FRANCESCA DE AVALON - Chapter 12

Teaching in Madrid Sept 2005 - June 2006

Parking my hi-top van outside the gated complex where Pablo lived was difficult. The residential underground car park had a tight height restriction which was great for cars but not vans as big as mine. Leganes, a suburb of Madrid, is a sprawling modern urban residential area that has grown up around a quaint old town. It has a lot of parks and is famous for its collection of street art sculptures on every roundabout and open space.

Pablo’s parents lived in one of the older style houses at the centre of Leganes and, as soon as I met them, I discovered that Pablo had not told me anything about them. Pablo was the son of the Alcalde of Leganes! He was the leading politician, like a city mayor. From conversations with Pablo’s mother I understood that Pablo was as much an embarrassment to them as Hernan and Fuego were to their influential, aristocratic families! I was getting the impression that Madrigal de la Vera was a dumping ground for difficult upper class offspring!

Pablo’s mother, a lovely woman who was the same age as me, was hopeful that I might become a sobering influence on her son and at least keep his home clean and tidy! She put me in touch with the principal of Pequena Principe, a local private school and after a very short interview I was offered a part-time teaching contract to commence immediately. It was all so whirlwind! Within a few weeks of sharing Pablo’s home I had no less than four jobs!

Apart from caring and cooking for Pablo and cleaning his gorgeous apartment, I worked at the school, at an evening class academy in the town and I gave private one-on-one tuition to students and individuals who wanted to improve their spoken English. I kept a very busy diary and quickly learned to use the underground train metro and bus routes rather than negotiate the mad Madrid traffic in my huge van. I was always dashing from one teaching assignment to the next. It was all so hectic and interspersed with taking my dogs out to explore the local parks at least twice a day.

I lived very comfortably on my cash income which permitted my two salaries from the school and the academia to accumulate in my bank account in preparation for returning to my fruit farm as often as possible throughout the year.

Rasta and Ben enjoyed the many water features around the public places and I enjoyed the private swimming pool in the inner courtyard of our apartment block. Built up areas like Leganes get incredibly hot so most modern homes have air conditioning. Our home was on the fifth floor with a narrow balcony beyond the south facing lounge window. We would have to keep the blinds down and the window closed to keep cool during the day. At night we would have the window wide open and Pearlie would watch the world from there. She did not go out at all during that time so returning to Madrigal regularly was essential for her health.

Pablo introduced me to Madrid nightlife by taking me on the back of his motorbike to various gigs and venues, usually on Friday nights. We would visit Fernando’s bar occasionally and at the weekends we would take the dogs on the metro to the city centre. Madrid has traditional political protests every Saturday after which we would pub crawl all night and then spend Sunday mornings at the Bohemian market, El Rastro. Rasta and Ben loved these weekend excursions around the sleaziest corners of Madrid because they would enjoy all the fuss and attention heaped upon them by revellers, especially the girls!

That first year of teaching was a sharp learning curve for me. With no previous experience I was dependent upon my students to show me the ropes. I told each class that I needed their help. I wanted them to tell me what they wanted, to correct my Spanish if I made mistakes and to try to speak to me in English as much as possible. This formula was so unusual that the kids loved it. We were partners progressing along a mutually beneficial journey and they loved to take the lead.

One of the first ideas they came up with was universally enjoyed by my students regardless of age. They wanted to translate the lyrics of popular songs. The first one we worked on was the old classic, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin and they were absolutely enchanted by its meaning.

Other songs, more current at that time, were a little embarrassing to translate but we enjoyed a good laugh as I struggled to find the right words for the Pussycat Dolls hit Don’t Cha!

In short I loved teaching! We had some raucous classes and the teachers in the neighbouring classrooms would chastise me for making too much noise! When I had my first review with the Principal I was expecting a poor assessment but he was enthusiastic about my impact on his school. He said the students loved me and their English was improving rapidly. I had one advantage over other teachers…. I was able to get the pronunciation right, he assured me.

This was especially amusing to me because I had noticed that my students were adopting my East End London cockney accent and I was adopting their Madrid slang! I made a distinct effort to speak to them with a cleaner Queen’s English from then on.

I brought a globe into class and asked the children to show me where England was. They all believed that England was in America! So I labelled all the countries where English was spoken and they labelled all the countries where Spanish was the main language. We discussed geography, history and geo-politics as part of our classwork and I learned that Spain teaches a very different narrative from that taught in British schools. We compared the stories and found plenty of opportunity to learn how the two cultures had clashed rather than cooperated throughout history.

I quickly discovered that there are two sensitive subjects: The Armada and Gibraltar. It is best to avoid those!

The Spanish school year is punctuated with regular holidays and I was able to return to Madrigal and work on my fruit farm for a few days almost every month throughout the winter. I chose to leave the van parked at home because I was not using it in Madrid at all. Pablo’s mother loaned me her small car whenever I needed it. She had a chauffeur driven limousine to call upon for her personal needs!

I became a regular guest at Pablo’s family gatherings and I met many politicians and important people that way. I learned a lot about Spanish aristocracy and government from these social interactions. I became good friends with the Alcalde’s older sister who was well over 80 but very fit. We would go to classical concerts and ballets together. She told me her life story involved with the anarchist movement of 1936 and how it had landed her in Franco’s jail for many years. She had never married or had children because of that. She taught me a great deal about Spain’s 20th century life while we walked my dogs to the wilder places that she knew around the outskirts of Leganes. We loved her very much.

Our returns to Madrigal were always the same, consisting of me driving the now familiar route from Madrid to Oropesa and turning sharp right to bring the Sierra de Gredos into front view. Each time they saw the mountains, Rasta and Ben would get very excited, yapping and bouncing on their seats, occasionally breaking into full howling song of their people. When we finally reached our rough mountain lane I would stop and let them run ahead to the gates. There was never any doubt that they truly loved their home Avalon.

Occasionally Pablo or Fernando would join me, bringing their girlfriends with them. There was one occasion that has me laughing every time I remember it. Pablo had a new, very young girlfriend. She was small and feisty. She dressed always in black and had a boyish short haircut. Her face had a number of piercings. Pablo brought her to Madrigal one Friday evening in June and I had prepared one of the spare bedrooms for them to stay for the weekend. Everything was fine until bedtime. Suddenly I heard a shriek and Pablo began to laugh raucously.

A huge argument began and the girlfriend, fully dressed came stomping out of the bedroom in her Doctor Martin boots. She was raging and yelling at the top of her lungs! Pablo, hastily dressing, staggered out of the bedroom behind her. I was busy holding onto Ben because the commotion had set him off growling. He would attempt to bite anyone who shouted in his company and I could not risk that.

Pablo explained that there was a spider in the bedroom and he had said, “Of course! This is the “naturaleza!” But his guest was insisting that they return to Madrid immediately! So there he was, a huge long-haired biker bloke being bossed about by this raving hysterical teenage punk! She was still screaming as the motorbike drove off into the pitch black night!

There is more to tell about that particular young lady… in the next chapter.

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You can find the previous chapters 1-11 beginning here.

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ONWARDS!
xx

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