I haven't had tea since I left California

By the heater in the salón

Last night, Isa and I cemented my 6 months in Madrid. In a matter of two hours, we got a set of house keys copied, my "abono" which is a monthly metro/bus pass, and a phone. Two Bangladeshi men ran the shop where I got Erika's old phone 'unlocked', bought a charger, and a SIM card. We chatted with them and they asked me what I was doing here and it was nice to talk in English for a bit (though their Spanish was fantastic). There are stalls called "estancos" where you can buy only: gum, cigarettes, lottery tickets, abono (passes), and stamps.

Madrid is cold, and that is all I have to report at this point, because all I have seen of the city is Erika's house, my apartment, and Entreculturas. I sit by the heater with a down blanket and my laptop's butt keeping me warm. I have decided that this weekend, I am going to actually say 'yes' to an invitation to go out. I know, I'm shocked at myself! I was telling Miriam on Skype how I have only seen two pigeons in 5 days. Then I looked outside and saw two more. "I only saw two pigeons because I only looked at two pigeons." I proclaimed wisely. I can sense a philosophy developing...or is it a sneeze?

Hah! These pics are from my MacBook

At work this week, I am familiarizing myself with EC and the work of the Africa department. Today I started a vocabulary list of development terms in Spanish. A couple of favorites because they're instinctive: "analfabetismo" which means illiteracy and "pradoja" which means paradox. Next week I get to work with Isa on a report for a proposal from Jesuit Refugee Services in the Central African Republic.

From what I understand so far, Entreculturas is like a non-sneaky Robin Hood. We receive proposals from education projects all over Africa (there are separate departments for South America and Central America + Caribbean), translate them (both in terms of language and grant terminology/requirements), and submit them to public (government-national, provincial, municipal) and private funding sources (individual donors and corporations such as Inditex, which owns Zara clothing chain, among others) in Spain. We then pool the funding received and redistribute them to our partner projects in Africa. So we are not at all in the field, but in close contact with organizations that are (the staff frequently travels to project sites).