Bienvenido a Sevilla! (Welcome to Seville) Part I (Originally posted 27 May 2005)

Hi Guys and Gals, I am Sevilla right now, I´ve been here for 2 weeks (with 2 weeks left) and wow has it been eventful. I´m really going to have to try and keep it short cos the last time some guys complained that it was too long.

When I landed in Sevilla, I kept wondering why I had chosen to come here cos I wasn´t at all excited about it - in fact I wasn´t looking forward to going. One my way to my new home in the taxi from the airport, I kept thinking that I shld have gone to Barcelona instead. On arrival, it didn´t help that after dinner the first thing I saw when I switched on the tv was the scenes of celebrations all over Barcelona - their football team had just won the La Liga. That night (and I think the night after too), I dreamt of Barcelona.

So obviously, w/o doubt, I had to make do with Sevilla, and get used to being here. A friend had highly recommended the school here and the city so it couldn´t be that bad right? Well, I have to say that Sevilla has pleasantly surprised me so far. I have run out of things to do after 2 weeks, but if I was a sight-seer by nature, I would still have a lot to see in the next 2 weeks. Since I´m not, I can concentrate more on my Spanish, in theory at least.

So I got placed with another single woman, and I was a bit wary and worried, judging from my experience with Pilar in Valencia (where some of u suggested that she fancied me and Barbara suggested that I fancied her - the first idea, being highly possible, the latter, well, simply laughable, not a suggestion that I am willing to even entertain. But I digress, I won´t bore u with the details of that!). But Concepcion (Concha), was a very elderly lady, very nice, infact the nicest person I´ve had the pleasure of staying with. Unfortunately, my stay in her home was very short-lived. The very first night I got there, I couldn´t eat her food! The next morning at breakfast, I was still trying to get comfortable with my surroundings and the food until I opened the jam and.....there was a film of mould covering the whole surface of the jam, it had to have been like that for weeks! She apologised ever so sincerely, but the damage was already done. For that whole week, I couldn´t eat her food, a combination of not liking and an psychologically not trusting it. She tried everything she could to accomodate my taste, and she also kept saying "Si no comes, te va a morir!" (if u don´t eat you´re going to die, and then she would add a story about the civil war in Spain in 1936 and how meals are really big in Spain now cos they didn´t wanted the kids to starve). Given the fact that I wanted to (needed to) hang out more with other students than I did in Valencia, I decided to go change to a self-catering residence.

It was really hard leaving Concha´s house, because she was too nice. She was never offended that I didn´t finish my food (Maria Carmen & Pilar would both go into fits if I didn´t use my bread to scrape my plate clean - in Spain a sign that you liked the food), she wanted to do everything for me (make my bed, wash and iron my clothes etc) and she would tell me stories that would literally bring a tear to my eyes. She was showed me pictures from her wedding day (....in 1948!), and told me how her husband died some 2 decades ago, and also how all her six siblings have passed away except one. It helped me put into perspective my self-imposed loneliness - for someone her age (I worked out that she was about 77) life & loneliness go hand in hand, when everyone you know and love are gone. Hmm, I have to make sure I go to Nigeria this xmas so visit my own grandma I haven´t seen in a good few years now.....Concha´s son also had a room in the house and at the age of 50 or more, the dude still doesn´t know how to iron his own clothes! What will he do when she´s gone? My other problem was I that I wasn´t confortable with the idea of a lady as old and meek as her tending to my every need. She was almost horrified when I explained that from the age of ten in boarding school, I was washing my clothes by hand, ironing them and even cutting grass with cutlasses. When I told her on the wednesday that I´d be moving that weekend she was almost devastated. She was so worried that the school would think that she maltreated me and that they wouldn´t send her anymore students, which for her is a much needed form of income (and I guess company too). For the last couple of days she kept saying "No te vayas" (don´t go), "No me dejes" (don´t leave me) and "Voy a llorar" (I´m going to cry). She even told me that I reminded her of this black Spanish Saint (can´t remember his name now) and that she was me as him because we had the same skin colour. It was really tough leaving, but I had to do it.....since then, I´ve been able to hang with other students, go and come home whenever I like. It means I´m spending a lot more on food and I ´ve had to do my own grocery shopping, but hey, I figured it´s just for three weeks right! Wow, one week down and still one to go! And I haven´t even told you yet about the great night life in Sevilla (lots of current r´n´b & hip hop if u know where to go), our trip to the Rock of Gibraltar, which is a British colony that I almost wasn´t let into (or out of) with my green passport and the legendary Bull-fighting (which however inhumane it is, is quite a unique spectacle) that I went to see this week! But because I promised to keep it short (well, relatively!), I´ll stop here and pick things up from here next week! I could write more cos what you´ve read is so far is merely a prologue of my experiences in Sevilla, the boring part. Have a good weekend yáll, and I´ll see you next week with hopefully more interesting tales!