Our first full week in Martos is quickly coming to an end and what an adventure it has been! David and I arrived on Saturday, October 1st into our town of 24,000 people. We were picked up at the bus station in Jaen (the larger city about 20 minutes away) by Conchilla Bonilla, an English teacher at a primary school here in Martos. Her daughter and she took us on a tour of the town before dropping us off at an apartment that she rents out. We love our little town! Martos is great. It is safe and very family-oriented and the apartment we are staying in is above the main street with plenty of cool pubs and restaurants to eat at. We love being able to walk from place to place with no need of a car in the town. Interestingly though, most people here own a car. Our first day here there was a Tapas Festival going on right across the street from our apartment and so David and I decided to go try it out. I was a little intimidated as we walked into the festival with a ton of Spanish people and no idea of what to do! We figured out that we had to buy tickets in order to get tapas and drinks! We had a lot of fun trying to guess what each tapa was and settled on paella. It was delicious!
The next day we decided it was
time for a run/walk and we headed to La Pena, a mountain here in Martos. If you
didn’t know Martos is surrounded by this mountain. In the older part of town,
many apartments were built right by the mountain and therefore getting around
in the older part of town requires walking up steep and tiny streets! We
climbed up La Pena and found a cross and the ruins of an old castle. I was
terrified climbing up the mountain as we did not follow a trail of any kind but
made our own! Thankfully we arrived to the top safely!
Currently, we are living in an apartment
with 2 other teachers from Spain. Both are male and speak English very well
which has been helpful to us. They are super nice and have helped us figure out
how things work in Spain. We are debating on whether we are going to look for
an apartment of our own or stay with them. We will see what happens in the
upcoming month as we get more settled and familiar with our area!
We started work at our schools on Monday.
David is working at San Felipe, a high school here and I am at 2 of their
primary schools. I visited both of my schools on Monday! The kids are adorable
but I am having some difficulty with the lack of Spanish skills! A few teachers
can speak English, but most cannot and so it is quite humorous when they put me
with a teacher who speaks no English! They are still working out our schedules
but it looks like we will be working from Tuesday-Friday. Their school system
here is so different from the American school system. The students are at
school Monday-Friday from 8:30-2:00. They bring a snack and have a break at
11:30, but do not eat lunch at school. Lunch here is typically served from 2-4.
On Mondays, teachers work until 2 pm with the students and then go on lunch and
have to return to the school from 4-7 pm for teacher prep time. The rest of the
week the teachers are free to leave at 2pm with the students and I watch many
walk out of the school with the student’s right when the bell rings. So crazy!
The teachers are also able to wear jeans to work just not shorts. I like that
rule! As far as I have noticed most students are very respectful of the
teachers.
We have LOTs to learn here and I
am both nervous and excited about the adventures ahead! Please keep us and our
family in your prayers during this time! Feel free to view the slide show for more photos! More updates coming soon!
1 comment:
Yay! I'm glad to see the blog up and to know you're enjoying your adventure. We're going to San Antonio next weekend and are sad you're not there, though. Keep the updates coming!
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