Yesterday and today

Hello,

Today I went to try out a bellydance class. I LOVE it. And I realized just how much I forgot since I haven´t been taking any classes here in Spain. I am very rusty.

I was a little nervous because the they all speak Catalan and Spanish. Luckily the teacher spoke slow enough for me to understand and she was nice.

After that I went to teach my new students. They are teenagers with parents that are doctors. They seem nice and the parents are "concerned parents". They want a teacher that teaches their kids grammar and how to read and write in English. I KNOW that they will be making sure that the kids do their homework. None of my students ever did the homework I hand out.

I am still depressed from yesterday. It seems that no matter what I do it doesn´t work out in the end. My roommate has so many ideas of how I can get papers. And we try and it usually leads to a dead end.  I am SOOOO close. And yet I feel like I won´t get to see the light at the end of the tunnel. I felt like giving up yesterday. It just makes me miss home so much more. And now I am counting down the days left. About 4 more months. I will make the best of it.

As I was at the Foreigner´s Office and the city hall yesterday. In both places I was standing in line with lots other people in the same position as me. Except that I am North American and they weren´t. They were from Pakistan, various countries in South America as well as Africa.

Why is that so relevant ? They come from poor countries, where they can barely live off the salaries they make in their countries. They are lucky they can survive on the wages they make. Many South Americans are coming here to Spain because their governments are going to shit and the economy there is horrible. Plus the US immigration laws are so much more strict than here in Spain.

These people don´t have a choice, but to come here to Spain where their chances of living off their salaries are better, not to mention that the immigration laws are more relaxed in comparison to other European countries. They are depending getting a chance to work legally.

Yesterday we couldn´t get help for a long ass time because the computers were down. I saw the man next to me with his paperwork in his hands just waiting to get help. I am willing to bet that he took off a day of work to come register or ask about the immigration laws. I could see his frustration. I felt bad.

As for me, yeah I really want to get permisssion to work here.  I REALLY do. My life here would be a lot easier and I can continue to work here and improve my Spanish and work in other EU countries.

But at least if it doesn´t work out I can always go back home to the US. Life is not so bad there. In fact, I liked the life I had. But the people I saw yesterday can´t. Even though they want to. They work low paying jobs and don´t have enough money to go back to their countries. 

There are many people here and the US against immigration. But yesterday I got to see it from the other side and get a glimpse of how they feel. I am lucky I am American.