Dona E. Bowens

Here I am having survived the first week of getting back to “work.” Please applaud because those 10+ hours of talking nearly took this sista out! Yes, I’m up to 10.5 hours/week from 10😒. “Dona,” I say to myself, “Grow the efff up. People pay you to talk to them. AND you get to do it from the comfort of your home.” Usually this self kick in the ass sets me right as I remember that in addition, I know longer teach kiddos, exam prep or grammar. I roll out of bed 15 minutes before class and turn on the camera still wearing my bonnet and pajamas. My students don’t give a hot damn what I’m wearing as long as I’m speaking English.

I’ve been in this teaching game so long that now I just recycle. In conversation class I recycle all my stories. These new students haven’t heard my seemingly tall tales and I have enough to cover ten classes at least. Thank goddess I’ve moved to a football ⚽ loving country because, let me tell you, every one of my new students—from the 25 year-old gamer boys to the 70 year-old grandmama—were gobsmacked when I told them that I used to teach Neymar. Man, I’m going to be eating out on that story for the rest of my days I hope. If the Neymar shine starts to dim, I’ll switch to, “I remember the time I met Messi in the parking garage at Camp Nou.” Messi is the GOAT and I’m choosing to ignore his recent trip to The White (Supremacy) House.

Now that I’ve given myself permission to let the book rest for a minute, coupled with a little more structure to my days, I find myself venturing out more just to see what I can see. I’m ass backwards that way. If I have nothing to do and gobs of freetime, I always opt to do nothing. If I have obligations, I squeeze in exploration around the obligations. I explored around the corner from my flat and found a cafe offering a proper cortado.

Up until today, every time I ordered a cortado I got a café con leche. It was huge. I wondered if the Uruguay version of “café con leche” would come in a mug the size of my head. I told myself to use my Spanish and ask the goddamn questions to get what I wanted. Told the server I wanted the little coffee 🤏🏽with a dash of milk. She said, “Yes, a cortado.” WTF, Uruguay. The recycling of my life from Barcelona continues having fallen across a proper cortado.

Then there’s the “Chino.” I won’t translate “Chino” to English because the context in which it’s used in Spanish to mean a dollar store is derogatory. Just because the dollar stores are mostly run by Chinese immigrants is no reason to refer to them as El Chino, Spain! Then here comes Uruguay. ⬇️

Do you see the owner standing in the doorway having a smoke? He knows me by sight now and is always working the upsale. “No rolling papers today?” Just like the Chino owners I used to know in Barcelona. And so the recycling continues.

The only thing not recycling is the weather. I have to admit that I’m a little concussed by the “back-to-school” advertisements in the stores and the downward turn of the temperatures as summer wanes and fall creeps in. It’s March, damn it. However, I can’t wait til June when I’ll find myself sleeping under blankies without the need for A/C. To say nothing of my reduced electric bill. I am looking forward to that in this life down under the equator.

By the time winter does arrive, it’ll be my first winter in a year and a half. Jumping below the equator allowed me to recycle both spring and summer. How often does one get to pull off that trick? I got skills.