My Kingdom for Some Drain-O

"Nunca llueve en Málaga." Translated, this means, "It never rains in Málaga."

The next person to tell me that gets a swift kick in the rear.

It's a favorite saying of the malagueños, who are proud of the beautiful weather they enjoy here on the alleged "sun coast" of Spain.  Málaga is the place where all the Northern Europeans come to sit on the beach and turn their pasty skin a nice shade of "lobster," the place where the only religion still strictly adhered to is that of the "afternoon siesta" (to avoid the hottest part of the day). 

This year, it also happens to be the place where it started raining in December and didn't stop until mid-March.  About the middle of February I started to suspect it wasn't rain at all--it was God spitting on us and laughing. 

Here's hoping he's got Dry Mouth.  It seems to be the case at the moment; it got warm and sunny just in time for the madness of Holy Week.  There are massive, red velvet-covered risers set up in the plaza near my apartment, and a few days ago little metal lanes marked "enter" and "exit" started popping up at street entrances around the center.  I couldn't for the life of my figure out what the lanes were for until I decided to walk to the beach this morning and realized that every street out of my house was blocked by Virgin Mary statues, marching bands and hordes of spectators.  Turns out those little lanes, each one guarded by two harassed-looking employees in neon yellow vests, are the only way to keep pedestrian traffic going through the crowds.  They're kind of like that tiny space in your bathtub drain where water can still trickle through when the rest of it is clogged with hair. 

Anyway, more to come about Holy Week.  Tomorrow I'm meeting up with a couple from my church who are going to give me the backstage VIP tour.  On Wednesday I'll be escaping the crowds altogether to go to Extremadura with some Spanish friends. 

Other March happenings:

I went to Barcelona a couple of weeks ago to visit Lindsey Trio, a friend from St. Thomas who's spending the semester abroad.  We spent most of our time looking over our shoulders to make sure nobody was watching while we took stupid pictures.  Her youngest host brother is so cute I almost took him back to Málaga with me.  My felony kidnapping plans were foiled when I remembered I only had a carry-on.  He's only six, so he might have fit in my suitcase, but there was no way he was squeezing into my school backpack unless I left my hairdryer behind.  And there are some things you just don't do. 

One of the bilingual professors at my school decided to teach the 11- and 12-year-olds a song about the earthquake in Haiti.  The other day we went to the outdoor market in Campillos and the kids sang the song to raise money for quake victims in Haiti and Chile.  They were accompanied by electric keyboard, drums, and a boy playing the guitar with a terrifed look on his face.  In hindsight we probably shouldn't have threatened to send him to Haiti if he missed a chord.  The class also sold watercolor paintings they made in art class--mostly to the parents who had shown up to watch their kids. 

My friend, Erin, and I have been taking salsa lessons.  We have two instructors, Irena and Jesús.  Irena is sweet, but Jesús is slightly terrifying; he looks like he should be barking orders at a troop of Marines.  We've been informed several times that we're the "slow class."  Still, I like them both and classes are fun.

That's it for now.  I hope you all have an amazing Easter!  Eat a chocolate bunny for me. 

Introducing Stan, and other tales from February

Well folks, let's see if we can sum up February, shall we?

I went to Carnaval in Cádiz on a bus from the University of Málaga.  We left for Cádiz at 3 pm on a Saturday and got back to Málaga at 11 am on Sunday.  It was great--like a giant, outdoor Halloween party.  The Spanish really go all out.  I saw one group dressed as bull fighters.  They even had a bull made out of a shopping cart that they were pitting against a fake horse brought by some guys dressed as Trojan soldiers.
 
A class of 14-year-old students came to visit from England; they've been doing a sort of exchange program with the 11-year-old bilingual class.  We did field trips to a couple of towns near the school, which consisted of going to a couple of monuments and then giving the kids "free time" while the teachers went to get coffee.  Mostly I just enjoyed watching the kids try to communicate with each other using a mixture of English, Spanish and French.  Of course, when Spanglish and wild gesturing didn't work they went to plan B: Ask a teacher.

"Anna, how do you say 'hermano' in English?" 
"Anna, how do you say 'qué has comprado' in English?"
"Anna, how do you say 'mi tio vive en un pueblo cerca de aquí, y tiene una piscina y vamos allí todos los veranos para nadar con mis amiga, María, y sus hermanos, Diego y Manuel.  También tienen un perrillo pero no puede nadar en la piscina porque una vez hace 2 años hizo caca en la piscina'?" 

We were pretty tired by the end of the week.

My mom and sister escaped the Minnesota weather last week to come visit me.  I was a ruthless taskmaster.  I stuck them in a hotel filled with bizarre abstract paintings that looked eerily like pages from an anatomy textbook, took them on forced marches the Alcazaba and the castle and made them try weird Spanish foods like croquetas and shrimp with the heads and feet still attached.  (In my defense, Laura liked the shrimp and who in their right mind doesn't like croquetas?)

My mom and sister got to see my apartment.  My mom got lost.  Not on the way to the apartment, mind--in the apartment, which consists of bedrooms, a hallway, a bathroom and a kitchen.  I don't know what to do with that.

I also had the pleasure of introducing them to Stan, the puddle of urine that's usually hanging around the entrance of my building.  Stan first appeared a few months ago when someone didn't shut the front door properly and a drunk guy thought the floor of our entryway looked a little parched.  Since that time Stan has been a fixture in our building.  He disappears every once in a while, but he always returns to grace us once again with his presence.  After the first month I realized he was going to be a permanent part of my life in Spain so I gave him a name.  I now greet him when I enter the building and say "hasta luego, Stan" when I leave.  Yep.  I'm the crazy lady who talks to puddles of urine.

We said goodbye to Stan and spent a few days in Marrakech, Morocco.  We stayed at a gorgeous Riad in the middle of the market.   Every morning they served us freshly baked breads with tea and coffee in a little patio filled with trees and birds.  We felt like movie stars.  We spent a fair amount of time in the markets (carefully avoiding the paprazzi, of course) and managed not to get lost. (Posthumus girls: 1, Morocco: 0)  We traded my sister for a camel and then traded the camel for a nice throw rug.  It was a good trade; they're hand-made, you know.

We did get hoodwinked once into taking pictures with some monkeys and snakes.  Normally we would have told them to get lost, but I guess we had our guard down in that moment.  We ended up having to give them some money for the photos.  (Posthumus girls: 1, Morocco: 1)

Aside from that, we ate delicious food, played "chicken" with the Moroccan cars and motorcycles (this actually made me a little nostalgic for Ecuador), stared creepily at the people going to temple from our hotel room window, made up stories about our chain-smoking hotel worker, Mehmed, saw some mosques, danced in a palace, and spent our evenings listening to Laura read aloud The Manny Files. (Posthumus girls: 100,000,000, Morocco: 1)

After Morocco we spent one day in Granada, where we saw the Alhambra.  If you ever get the chance to see the Alhambra, do.  It's like nothing I've ever seen.

Mom and Laura went back to the states after only 8 days.  I was sad to see them go.

I got accepted to the University of Minnesota to start an inital licensure/Masters in Education program this summer.  It's a 15-month intensive program that begins about 10 days after I get home.  I want to get a double K-12 licensure in ESL and Spanish.  When I'm done with that I think I'll start work on my plans for world conquest. 

If anybody wants in on the world conquest bit, let me know.  With these types of things, you really have to get in on the ground floor.

As always, thanks for reading and keep in touch!