Telemarketing in the Office of the Dead

It’s been a while since I’ve touched this blog, namely because since the last time I wrote (October), it feels like both everything and nothing have happened simultaneously. I’ve been steadily improving in Spanish, making new friends, traveling, teaching, reflecting on my job, my future, the pursuit of happiness (etc) – and then I’ve gone home and binge watched entire series in 2 days in my cave of an apartment without seeing the light of day.

Some days are more exciting than others, of course.

There have been nights like one fateful evening in February, when I got stuck in Bormujos, the tiny pueblo where I work, because I decided to avoid the cold and get a quick glass of wine at the bar across from the bus stop. I went in, started reading my book, and then was immediately subjected to the passionate tirade of a man next to me. We got to talking, and, as it turns out, well… we’re now engaged!

(A photo of the "city center" in Bormujos. Pictured: strangers.)

Just kidding. (Sorry mom!)

In actuality, the middle-aged man (well into his 50s) kindly suggested that my reading in English was like a 6 year-old still “sucking on the milk of a bottle.” If I wanted to learn Spanish, he said, I needed to buck up and throw myself into it—WITHOUT EXCEPTIONS! (Cue finger wag). This all, of course, was yelled at me in Spanish, so while I was trying to politely interject and point out that I had to catch a bus, I was blessed enough to not only miss said bus, but to actually get to watch it pull away without me as this man continued “passionately speaking” (consciously uncoupling) in my ear.

At that point, he noticed—just a bit too late—that he had caused my then-current state of homelessness, and he offered to give me a ride into town with his friend, Manuel, who was meeting him at the bar in a few minutes. I weighed the possibility of my potential doom against the fact that there were 0 taxis and 0 other buses coming to Bormujos, and ultimately said “sure” with fake enthusiasm.

As it turned out, Manuel and the original “Kind” Stranger were really, genuinely nice father-figures. Both had daughters studying English in the U.S. or sons playing football (of course then they started discussing sports statistics and I happily pretended to not understand), and they were eager to talk about the state of affairs in the White House compared with the politics of Spain. We spent a few good hours cheers-ing to whatever-the-hell, and then they dropped me off directly in front of my house, literally wishing me a “good life” before speeding off.

So it goes, I suppose.

{NB: I’ll do my best to avoid politics, but of course, in the past few months, politics have been an integral part of my social interactions here. I’ve encountered few strangers who don’t hear “American” and immediately ask, “What the (expletive) happened?!” People are simultaneously intrigued and appalled (aren’t we all…), and though it’s somewhat exhausting to talk about at times, I think it’s crucial that Americans are open to having the conversation. I now have a rather practiced, memorized Spanish-language version of THE events that led to our country’s current state, a sort of Michael-Moore-prediction-inspired spiel sprinkled with my own furious huffs and dejected sighs. In an effort not to alienate any readers, I’ll leave it at that, though I will say that some words translate almost seamlessly into English, such as “demagogo.” ...}

Otherwise, my day to day is more or less the same. I go to Spanish class in the mornings, then go and “teach” English to a bunch of three year-olds (which, truthfully, involves me singing and dancing while they snot and cry to my left and right. They’re cute, and it’s amazingly easy to entertain them – I have to merely twirl in a slow circle and they all clap and yell “biennnn!!!!!!!” – but it’s a weird, sterile, plastic-animals-and-sanitized-wipe-filled hour that never quite feels real. Then I come home, eat, and head off to Bollullos or Bormujos to teach for the next 7 hours.

That’s where the magic happens.

(But first, briefly, a funny story): I was really zoned out one day while walking to the bus, and I started reading a new book while waiting in line to board. I got on, sat down, and kept reading. About 30 minutes later, I looked up with a start as if I was breathing in oxygen for the first time in years, only to realize that I’d gotten so absorbed in that chapter, I’d completely missed my stop. The man across from me was staring at me, puzzled, as I started sweating and mumbling to myself like “oh, dammit self, where the hell are you!” (sees sign overhead) “Bollullos City Center! You don’t even know where that is!”

Still flustered, I figured it was best to get off there rather than keep riding aimlessly, so I hesitantly pressed the button and exited the bus in a whirl of confusion. Of course, my data had stopped working on my phone, so I was just wandering around this pueblo looking for signs of life and/or actual street signs pointing in any sort of direction. Ultimately, I had to ask a bartender “Donde estamos?” before relenting and asking my boss’s son to come pick me up outside the local grocery store, Más. (A name that decidedly overstates their supply). It was a very strange hour and not the first time he’s had to save me from almost weekly misguided idiocy. He’s a saint, and without him, any number of impending disasters might have been the end of me! Bless him!

Anyway – teaching. I absolutely love teaching. It’s fun, thought-provoking, and rarely stagnant. It's like a live-action anthropological study of how the brain processes both information and language, as well as how children are socialized into maturity. Furthermore, as I teach different ages depending on the hour, the opportunities for mishaps, plans gone awry, or bizarre class discussions are endless. It’s amazing.

Naturally, it also provides ample opportunity for my own personal embarrassment and/or frustration.

One day, for instance, way back in December, the 5-6 year-olds were being absolute terrors. I was almost driven to tears trying different tactics to get them to stop: they were jumping off of desks (and onto each other), rubbing glue all over various surfaces, and drawing on the windows. Finally, out of nowhere, I just screamed “Calléte!” which means, essentially, “shut up.” (I actually didn’t know that at the time – I’d heard someone say it in the street and it just tumbled out of my mouth.) They all went quiet and stared at me in awe, until one of my favorite students, David, tentatively coughed and said, “Pero… Señor Lezi… perdona, pero… somos niños, y niños son… animales!” (Translation: We’re children, and children are.. animals!)

It was wise, adorable, and shocking, and truthfully my eyes filled with tears a second time as I smiled at his profound innocence and said, “Verdad, David. Gracias.”

Another time, I was trying to teach the 8-9 year olds simple, simple words like “desk,” “cats,” and “sing.” Of course, I was asking for trouble by deciding to include “three” in the list—such an evasive, challenging word! I had no sooner written “I have three cats in my room” when the class exploded in a cacophony of objections. “Señor!” they screamed. (Have I mentioned they call me ‘señor’ and not ‘señorita’ or even ‘señora’?) “That’s not right!”

I turned to them, confused, only to have 5 separate individuals stand up and dramatically point at the word “three” in horror, yelling things like “Qué es?!” and “No es correcto!”

Me: “What’s the problem?”

Claudia, the class ring-leader (and one of the brightest, most difficult students among them, so I have to pretend to be stern, though in truth I admire her spunk and independence): “That’s not how you spell three.” (Mind you, this conversation is in Spanish. They are so, so bad at English.)

Me: “Yes… yes it absolutely is.”

Her: “Nooooooo. THREE (pronounced ‘tree’) is spelled like this.”

She then walked to the board and wrote “tre.” I shook my head. Another student got up, attempting to “help me out.”

“It’s like this,” he said, and then wrote “tree.”

Me: “No! Guys, come on now, I know how to spell the word ‘three’ in my own language!”

Them: “No! It’s this! It’s that!”

The board soon filled with a range of various spellings of “three,” none of which were correct. Meanwhile, I sat back in bemused silence, watching until they finally returned to their seats and I could explain to them, in my coolest, most authoritative tone, that I, in fact, spoke the language that they were learning and could, in fact, spell one of the simplest numbers known to man. I had to deliver my speech in Spanish, which was then more infuriating, because a few of them attempted to correct my word endings as I went. I’ll tell you, there is nothing quite so pride-reducing or blood-boiling as having indignant 8 year-olds correct your grammar right as you’re in the middle of reprimanding them. It’s been a massively overdue lesson in managing my temper and taking myself less seriously, but I shalln’t deny it: 8 year-olds are the world’s most arrogant, unappreciative ignoramuses yet. (But I still love them).

Then, there was the day I made the mistake of asking the 12-13 year olds to “make their own characters” for what I imagined would be a thrilling, learning-through-doing-filled afternoon of “Murder Mystery,” which is one of my favorite games. An absolute FOOL I was, because after 30 or so minutes of them scribbling furiously and drawing their own character portraits, I got back a pile of profiles like this:

Name: Lenguoso

Age: 1,000. Ok, no. 31 years.

Famili members: 0 because Lenguoso kill every members.

Job: In the Dead Office and is it a telemarketer, too.

Interests: Kill every day and smoking.

Name: Dolores del Ano

Age: 21 year

Famili: 1 sister (honestly don’t understand this spelling error as I wrote it correctly for them on the board, but whatever).

Clothes: Necklase, track suit

Interests: smoking and drink beer

Name: [illegible Chinese characters] 777 Jr.

Age: 777

Family members: William Shakespeare, Hitler, and Donald Trump

Clothes: Shoes on hands

Job: in NASA and Gamer in Call of Duty

Interests: Fly and I live in a box

Those are just three examples. I kid you not, literally every—single—submission looked like this. Ultimately I just threw my hands up, wrote half of the script, and then tabled it for next term. If anyone has any ideas as to how I can incorporate Lenguoso, Dolores del Ano and ChineseCharacters 777 Jr. into the same story, please, I’d love suggestions.

The adults are amusing too. Our classes are more grammar heavy and involve less games, but at the beginning of every lesson we have 30 minutes of “speaking practice,” in which I get to pick any topic in the world and have them discuss it. I’ve set up debates, found random articles, or tried to solve logic puzzles, and we’ve talked about things as vague as “religion” or “global warming” or as specific as “the history of chocolate” or the success of a specific Mexican Restaurant in a new neighborhood in London.

It’s challenging, because while they are adults and therefore possess their own opinions, their English level simply isn’t high enough to express them eloquently, so I spend a long time grueling out what exactly they’re trying to say. (The other day, for instance, I’m pretty sure our conversation spiraled from ‘high school bullying’ to the story of a Spanish Twitter-celebrity who conspired against an ex-dictator and has since been jailed, and also is a transitioning trans woman. Again, that’s speculative… I’m still not sure.)

Another time, I was trying for their opinion on relationships in the workplace and the difference between genuine respect and brown-nosing, essentially. I’d shown them this quote from Catcher & the Rye and said something along the lines of, “well, what if there was someone in your life always pestering you to be different, or change your behavior because it’d suit some superior?”

A 23 year-old male student raised his hand and slowly labored through the following sentence: “Well, this person exists and… her name...is… Woman.” (Frailty thy name is woman!)

Despite my obvious disagreement with that statement, it was really difficult not to laugh.

A few weeks ago, they were the ones laughing at me, however. I was teaching them about Present Perfect tense and writing a lot of example sentences on the board. I absolutely covered it in writing, after having gone to the other classroom to grab a new marker because mine had died. As I was trying to create space for some new notes, I took the eraser to the board and swiped.

Like Elizabeth Warren, the words persisted. Perplexed, I looked down at the marker in my hand and saw the tiny “Permanente” pasted to its body. My eyes flitted between the eraser and the board a few more times before my cheeks burst into flame. I turned toward the class to see that every single one of them had tears in their eyes, quietly stifling laughs as my chin dropped. A 15 year-old girl named María literally stuffed her fist in her mouth to stop from crying. Of course, internally, I was dying--organs failing, humiliation flowing through my veins--but I forced out a laugh and was like “Haha! This kind of thing happens right?! Haha!”

Through a quick Google search, I realized the only way to get rid of the writing was to slowly, painstakingly color on TOP of the permanent-marker words with a dry erase marker; I spent the next 30 minutes scribbling black over black and erasing it while they wrote sentences, but every time they looked up, I could hear them swallow their amusement with little disguise. After class, I spent another 30 minutes dedicated to this wearying task, erasing the entire board inch by agonizing inch. Charlie, of course, walked in on me scribbling over the letters and made no attempt to hide his amusement. Much like the board that day, my reputation in his eyes is certainly NOT spotless.

Recently, I had a mortifying conversation in which I asked two of my students how their weekend was. Pepa, the girl in question, responded, “deed My Uncle.” She kept pronouncing the word “deeeeeed,” which I was interpreting as “did,” so I kept asking, “Oh, fun! Did what? What did he do? What does your Uncle do? I take it you saw him this weekend?”

Finally, she drew a finger across her throat and said, “HE! DEYD!” which I finally understood to mean “He dead.”

My mouth popped open and I turned beet red (once again), as a silence settled over the room. I was honestly so taken aback that I started to awkwardly laugh, which I had to hide in a cough while pretending to stare at cars out the window, before finally adding, “I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Such a bitter reminder that mortality looms around us, even in a bare-walled classroom overlooking an industrial parking lot in Bollullos, Spain.

Another “grand” adventure this year has been the state of my apartment, which, to clarify, is a glorified, tile-floor, tile-wall loft tucked in the corner of an old building in El Centro de Seville. Mahea and I were desperately searching for a place to live back in October when we stumbled upon this “piso,” advertised in plain type-face on a piece of printer paper taped to a building. I texted the woman, Theresa, via Whatsapp, we set up a meeting, toured it, and voila, we had a home!

(A photo Mahea took from our rooftop, which is one of my favorite places in this city).

At first, I was charmed by its old, quirky character. The cabinets were mismatched, we drank wine out of mugs, the couches were weird and it was full of old finds like an empty, crushed bird cage and blankets from no later than 1965 in patterns that remind me of a religious cult. It was freezing, and I was poor, so I slept in wool socks and a hat for about a month rather than buy a comforter, but I was kind of having fun all the same. However, around the month of February, the ol’ Piso decided to turn on us in what I can only classify as an attempt to mercilessly exorcise its traditional Spanish quarters of the clueless, depraved Americans housed within its walls.

It started when my landlord informed me that the “heater” I’d been using for the past 2 months was actually a toaster oven, a fact I only surmised through her tears as she cried laughing, snorting, “Es un tostadora! Heh-heh-heh-heh…Es…Un…Tostadora! Heh-heh-heh-heh.” I laughed, but again, more as an effort to hide the fragile state of my pride, which was now teetering over the pass between stability and insanity, threatening to crack with one more pathetically unintelligent misstep.

However, El Exorcism en España was only just getting started. Next, our Piso turned our sink into a “little” (-Alfred) home-made alarm system, delivering painful, sporadic electric shocks every time we touched the metal. At first, it was always surprising, and as the unpleasant tingling quickly spread through my shin bones, I’d shake my head and mutter, “What the hell?!”

With time, though, when one of us would drop a mug and scream “OW!”, the other would walk by and passively grunt, “shocked again?” as if we were commenting on the other’s intake of oxygen. Eventually, I decided to turn to Google, wherein I found an entire realm of equally confused and angry shock survivors with similar problems. There were lists of support groups and forums at my fingertips, with titles like, “OW! SINK SHOCKS, SEND SOCKS!” or “LA FEMME FATAL: WILL THIS VOLTAGE KILL ME?” In my favorite post, a man told the story of the problem his sales office had with sink shocks, an evidently long, arduous battle that went on for a few months. He finally discovered (after surveilling from the same table at different hours for weeks on end) that there was one woman who received the shocks most frequently. “I pondered,” he added, “over this evident Shock selection. What could it be? Why was SHE so ill-fated?”

As it turns out, his probing led him to the realization that she was wearing only the finest silk underwear to work every day. Much to her satisfaction, I’m sure, he added that he announced his discovery to the entire office, acting as a hero that day with his successful investigative skills and complete lack of shame. He then took it upon himself to suggest that all employees opt for cotton underwear instead. He was probably a spy from Fruit of the Loom!

Eventually, our shocks just stopped, for no apparent reason. I treated the sink like a sedated Rottweiler for a few weeks before literally throwing in the towel and washing dishes with complete abandon. It was liberating, let me tell you.

Our most recent problem has been the countertop. I’ve documented this on Snapchat, and I’ve told the story to many a friend, but I think it is one of the rarer occurrences I’ve experienced in my 23-years on this earth. It started with a simple problem: a broken washing-machine. Theresa (our landlady) was not pleased, but she announced that MANOLO (always puts his name in all caps) would be coming in the morning to “measure” the counter where she’d install a new machine. Manolo, however, had different plans—either that or he’d conspired with the demon occupying our flat to make our lives even more bizarre in Calle Alfonso XII, 29.

Manolo arrived that morning, clad in his typical neon-orange puffy jacket, cargo pants, and Timberlands, with a large case of tools in his hand. I opened the door, then retreated to my room to continue the difficult process of waking up in the morning in peace. Shortly thereafter, however, I heard the familiar sound of a chainsaw jumping to life, and by the time I’d gotten to the “kitchen,” he’d sawed the counter completely in half and was in the process of dragging the washing machine into the center of the room. I stood, awed into reticence, as he packed up the case shortly thereafter and left.

This was how the room remained for two weeks.

Theresa eventually found “una lavadora muy, muy buena, solo para nosotros” (she’s constantly guilt tripping us when she actually completes the average, expected activities of a landlady). However, it was a top-loader, and about 5 inches too narrow on either side of the now gaping hole in our counter. I never thought I’d have to send the text, “are you going to fix the jagged, sharp edges in the gap in our kitchen counter? Food falls in the cracks,” to anyone, ever, but I did- over three times!

After an uphill two-month battle over this problem, Manolo finally filled in the hole with an odd, off-color shelf that doesn’t quite align with the never-repaired jagged edges. However, I can now cut my food without the fear of it falling and rolling to the deepest, unknown spaces underneath the counter. El Piso has not yet defeated us.

Our final issue of late has been the woman who inhabits the apartment two floors above us, a nameless individual who Theresa refers to as "una mujer muy complicada." We refer to her, however, as our Enemy, as she is constantly watching us through her barely parted curtains, narrowing her eyes and shaking her fists as we walk past with laundry to take to the roof. Probably my least favorite thing on this round planet is people who insist on enforcing rules that DO NOT exist, so right now she ranks high on my list of nuisances, along with playing basketball in front of crowds and choir auditions.

Actually, it began when we started using the roof as a place to go read or sunbathe. She would inevitably be watching through her windows, and a few minutes later, we'd hear the roof door creak open and her shuffling footsteps approach from behind. However, rather than address us, she'd make her way to the roof edge, peer over, and pretend to watch traffic for a few minutes while actually spying on us out of the corners of her eyes. She would then text Theresa about how we were too noisy, or too disruptive (because, apparently, breathing in public while wearing earphones is a criminal offense).

One time, we went up there with our friend Sergio, who was wearing a bathing suit. Almost immediately, the shuffling noise appeared, like the clicking of the giant pincers in Shelob's lair. She peered over the edge, as always, then retreated. I was soon bombarded with about 10 separate screen shots from Theresa in which the woman insisted we were all wearing our "underwear" and treating the roof like some "public beach." Insert eye-roll here.

She's even ventured to ask us "who we were" and "how we accessed the roof," only after having yelled at us directly about 4 times over the past two months, so she either has face blindness or has developed hate-induced amnesia. We're also pretty sure she's the person who has stolen our mop and bucket from our stoop where they were drying after use, because they've both disappeared twice lately, and the woman who cleans the building told us that "someone here" does so because it ruins the "aesthetic" of the building.

I think I know who that "someone" is.

Anyway, all said and done, I knew to expect the unexpected when moving to a new country. I should have known that I'd walk away with one bitter nemesis, a counter that looks like a matryoshka doll, and a newfound familiarity with the feeling of electricity in my spine!

***

(P.S. P.S.: I actually love Spain. I am half-kidding with most of this blog post anyway, and I don't intend for it to come across as one giant complaint. This country is wonderful and the people are too, which I intend on addressing in the next post.

((I’m going to split this into two parts, so that you can abandon my ramblings at the mid-way point of one long post rather than the quarter-way point of a small novella. Marshall, Alexis, Liza – turn to part II for my harsh, exposing critique of your social behavior and etiquette while you were in Spain. Part II will also include more on Semana Santa, Seville by night, philosophical musings, etc, etc. ¡Hasta entonces!))