games

Teaching’s going fine. It’s been a misty last few days here in Tierra de Barros. After a hearty Thanksgiving Party in Almendralejo and a decent slog at the karaoke for afters (via Tom Jones and Lionel Richie under my karaoke alter ego, Bem), it’s back to business as usual for the last three weeks of term (the fourth is always anybody’s guess). My old rule – never repeat a game – is holding fast. Amongst the games I’ve played with my classes are:

Psychiatrist
The Triangle Game
I’m Going on a Trip
Chain Word Advance (Noun, Adjective and Verb)
Never Have I Ever
Kim’s Game
Mafia
Twenty-One

I’ve still got a few more in the bag before I run out of my set, but when I do, it’s only a matter of invention and re-invention. This teaching assistant malarkey is simply a case of giving the kids an incentive to speak in English, and what better way is there than giving them games they can enjoy in their own language once we’re done? Psychiatrist went down a storm – the kids play it at break-times, they tell me – and this week’s Twenty-One (courtesy of Tasha, an old hand at this game) has proven itself to be more popular yet. The Triangle Game left a good many of them boggled and more than a little frustrated, but my older classes found it immensely entertaining.

The key, I suppose, is not to think of these games as ESL activities in their own right, but as the kind of games you’d have enjoyed playing with your friends at school, or at university, or in any other setting. Parlour games are prime material, such as Psychiatrist (for which I am indebted to the French animateurs at my first summer job who rendered it Pussycat, after the French psychiatre). Campfire games are also a wonder here, and I find myself wishing that the younger me had been more sociable; an upbringing in the Scouts or Guides might have armed me with a good deal more material in this field. Last, but not least, drinking games are an unexpectedly rewarding resource, if modified correctly – especially as many of them are already corrupted games in their own right. Remove the element of drink and place a greater emphasis on speech and you have plenty of ideas at your disposal.

Of course, I have to keep this up for a full academic year. That’s thirty-one weeks of games; twenty-one, if we’re counting down (that’s as many days of games as Emperor Commodus declared in Gladiator…). As a point of pride, I will never resort to Hangman. Thus, the search continues. So help me God.

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Meanwhile, I’m finding myself drawn to the attractions of home more keenly than usual. Perhaps it’s because my old friend Biff is bound for South Africa in the new year (KwaZulu-Natal no less, the lucky so-and-so), or perhaps because it’s Christmas and – being in Spain – you’d never know it, or perhaps it’s the simple fact that, unlike the last time I was working here, I haven’t got the surety of returning home at the end of the year. The fact that this will also be my first Christmas away from home does factor into it, too.

Skyscanner went from a casual browsing affair to my most visited webpage overnight. By the end of the night I’d searched for flights to Gatwick and to Newcastle; to Stansted, Luton and even Durham Tees; and then to Durban and Cape Town; Paris, Toulouse and Berlin… With the Northern Lights’ annual Christmas Concert next week and several old friends due to return to watch, I found myself tempted to wing my way over if I could. But between an 8am flight from Málaga, a midnight bus ride from Durham to London and the knowledge that I’d have to take two days off work for it to be even possible, I decided to save the 180€ it would have cost me towards more worthwhile ventures (I could buy a decent bike for that kind of money – or even pay for two return trips to Gatwick in low season).

I still miss music, and I’ve been pouring my heart and soul into my a cappella arrangement of Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, as well as tinkering with arrangements of Jefferson Airplane’s Somebody to Love, The Sugababes’ Red Dress and an Afrobeat mashup of Thriller and Fela Kuti’s Zombie and Opposite People. The musical energy within me still needs siphoning off somehow, and even if the Lights have enough material for years already, all these arrangements are, at least, a temporary solution for my own frustration.

Gala Show (35)

To keep my writing muscles flexed, I’ve been building my vocabulary daily on the sly. Whether I’ll use my learning as part of a Pasapalabra-style test for the kids remains to be seen, as some of the words are downright impossible to divine without the right knowledge, but as a writer I’m hoping it’ll do me some good. Here’s a few of my recent findings:

umbrageous (adjective): (of a person) inclined to take offense easily

nonbook (noun): a book without literary or artistic merit

earthshine (noun): the dim light on the unlit surface of the Moon caused by the Earth

A good many of them are much too specific to wend their way into everyday conversation (see bombinate), but I’m hoping it’ll increase my vocabulary in the long run. Polygon and Scrabble would be a lot easier, for one thing. And, of course, Bananagrams. Until the next time. BB x

I haven’t been traveling much recently. A combination of earnest novel-writing, job hunting, private lesson planning and musing over where to buy a cheap bike have conspired to keep me here in Villafranca for the time being. This year I’m working just the one job (proof that, even in the best of all possible worlds, experience isn’t always the best guide), so I have some four hundred euros less per month to live on. Weekend adventures have become what they always were, at heart: a luxury. Sometimes, however, an opportunity presents itself which cannot be turned down for love nor money. Biff’s visit to Seville last week was just such an opportunity.

How I managed to make it through the entirety of my last year out here labouring under the belief that I couldn’t cancel my private lessons for my own benefit is a mystery to me. I rescheduled my Thursday guardería session, packed my things as the WiFi man finally showed up (hello Murphy, long time no see) and hopped on the afternoon bus to Seville. It felt so good to be on the road on a Thursday afternoon. Previously I was working right up to the wire on a Thursday, so that the weekend began on a Friday morning. This year siestas are a thing, and I wonder how I ever managed without them. They’re the perfect solution to early mornings, late nights and post-weekend fatigue. The blinds in my room are a work of genius: at a basic level, they let in the morning light through little gaps in the shutters, which you can close off completely, leaving the room completely dark. I’m enjoying the shelter now, and I know I’ll appreciate all the more when this country heats up again come May next year… that is, if it ever cools down sufficiently for that to be a noticeable change (it’s almost November and it’s still pushing high twenties here).

After weeks of ESL games, I leapt at the chance to spar on an equal footing. Biff inducting me into Bananagram, which is something like the bastard child of Scrabble and a crossword. My passion for complicated and obscure words dragged me down a lot, but it made for some visually appealing results, win or loss.

But I didn’t cancel my private class to play Bananagrams all weekend. I’ve been moving in and out of Spain for several years now, so it’s always a pleasure to see my grandfather’s country through fresh eyes. Biff hadn’t been here since our school’s music tour to Spain back in 2006. I’m not sure why I found that so hard to grasp. But it’s chiefly because I had new eyes to look through that I got to see a side of Seville I’d never seen before. Palmeras are delicious, persimmons aren’t half bad and, if you’re looking for flamenco off the beaten track, you can do a lot worse than La Carbonería…

I work by the rule of three. Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is a message (or interest, if we’re talking about catching somebody’s eye). And three recommendations to visit La Carbonería from three different sources – the head of Chemistry, my flatmate and Biff’s AirBnB host – was too obvious a message to ignore. So, with a glass of agua de Sevilla in hand (that stuff is deadly), we nabbed a table near the performers and were treated to a decent forty-five minutes’ set.

It was nice to have the time to wander about Seville at leisure. So often I’ve been running through Seville, waiting for a bus, or a plane, or something along those lines. There was a demonstration in the Plaza de España by the police for equal pay, watched from the shade by a mounted division. Catalonia was being stripped of its powers, so I think the police had other things on their mind. It felt weird, to stand in the plaza and see the cities and regions of Spain painted on the panels all around, knowing that up north the kingdom was pulling itself apart. Just like the Paris attacks, it was hard to believe such a thing was possible under the Spanish sun. Babies in pushchairs followed the protesters, Latin tourists snapped photos, gypsies danced for pennies on the steps. Life goes on.

Fortune favours the interested. Go on a wander about town and you never know what you might find. I’ve seen a Mario Kart stag do, a gypsy wedding and an errant griot here. On our journey in search of a tapa or two, I saw a nun with a stuffed-toy octopus in her backpack. You never know what you might find.

Seville’s streets are beautiful by night. Some parts look like France, others look like Spain, and others central Europe. I suspect it’s the trams that make it look like central Europe. The monk parakeets that live in the palm trees and the ring-necked parakeets that nest in the alcoves of the various churches jostle for space, and the screeches of the latter make the place sound eerily like London every once in a while, though it’s not quite cold enough at night. The chestnut vendors are out and about. When the nights are colder, the steam rising from their wheeled stands will complete the picture. I hope they’re about in Córdoba, too. I’d like to buy a bag of them and eat them on the Roman bridge as the sun goes down and the lights on the mosque come up.