Fulbright Dispatch From Spain

“Asturias is a lot like Washington state,” I say for the thirty-second time. As a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA), I teach in two colegios in northern Spain to elementary-aged students. When I asked my bilingual coordinator for class rosters, he laughed. “You are going to teach the whole school,” he responded—i.e., “There is no way you will learn all their names.”

“Hello, Kaley!” kids call when they pass me in the hallways. I smile and wave back, sure that I have them in one of my classes somewhere. During my first week in Asturias, I bought out the entire Popsicle stick inventory of one of the local bazars (aka dollar store). Now, two shelves in my room are dedicated to organizing all the sticks, which bear the names of all ~750 students: countless Martíns, a handful of Hugos, a few Iratxes. In a 6^th grade class, I draw a Popsicle stick at random from the cup. “Cova? Tell me what Asturias is like.”

“Asturias is very green and rainy.”

I grin. “Just like Washington!”

If I ever get homesick, I have only to look outside at the gray clouds hanging heavy over the mountaintops, at the lush green trees that rightly situate this region in the northern swathe of Spain known as España Verde. Of course, it’s a superficial similarity. Oviedo’s annual precipitation may fall within an inch of Seattle’s yearly rainfall, but in most other ways, my current life in the capital of Asturias is nothing like living in a Seattle suburb.

Here, I carpool east every morning with a fellow teacher, who chats with me in Spanish about Asturian food, festivals, and her two cats as the sunrise paints the sky a stunning pink. At 8:45 we arrive at the colegios, where classes never begin on time, students call their teachers by their first names, and I can wear jeans and sneakers to work.

My role as an ETA is twofold: to support local teachers in teaching the English language, and to serve as a cultural ambassador for the U.S. For New Year’s, I show my students three famous faces and have them guess what Smith, Ferrell, and Shakespeare all have in common. After reviewing affirmative and negative future tense, we fold paper fortune tellers and write sentences about what WILL happen in the future: “You will win the lottery!”; “You will not eat broccoli for dinner.” Another week, we discuss the etymology of “solar” and “lunar” (helpfully similar to the Spanish words for sun and moon) to find out why Lunar New Year happens four weeks after January 1st. The Chinese zodiac calendar lends itself perfectly to reviewing birthdays and describing animals. Since the Spanish education system enrolls students based on calendar year, the entire 6th-grade class is tickled to find that we share the Year of the Snake in common.

After school, I take the train to the center of Oviedo. Oviedo is a sizeable city of 220,000 with a smaller, historic feel. It is pleasantly walkable and dotted with bronze sculptures: a rotund Mary and baby Jesus, an Argentine cartoon character named Mafalda, Woody Allen.

Isolated by the Cantabrian Sea to the north and the Cantabrian Mountains to the south, Asturias successfully resisted the 8^th-century Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula. “Asturias es España; todo lo demás es tierra conquistada,” my coworkers have taught me: “Asturias is Spain; all the rest is conquered land.” It’s a saying that reflects Asturian pride that avoids any kind of nationalism as evidenced by the abundant, diverse welcome that I consistently experience in this region. The people here are open and affectionate, with a generosity that baffles my American sense of individuality. In Oviedo, people rarely switch to English for me, yet they are perfectly patient with my imperfect Spanish.

But the biggest source of welcome has been from the church here. The congregants live out 2 Corinthians 13:12, greeting one another with a holy kiss: cheek to cheek, first the right, then the left. The body parallels Revelation 7:9, with members from every tribe and tongue (well, mostly Spanish) and nation: Spain, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, Ukraine, Paraguay, Lithuania, Venezuela. Through a roundabout turn of events, I now live with Carmen, a lady from the church, on the outskirts of Oviedo. My European gap year experience is certainly different from the rest of my cohort, who live with other young people mere minutes from cobblestones and bronze sculptures. Although living with Carmen in a quiet suburb has meant reshaping many expectations, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

In pursuing a Fulbright ETA award, my comfort zone has been stretched in the best ways. Despite the inevitable challenges that come with moving abroad, the relative brevity of nine months is a fantastic motivator to make the most of each new day. For instance, pushing through homesickness, I chose to stay in Spain and spend Christmas with Carmen and her family. In the end, this decision eased my transition by deepening my connection to new community. When I miss home most, I seek ways to bring home here: whether cooking sweet potato casserole for Thanksgiving with church friends or watching my favorite movie in Spanish with Carmen’s daughter.

As I reflect on my time in Spain so far, I keep returning to language, teaching, and culture—the Fulbright ETA Triad toward which the Office of Engaged Learning guided me during my application process. And, the pivotal question that redirected my entire application: “Where do you really want to spend a year of your life?” This comment freed me from playing the probability game, allowing me to pursue my sincere aspirations. Along with authentic interest in your target country, the best preparation for a Fulbright application is to consider how your experiences and passions genuinely fit into the three categories of the Triad. Forcing an interest in culture or faking enthusiasm about teaching is difficult enough for an application essay, not to mention for a full nine months abroad. Even on the days when my Spanish gets stuck or lessons are repetitive or I miss wearing sweatpants in public, my ultimate love for this Triad keeps me going.

“Nunca estarás lejos de casa si haces del mundo tu hogar,” says the mat outside Carmen’s front door: You’ll never be far from home if you make the world your home. Five months into my Fulbright, I am grateful for the new community that has made northern Spain feel like home. My Fulbright ETA has been the best opened door I prayed for: a lifetime’s worth of discomfort embraced, risks taken, adventures sought, and growth granted, all packed into nine months.