Life Here

I want to take a chance to reflect a little about what I do with my life here. Most of my blog entries are about a specific event or trip, but this will be more about the bigger picture. I’ve been blessed, I’ve had good luck, however you want to say it. I found a group of people here that immediately accepted me as family and it’s made my life here so much richer. Madge had a chance to see it when she visited me this past weekend. I had borrowed a sleeping bag from my friend, Sonia for us to use. Sunday night we had to go pick it up from the house. They invited us in and talked to us for quite sometime. They didn’t let us leave without having something to eat, and definitely wanted to give us more than we desired. They offered beds there as they didn’t know what Sonia was lending me the sleeping bag for, and they wanted me to explain to Madge that this was my home and my friends are always welcome. Musci (hope I’m spelling that right, it’s a Basque name) is definitely my surrogate mother. Piero (a Italian friend who was in a similar situation and who has now returned home to Naples) called her “la mama española.” Today Sonia and I went to see a free modern art museum here in Salamanca. I didn’t know it existed. Da2 (dados). After that we went and saw the Adsis Foundation in San Juan which I hadn’t yet visited. From there we went back to her house and I ate there with the “other” family. The group is divided into two houses both of which constitute my home here in Spain. I’m always amazed by their capacity to love. I wouldn’t say they love me as we normally use the word love, because they likely don’t know me that well yet. Still, they definitely show me that agape love that we always hear about. They always want to know how I’m doing, how’s my family, are my studies okay, how am I feeling with the Spanish, etc. After lunch (Oscar, one of the priests, prepared a baked salmon topped with chopped onions in orange juice. Ricisimo…) we take coffee in the living room. It was a tranquil day. Just being with them I absorb so much about Spanish culture and also I start to learn the expressions. For me, these are the days of note, when I’m not in classes and I’m not going out. I hope that by the end of my time here I’ll be able to give back to them some of what they’ve given me.