Final Days

With each passing day this session more and more people are coming to the realization that very little time is left in our program here. I have a week and a half left of class. The very next day I say goodbye to my host family and leave Sevilla first thing in the morning. Between travel plans, gifts, exams, papers, and scheduled tours, everyone here seems a little stressed out, and I'm certainly no exception.

This time I present you with a slightly different view of the city. Not the tourist kind, nor the kind to write home about, but it's more real than anything else I could write about my weekend or new things I've seen.

There are so many dogs in this city. It doesn't make sense because nobody seems to walk them enough, and they live in crowded apartments and leave there feces and urine everywhere. Every morning the city streets are sprayed down by workers with trucks, only to be defaced again by dogs on leashes, dogs off leashes, horses (don't get me started on the horses), homeless people, and by the end of the night, drunk people. There's not enough grass for dogs here, and they all seem to be either too small or too big.

Every day for the past eight weeks I've walked past the same African immigrant selling tissues on the street corner.  By the third week we were smiling at each other and exchanging small saludos. I had a lot of respect for him, for at least trying to make an honest living here, despite its degrading nature and the harsh response from most passerbys.' Today, with only a week left we actually had a conversation, and as soon as he confirmed that I was American he said I should get money for him. With only a week left I wish we'd never spoken at all, and he'd still have my respect.

I casually look outside my window and watch people pass by in the alley below. In the span of 10 minutes I watch a young mother with a stroller roll down the street, a beautiful brown haired toddler grabbing at the air in front of him as they make their way towards the corner of the street. I watch the pass under me, steer around the row of dumpsters on the corner, and continue down the way. The next time I glance outside there's another Young woman with a stroller. But the stroller doesn't hold a smiling child. Instead it's filled with bits and pieces of all sorts of things. I watch her pass under my window and go straight to the very dumpsters we all use to throw out our trash. This second stroller is for dumpster diving, and I watch the woman pick clean the top layer of materials and continue on her way.  Did she ever have a child? or was the stroller from the dump as well? Who is she that she knows where all the little apartment dumpsters are? All the homeless people that stay on the calle San Jacinto I recognize by their faces and their oddly malformed limbs. This mother of trash, in a brief moment has shattered the illusion that Triana is a safe pleasant part of the city. It is The other day I was talking with my friend Megan and she mentioned that she felt completely safe in our neighborhood of Triana, and at the time I wholeheartedly agreed with her. There are always families out on the street, sounds of children from nearby schools, restaurants where everyone knows each other and people recognize your face. Triana is an old neighborhood, with families that have been here for generations. In the city it seems easy to overlook the beggars and the homeless. I know most people try to look the other direction. But it's all here.

Some friends here tease me because they know I'm always looking. I don't have an amazing memory but I recognize people, places, and objects fairly well, and am often interested in their smaller features. The Americans think it strange but it's a lot more normal for people to stare here. If you walk down the street and someone catches your eye by chance, more often than not you have a bit of a staring contest, and it's a normal part of the culture here.

I've also noticed that in Andalusia when people wait in lines or for the bus, if you're paying attention you'll notice when they start clapping Flamenco rhythms in 6/8 time. In the states when people are waiting of things they'll tap feet or clap a little, but almost always with some sort of 4 pattern. Here I think they learn all of the traditional songs in school, and the 3 patterns are a lot more natural to them. It's fun to watch this part of the culture that is exported so much with tourism, but in a manifestation so small and ingrained that you can truly recognize the culture ingrained in the people.