Aventuras in Spain

I was really lucky for it had  been so easy to get private students in the city of Cadiz.   I had no idea English was such an important language. Word of mouth got  out that a native speaker of English was available to tutor and before you knee it, I was trying to decipher spidery hand writing written by yet someone else who wanted to learn English. The notes were always signed and duly underlined with a flourish. Everyone seemed to know someone who wanted to learn English. Walk into the corner bar and Julio who would be preparing his famous pinchitos with just the right amount of paprika and garlic would tell  you about someone from down the road whose cousin's best friend's brother really, really wanted to learn English.  "He wrote his address for you." Julio handed me a transparent, crumpled paper serviette. "There, there’s his signature.”  He pointed to something that looks like an abstract painting.  “You can do the lessons here, if ...

One thing I've always hated to do is to visit a dentist. Bad luck would linger around my mouth like a mass murderer about to pounce.  So many odd things and mistakes had happened any time I was in the clutches of a dentist. Therefore, it was with butterflies in my stomach and sweaty palms that I ended up at a dentist in Cadiz. It's not that I had actual toothache, it was more a dreadful feeling that something was not quite right with a tooth on the upper jaw. "Open your mouth."  The dentist looked like a band leader conducting his orchestra, or a lion tamer goading his long-suffering animal to perform. Now, opening my mouth wasn't the problem. It's what happened next that caused me great consternation. He picked up long, thin, pointed instruments and proceeded to poke and probe. "Aha. Senorita, you need to have the tooth pulled." "I do?"  I'm surprised, for I'm not in too much pain at all. "I can pull it now, if yo...

It's 1973 and I teach English privately to students located on and around the Avenida Cayetano del Toro in the city of Cadiz. It's a thrill to enter their homes, smell the aromas of garlic and olive oil, of cologne, of black tobacco. Spain is an olfactory delight. Not that I enjoy  the smell of black tobacco, but even that seems exotic in an obtuse manner. I feel happy teaching and I look forward to seeing my students progress in English. I have never met so many wealthy people in the whole of my life.  Some even have maids who wear little pink uniforms and who treat me as if I'm from the aristocracy. They bow their heads when answering the door then they usher me into a room with a round table draped in a thick tablecloth. On the walls are tapestries. The wife of the man of the house usually welcomes me, offering me sherry, Anis, coffee, cigarettes, all of which I refuse as graciously as I can. I'm here to teach English, not to socialise. Anyone who is anyone has ...