artwork on Wednesday.

I also learned a lot from my time with the two little terrors (they´re actually sweet for most of the time, but become almost unbearable when they go crazy). I tutored them two times a week, and they definitely came from a privileged background. They had two asistentes (housekeepers) and I frequently got lost in the apartment. I spontaneously attended a birthday party for one of the neighbors, and I was stunned by how lucky these kids were. Unlike my previous experiences with kids in other countries, these kids were rich (I mean their parents were rich). The mothers are involved in their kid´s lives, but not as much as they should since some of them don´t have jobs. In fact, I think the asistentes spend more time with the kids, but the kids (or at least my tutees) don´t treat them with respect. They knew that I was more "educated" than the asistentes in terms of schooling, and didn´t try to yell back at me and demand things from me. These kids are sweet, but they treat people differently based on who you are (quite strange for children to do, I think).
One new experience for me was being a real minority (I know Asians are technically minorities, but they´re not in southern California). Depending on where I was (not in the touristy part of Madrid) people usually brushed me off until they saw that I was American. I remember one time when I was trying to buy a bus ticket from a man who probably thought I was a Chinese immigrant. He would repeat things mockingly, but when I showed him my passport, his behavior suddenly changed. Of course, this doesn´t represent the majority of Madrileños, but it´s strange to me that people can turn 180 degrees once they see that blue passport. There are a lot of immigrants in Madrid, but they live in specific, discrete areas. I didn´t even realize that we lived near a large community of Dominican, African, and Chinese immigrants until much later in my stay in Madrid (we lived in the financial district of Madrid, which is pretty nice). Madrid is diverse in terms of statistics, but I think the people of Madrid have a long way to go before they can accept and embrace the diversity. (The same could be said of the US.)

Madrid was under a dictatorship not too longer ago (ended in 1975). Most of the remains of the dictatorship are gone (holding hands was illegal back then, so it´s cute to see elderly couples hold hands on the streets). There is still a group of older people who believe government under Franco was better than the current government. They think that the new generations are rejecting tradition (and religion); to some extent, this is true. People are always making out and I don´t think many young people go to church by choice. But this is pretty common in other countries, like the US. Spain has a history of going from one extreme to another, but I think it has found a middle ground in some sense.

I really like Madrid, and I can picture myself staying here and living here. It´s small enough that it´s not overwhelming, but also large enough that I´m never bored. The city is beautiful (although it doesn´t have that historic charm like other cities of Europe but sometimes you don´t need that historic charm in everyday life), orderly and clean. I wish I could stay here longer, but I´m off to Italy after the weekend! I probably won´t write another entry until I´m in the US, so the continuation of my adventures in April will have to wait.

¡Hasta luego!

Susan