Working in Madrid

An Aussie Girl in Madrid by Kate N. - Post # 3

I'm sitting on the bus from Boadilla to Madrid to meet Sara, another Moniter from Summer Camp. We are going out in Madrid with two of her friends.  They don´t speak very much English so hopefully I will learn some new Spanish words and phrases tonight!  I plan on finding some books to help me learn Spanish in town as well.

The biggest and only challenge I had this week when working at Alcala, was that the children did not speak much, or really any, English nor could they understand me.  Each child is supposed to be Bilingual, however because they were younger than 6-years old I believe that although they had learnt English at school they had not had the opportunity to put their English lessons into practise.  It felt like I was playing charades for 3 days!  I was mostly in charge of sports as that required not as much talking in comparison to other activities thus I could demonstrate the actions as well as explain in English which made it a lot easier.  A breakfast, lunch and dinner time I made sure the children could say 'Can I please have some water?' The words have and some were quite tricky for them to both say and remember, but I'm hoping the children will take away at least one new English phrase form this camp.

The 3 main phrases I learnt this week were:

una fila:                      one line
stop fighting:              no palasis
share:                         comparrtid

The highlights of this camp were getting to know the Monitors much better and really starting to have a laugh within work.  Being a smaller camp and less monitors we really worked as a team.  We had children with allergies flaring up, poor Martin was in the wars as the pollen was circulating the air, his eyes swelling up till they were almost closed, followed by a blood nose PLUS children wetting the beds and falling out of the bed during the night. The noise of someone thumping on wood floor during the silence of the night could nearly gave me a heart attack!

Now moving onto a topic that´s is separate from the Summer Camps, one that came up in a debate with David during the week...

'The difference between a Traveller and Tourist' - David insists that I am a tourist but I am determined to place myself in the category of a traveller.  After looking at several definitions of a Traveller and Tourist, most meanings were practically the same:

Traveller:                    One who travels or has travelled, as to distant places.
Tourist:                       A person who travels for pleasure, usually sightseeing and staying in hotels

TRAVELER:                  One that travels: as a: one that goes on a trip or journey
TOURIST:                    One that makes a tour for pleasure or culture

Traveller commonly refers to one who travels, especially to distant lands. It may also refer to:
            Drifter (person), a person who is continually travelling without a home or job
            Rogue (vagrant)
            Vagabond (person)
            Vagrancy (people)
            Itinerant, a person who travels from place to place with no fixed home
            Nomad, a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer
            Perpetual traveller, a traveller/migrant who is not considered a legal resident of any country
            Tourist, a person who is travelling or visiting a place for pleasure.

Putting together all these definitions I strongly feel there is a difference between the two words.  To be a tourist, in my eyes ,is to plan a holiday for a short period of time that fits into a person's lifestyle at that time for example when they can take holidays off work, revolving around relationships, life events with a LOT of planning involved.  A traveller does not plan but just sets off in a direction.  A traveller can be moving rapidly or at a slower pace stopping off for longer periods of time to work and get to know the people, the culture, families and different ways of life.  To learn a new language is something a traveller will have time for more so than a tourist.  Within my hunt for an appropriate definition I came across this quote of someone's interpretation of the difference between a tourist and a traveller which I will leave you with:

            ' The difference between a tourist and a traveller is that the traveller goes to a place without  any preconceptions, whereas the tourist already decided on how he’s going to experience   it. The traveller has an open mind and lets the place happen to him. The tourist brings with     him his own environment and expectations, thereby polluting the experience'.

I am adding a goal for myself! To be able to write one page in Spanish by the time I finish work in Spain!