The Beginning

I CRIED THE FIRST DAY. There I was, standing in an empty 8x8 room with windows on the bars in a foreign country without any way to contact anyone. Although it felt like it at first, I wasn't in a jail cell, I was standing in the room that was to be my bedroom for the next 8 months. The questions that I couldn't get out of my head were "how could I have done this to myself? and how did I ever think that it was a good idea to fly across an ocean to teach English?"

I had been driven straight from orientation in Caceres to an apartment that my advisor had found for me in Badajoz. The ride was awkward. After going two years without using it regularly, my Spanish skills had become a distant memory and my advisor didn't seem to keen on using his English. Small talk is a little difficult when you don't speak each other's language.

When we arrived, the landlord, Mauricio, a sleezy looking old Spanish man who was in a serious hurry, was waiting for us outside. They took me into an apartment on the first floor of an enormous building that sat next to the highway and immediately sat me down to sign the contract. I wasn't given any options, I was just told that I needed to sign and pay my first month's rent right there and then. My advisor was kind enough to lend me some extra cash, but they both departed unceremoniously as soon as I signed the paperwork.

I walked through the apartment and was shaken by how old everything was. I estimated based on the cracked still life painting in our living room, the fake felt flowers and the ceramic cherubs on the doors that this building was at least 60 years old and that the decor was probably left behind after one of the previous owners who had died in their sleep.

There was water damage on the stucco walls of almost every room and one of the toilets looked like it hadn't worked in at least a few years. Since the apartment was on the first floor, there were bars on every window and even with the shutters down you could hear the whoosh of each passing car. My bed was too short and I didn't have a pillow. My wardrobe was literally suspended over that bed to save space and I had to shift things around so I would have more than 6 inches of space above me. The television had clearly been dropped a few times and was discolored with age. Everything was dirty and I was left totally alone.

I don't think I've ever felt more alone than I did that first day. I was exhausted from the more than 30 hours of traveling it took to get there, was discouraged by my language abilities and missed my family, friends and girlfriend more than I could bear. I didn't have internet access or a cell phone and was completely cut off from every comfort source I had relied on since birth. I sat down on my springy, musty mattress and cried.