Thunk-Thunk

This week was a bit rougher with Grace, Noah, and I all under the weather, and a few sleepless nights.  Grace has a lingering cough, but we are all recovering well.  The slower week has left time to ponder daily life in Chamberi.

In January the city began construction on a re-design of the street below us. The project expands the pedestrian area, and removes one lane of parking.  The work stretches 3 city blocks, and the sidewalk is stone so it involves laying 100’s of stones many of which are cut to fit unique spaces. I thought maybe they would finish by the time we left, but they are almost done with the second block.  No sidewalks are blocked, no stores are closed, and the wet saw growls while people of all ages stroll within inches of the workers, the saw, the crane, and the jackhammers.  The workers seem completely oblivious to the people, and pedestrians of all ages pass within inches of the workers and equipment.

This was all sort of a remote event we could watch from above until last weekend when a two foot trench was sliced through the street to lay electrical cabling.  The trench was covered with heavy metal plates, but when a truck or bus went past it made a muffled metallic thunk-thunk.  The thunk-thunk was unpredictable, but happened about every 15-30 seconds depending on traffic. It was kind of a weird funny noise, until we tried to sleep.  

Fortunately, they filled in the trench Saturday morning.  This was such an exciting event I watched it all gleefully with my morning coffee.  The crazy thing is that the road was not closed for a single minute.  They poured asphalt one lane at a time and cars kept driving through and over it even as the steam poured off.¹ 

Day to day life in our neighborhood has a rhythm. Activity starts quietly around 8:00, reaches a peak around 9:00, and then settles into a calm flow until the commute reverses around 6:30, and the cafes and bars spring to life with people tumbling onto the sidewalks. People are always around, but nobody ever seems hurried.  Besides the barrio, the metro is the backdrop for our life. The trains sprawl in all directions across the region and the scope, reliability, and ease create the feel that you can be anywhere in Madrid in about 20 minutes.  Occasionally a train is pretty full, but most of the time there are seats available and it rarely is uncomfortably full.²  

Last weekend we got tickets to the musical “We Will Rock You”.  The show is a collection of Queen songs carried along by the story of young people struggling to re-discover the lyrics for rock in a world where everyone thinks and talks the same.  The show was in Spanish, and the music in English.  The kids enjoyed it thoroughly, and I savored the irony as I struggled to follow the dialogue about people struggling to find words to express their feelings.³  

Our evening’s are are now filled with activities for the kids.  It seems the time with other kids is the thing that really pushes language acquisition, and living in the city it’s nice to get outside into green spaces.  Grace is playing soccer a few days a week, and some basketball.  Nico has started martial arts and track.  Noah started playing basketball at school in addition to track and soccer.⁴ 

1. It’s hard to describe how weird this is compared to projects in Chapel Hill where roads can be blocked for months at a time with no visible activity. It’s also hard to describe how surprising it is to see elderly people strolling through a construction site dodging the spray from a wet saw while cranes spin past.

2. Rarely is not never. Uncomfortably full comes with a resigned sinking feeling as each passing packed car looks fuller than the last until the train stops and you think to yourself “Yeah people are glaring at us not to get on, but we’re not waiting another 8 minutes. You lure the children in front, and I’ll shove them in. Let’s go!”

3. The kids are really making great progress on Spanish, and when they aren’t it’s leading to a new type of resilience. Grace got mildly injured at soccer practice, but willed herself back up and into the scrimmage because she didn’t want to have to try to explain it to anyone in Spanish. Deb is also getting quite effective in communicating, and supplementing daily life with a conversation class. I am the laggard and have been frantically sampling and different approaches (conversation, audiobooks, youtube videos, classes). I stumbled on this site Dreaming Spanish which advocates comprehnsible input as the way to learn languages. It basically means listen to a lot of the language at a level you understand without trying to read, write, or talk. It is essentially language acquistion for sloths. I have no idea if this will work, but it does sort of make sense to me that the way to learn is to hear as many words in context as you can understand while slowly ramping up the level and speed of the dialogue. Time will tell, but regardless I’m accumulating a web of facts and ancedotes on Spanish and Latin American history, pop music, and art that is going to allow me to crush the right trivia contest someday.

4. Basketball is a pretty popular sport in Spain, but kids tend to start playing later, and Noah’s school team practices mostly in English. For Noah, this creates a mirror image of his soccer experience where he gets to relish being older, more skillful, and fully aware of the game plan.