I really can't believe that it's over a month since my last update. The saying goes that time flies when you are having fun. Time also seems to fly when you are having probably the biggest life upheaval you have had! It is now three months in for Team CL in our new life. So much seems to have happened, so much progress yet so much more to achieve. So, how are we doing today?
After our initial successes in February with the local Carnival and subsequently joining the PTA equivalent, school life and integration has certainly had some ups and downs. Integration as a word for me, before I left the UK, meant 'integrating with the local Spanish community'. A natural reaction considering that we were moving to Spain. Three months in and 'integration' for me means making friends and being part of a community - and to that point, our integration continues to be happily Spanglish. I have met wonderful people and really been taken in by a superb bunch of 'expats'. Equally, we have had so much support from a local Spanish family that own a restuarant that we have been coming to for years. We are now in regular dialogue with a Spanish neighbour in our community and certainly getting a few more smiles and hellos at the school gate.
For me however, that's the biggest barrier - getting to know the parents of the children that share my Son's school so that I can really help him. Whilst being able to speak ok Spanish, really understanding local life Spanish in our region at the school gate is sooo sooo hard. I have met a lovely English lady at the school gate - there are probably less than 5 British children in the whole schoo and it is so natural to have an off the cuff conversation with someone you can understand instantly. So there goes really our number one challenge - the language. Not just being able to understand at an intermediate level but actually understanding the local sayings, culture and all in a rapid fire group environment. So, perserverance, perservance and perservance - standing there at the gate and trying to listen, learn and join in.
The number one emotion for me three months in is guiilt. Guilt for my son and taking our now four year old away from good friends, a familiar environment and a language he can understand. The thought that you can put a child into a foreign environment at a young age and that they can be fluent in a few months, in my experience and what I see with the other 'foreign' children around us is totally unreal. The recent parents evening told me that whilst my little one is well behaved and good in class, he doesn't mix and doesn't really yet have friends. Such a departure from a boy who had 20 friends coming to his leaving party (at 3!). As with me and hubby, integration at the Spanish end, is so much about the language than our ok intermediate level and so our journey with this will be a longer and evolving story. What we do have is faith and determination to achieve this so as usual, I have to say it's onwards and upwards!
So, not to sound too gloomy as our motto is that together we are stronger and together this will work, here is all the positive stuff: With the friends I have met, I have been blessed with people who have truely taken us in and I have been lucky enough to be able to use my business skills to help drive a charity calendar forward. I have met a fun bunch of people that have shown me compasion, friendship and openess and equally, I have been very luck to land a new job and that starts next week. Any finally, today in our region, the San Jose fiesta has been amazing. A wonderful Feria, great Mercado, super food, buzzing atmosphere, families out and about all day, the sunshine and no stress.....a super way to remind ourselves that whilst we still have so many hurdles to overcome, we are so so happy to live in our little slice of paradise.