Un Poco Mejor

                I continue my worldly travels, with another new and exotic experience under my, slightly smaller, belt. Since my ventures into Africa, I have been lying in my bed for the past five days, subsisting off of the tiny crusts of bread that I could stomach, and learning colorful new names for my affliction. My personal favorites that I have come across are Montezuma’s Revenge, the Delhi Belly, and the Hong Kong Dog, but sadly, I couldn’t find one pertinent to the Spanish region. Whatever you want to call it, it has managed to decimate my writing material, seeing as I haven’t been able to do all that much. On the bright side, since my host mom knows I haven’t been feeling well, I have been spared the hamburgers, meatballs, and “French fries” that my poor roommate Lisa has been forcing down.

                As I lay here dying, our class went to Flamenco dance lessons. I apologize; I cannot enlighten you on the subject. I emerged from my sick cave for the first time yesterday, to drag myself to school and take two very long and painful Spanish tests. Today, we visited el Central Integrada de la Mujer, which was like a very upscale women’s shelter. It had about 5 or 6 levels, and was a very nice, well-lit building, consisting of classrooms, a library, a daycare, a rooftop terrace, and several other different areas. We watched a few presentations on la violencia machista, and learned several new statistics. Abuse against women is apparently prevalent all throughout the world, but Spain seems to be doing a good job to remedy it. It is at least nice to know that the women and children have a place as nice as this for shelter.  

                Tomorrow, our class will set out for Granada, Sevilla, and Cordoba. We don’t seem to have a schedule, and it has been unanimously decided that our professor is complete locura, so this ought to be interesting. The cities seem beautiful, and interesting enough, so it is certainly better than sitting in our classroom back at Mundo Lengua, next to the jackhammers and welding workshop. But for now, I am off to experience the lovely Cádiz beach for the first time (İQue lastima!), and summon up my strength: I heard tell someone found a volleyball net.