Beyond the Basement

In case anybody's interested, my new address in Spain (as of July 1, 2008) is:

Laura Smith
Cuesta del Chapiz 17, bajo-dcha
18010 Granada
SPAIN

I always love to get mail :)

I just realized that my earlier blogs (from January and February) left some loose threads, so I wanted to clean them up...
Unfortunately, the second little chihuahua pup I was raising didn't make it either. He died at 6 weeks of a massive ringworm infestation that he probably got through his mother. We gave Toby back because of his agression, but Ramsis is still with us and as chipper as ever!
I moved to a new apartment in July - it's still in Granada but in a much more convenient location (i.e. not on the highest hill in the entire city). For the month before I came back to the US I was working as an English conversation assistant through a Spanish scholarship program for Spanish college students. I spent a week in August with my college roommates in San Diego, and we had tons of fun hanging out and reliving crazy times.
My mom and dad are doing great with their second service dog puppy, Midge, and my brother just started his junior year at the University of Vermont.
That's the abridged version of the past few months :)

Well, it's been a while since my last post, to say the least. If you're still reading, I'm impressed, honestly. This is why I last about two days when doing a diary... I never seem to follow through on my entries.
So I guess that this post is part promise and part explanation. The promise is that I will do my best to post on a weekly basis (ha, we'll see if I can actually do this!) and the explanation is to tell why I've decided to stay in Spain for a second year.
I went to Spain last September with the assumption that I would return saying, "That was the best year of my life." Well, it certainly wasn't the best year ever. In fact, there were times when I felt like saying that it was the worst year of my life. In terms of personal growth, on the other hand, it was a very good year. I look at the person I was at my college graduation and feel that I've grown immensely. Not only have I faced the "real world," but I've done it in a foreign language and in a foreign country. I've been able to put into perspective many of the wonderful attributes of the US as well as some of the ways in which the "American way" is not the way for me. Having visited the emergency room three times this year, for example, (only once was to actually be treated - i.e. when I put my finger in the blender and accidentally turned it on...) has really made me appreciate the Spanish medical system. Talk about universal healthcare! But I digress...
The beginning of my Fulbright experience was great but quickly went downhill. When I moved to Granada my project never truly recovered from the blow that it had taken in Toledo. Anyone who has spent significant time in Spain will understand why I say that mid-November is not a good time to try to re-energize an academic project! Although I tried to be very objective and professional in my earlier post explaining my move from Toledo, the fact of the matter is that I felt hurt and betrayed by people I had believed to be my friends. I haven't had the courage to return to Toledo since last October, and I'm not sure how long it will take me to be willing to go back. In the myopic lens of my memory, Toledo holds nothing but pain and disappointment. It's a shame, too, because it's a beautiful city, and I went with such high hopes and expectations.
For most of the winter, even after I had left Toledo, I was pretty depressed; I felt like I had no friends, and my self-confidence was low as I tried to sort out what I wanted to "do" with my life. After being a "somebody" at William and Mary, I felt like a "nobody" in Spain. I also felt guilty and sad about being so far from family. Financially-speaking, I didn't handle my year very well and was stretched and worried by the end of my stipend. Granada also has a way of swallowing you whole, of taking you away without letting you realize that you're gone. It's a funny city in that sense... I love it terribly but there have been times when I felt like I'd lost the real Laura Smith.
By the beginning of summer, however, things had gotten much better. I felt like I belonged, had friends, and knew some purpose and direction for my future.
I'm not sure exactly what changed... several things changed, I guess. I made friends, joined, groups, started practicing piano like I should have for years, decided to apply for a master's program for the fall of 2009, and got into a regular schedule that helped me organize my days. My brother came over for two weeks in May and we took a fabulous backpacking trip through the Pyrenees and across Mallorca (see the photos on my webshots site!). Being outdoors and feeling connected to the earth again was wonderful - my brother and I had the best time with each other that we've ever had in our entire lives.
Another huge factor has been the wonderful support of my boyfriend, Wadih. Throughout the year we have worked through the challenges and difficulties inherent in an inter-racial, inter-cultural, inter-linguistic (you'd be surprised at what an important factor that is!), and inter-religious relationship, but I have learned, in the process, so much about honesty, loyalty, values, and of course, love (cue cheesy Hallmark commercial music).
So to make a long story short, I'm going back.
I decided to spend another year in Spain because I didn't want my 2007-2008 year to be my only experience of Spain. Although I've had a great time, it hasn't been fabulous, and I want to come away from my time abroad feeling positive, productive, and confident. I started several projects - namely the recording of a CD - that I want to go back and complete in order to have something to show for my Fulbright experience. My three musical groups - Sin Fronteras, Gospel Molotov, and Hootenanny - are under way and doing well, and I want to see where they can take me this coming year. I want to be with Wadih, who has commitments in Spain for another year, and I want to continue to make friends and acquaintences. I'd like to keep working on my Spanish and maybe on my Arabic this time as well. I want the challenge of "making it work" in a foreign country, though a different culture, and with a different language. And I want to do it knowing who I am and trusting in that certainty.
My current plans, as of this posting, are to remain in Spain (or a combination of Spain and Morocco) until next summer, after which I'd like to return to the States for my master's degree. It's a pretty fluid situation, but we'll see how it goes :)
All right, well if you're still reading, you've suffered through my entire sappy, cheesy, over-emotional, and lengthy monologue. I don't say all of this to look for pity or to place myself on any sort of pedestal, but rather to say what's actually been going on in my life these past months. It's been hard being home and answering the inevitable, "so how's Spain?" question. Here's the answer in full. It hasn't always been good but it's getting better and I'm looking forward to going back.
Keep posted to see how this next year shapes up!
Thanks for sticking with me...

i may have mentioned in a very early post that the weekend here runs thursday-friday, rather than the usual friday-saturday weekends that are common in the middle east (i think yemen and maybe saudi also run on the th-fr weekend). however, there have been gradual steps here in oman to move to a friday-saturday weekend, not only to 'keep up with the jones's' so to speak, but also to maximize business days when dealing with international companies.

banks have already switched over, schools are apparently switching over after ramadan, and today i find out my car rental company has also switched over. by 2009, i think the country will have made its final switch.

i think i've been here long enough to finally get adjusted to bracing myself for the wednesday weekend traffic exiting muscat or going to church on fridays. but thank goodness i won't be here long enough to experience that full shift ... one can only take so many changes in one's life in a short period of time !!!

as of today, i have 7 weeks left in oman.

i know. when did that happen? alas and alack. time flies when the sun is on your back and the heat is hotter than an oven. the good news is the weather's quite nice at the end of august. the bad news is, ramadan is soon and with ramadan, the laziness of summer continues on for about a month ... along with the crazy drivers (well, crazier ... i always thought the driving was a bit insane in this country). with that holy month approaching, my research has skidded to a halt and the last two times i'm planning on visiting my lovely sponsoring ministry is to ask them for a list of NGOs in the country and then to tell them i'm leaving and would they please come with me to the airport to cancel my visa.

these last weeks will be full of figuring out how i accumulated so much stuff in the span of a year, how to get my life's possessions home without paying an arm and a leg to ship them, how to seamlessly transition leases and tenants in my apartment, and how to survive 5 weeks in western europe without going broke. you tell me.

oh yes, taking photographs. you know, of the things that permeate my daily life, of things i don't really realize i should take photographs of simply because i see them every day. like the mountains to my left and the beach to my right. the crazy traffic patterns and roundabouts and car maneouvers. the cute little boys in dishdashas and the diversity of the shopping mall. my favorite sites and sounds and faces.

the other day, i was perusing through richmond food blogs and was seriously craving some pulled pork, cafe gutenberg and gelati celesti (although not all the same time). then the next day, i had a traditional omani meal and knew that, no matter how hard i tried, i cannot replicate that same yummy goodness back home for my friends and family to taste a sliver of the sweet life i have lived in this sleepy sultanate.