Smooth & Round

We are just like the rocks in the sea. On the Western shore of Cadiz, Spain, heaps of rocks are escorted ashore by the Atlantic Ocean. Just like us, 300 diverse language and culture assistants, they too come from a million different places: a collection of strangers, rough and green, jagged and spotted, and foreign to everything, as they arrive on their new shore, their new home. Some are a bit more polished, with some Spanish language and culture already in their blood. Yet, we are all somewhere in the process of Spanish culture assimilation.

My first day of work in the primary school I was definitely still a disfigured and oddly colored rock, not even close to the shore. My white flip-flops, kahki capris and tucked in pink collared shirt, didn’t exactly scream local.

Upon opening my mouth to greet the smiley bilingual coordinator, clad in a lime green shirt, it was clear that my Spanish was in need of some polish. I said, “Buenas Dias” and, out of habit, stuck out my hand. The clear over definition of the letter ‘S’ was like nails on a chalkboard and put me in my place.

Alejandro smiled, shook his head and leaned in for a warm, double-sided cheek-kiss. After 28 of these kisses, I met the staff and I was sent home. My first day was complete. It was 1:30pm and I skipped home in the sun with a big silly grin splashed across my face. I felt a teeny bit more rounded out.

Southern Spain is bursting with warm energy and their fiery culture seeps out of every pore. Cadiz is supposedly the oldest inhabited city in Europe and that is apparent everywhere: the buildings, the parks, the sea, the food, the traditions and pride, but especially in the people. Now, these people are polished and completely rounded-out traditional Spanish beauties.

Completely fortunate to have been placed at the CEIP – La Inmaculada, every day I had there I felt loved, and welcomed and was shaping more and more into a stone that would fit along the shore of La Cortadura beach with the Spanish ones. Every Spanish holiday, conversation with a fellow sunset watcher, coffee stop or private English lesson, helped smooth out the rough “guiri” edges.

When people started asking me if I was from Seville I started to feel like I rolled a little more smoothly on the cool, wet sand. It wasn’t just my freshly dyed dark hair or the song-like accent I try to imitate, but six months into the Spanish stone refining, I had definitely grown. I had grown up and grown out, but mostly I’d grown on the inside.

Just like those multi-colored stones that roll around in the clear blue tide, perfecting themselves, we too, are multi-faceted foreigners embracing the new shore. Sometimes the sea is rough and chucks the rocks around and spits them up and down, but it calms. And just like the Andalucían life, in this tranquil and calming process, we are sculpted smooth and roll eventually in to our own.