C.R.A. Valle de Bullaque, or, First Real Day on the Job

Greetings once again, this time from the wonderful-- and finally sunny-- provincia de Ciudad Real! I write presently from what will be my place of work for the next eight months, el Colegio Rural Agrupado  (C.R.A.) Valle de Bullaque, a small primary school of only 130ish kids and 25 professors just a forty minute's drive from Ciudad Real. For the time being, this will be the only place where I can post updates because alas, we have not yet purchased the means to proper internet access in the apartment! And as my photos all reside on an external hard drive that I did not choose to lug around with me today, this will also be a post sin fotos (photo-less), but nonetheless a sufficient one.

So then, yes. It has been a little under a week since I arrived in Ciudad Real last Wednesday afternoon, but it's been long enough to have gotten lost and then gradually more accustomed in its numerous streets whose names change constantly, to have found and signed the lease on a charming apartment close to the town square, to have met fellow teachers, future students, and easy-going roommates, and to have sampled of some of its finest local culinary offerings (including of course, being who I am, the ice cream from one of the local heladerías).

I cut my stay in Madrid short by a day in order to finalize rent on a place here, and was rewarded for that sacrifice in the form of an aforementioned well-placed apartment, a chance to come by the school and meet with teachers and become acquainted with the lay of the land, and the ability to really get a sense of the town. What's more, I can go back to Madrid rather easily on most weekends via the relatively new and state-of-the-art sistema de Trenes de Alta Velocidad España (AVE, which, as a clever aside, is also the word for "bird" in Spanish). These high-speed trains run from Madrid to Seville in a matter of only a few hours, and thus can get me to la capital in under sixty minutes.

Ciudad Real, although much smaller than Madrid and with less "cultural 'wow' factor" than other sites in the country according to Lonely Planet's 2007 guide to Spain, is still a very self-sufficient and burgeoning town where one can always find life, liberty, and the pursuit of tapas. I mean-- happiness.

The school, C.R.A. Valle de Bullaque, is very nice as well and all the professors are welcoming, friendly and blessed with a wonderfully sharp sense of humor. I'll be working most closely with the youngest students, ages 3-7, as a teacher's assistant in their Bilingual English Acquisition program. Understandably, my work with the 3-5 year olds won't be as intense as it will be with those in first and second grade, if it can even be called "intense" learning when working with this age group. Instead, Most of it is learning basic vocabularly with simple contextual cues and situations. For example, today with the second graders, we reviewed terms for weather and distinguished between them using current conditions outside, flashcards, and gestures.

This afternoon I've been invited to attend a luncheon that is being held for the teachers of many of the primary schools in the area. There will be around seventy other teachers in attendance so it will be a neat way to meet a lot of other teachers. Tommorw is the official orientation for the Language Assistants that live in the region of Castilla y La Mancha like myself, and so that will be similarly nice because although I have already met two girls from the UK who are living in Ciudad Real, I'm very excited to meet others on the program.

Well, I'm needed for the last hour's class. Nos hablamos más pronto (we'll talk soon), and I'll be sure to add photos and such dentro poco (sometime soon).

Chau, chicos!

Abrazos,

-nick