Started From The Bottom
By Grace Carballo ‘17
When I first arrived in Madrid, I was jet-lagged, stressed, and barely able to put together an English sentence let alone one in Spanish. As she showed me around, my wonderful host mom told me to close the hallway door always “porque de las ratas” or because of the rats. This didn’t bother me one bit because she seemed very chill about it and I’m trying to be low-maintenance and honestly I’m not afraid of rats nearly as much as I’m afraid of actual scary things like sharks or my future kids growing up to be bullies.
I closed the door and didn’t really think about it and just sort of lived and let live with these alleged rats. Until, that is, I came home for lunch after my first day of school and Marta, my host sister, and Carmen invited me to eat with them in front of the TV so we could watch the news about the mayoral elections. I sat down, very pleased with myself for knowing the political parties (only because we had a 2 hour lesson about them that day in class), ready to veg out both in terms of the food I was consuming and in my lackadaisical lifestyle, when I spotted a beast unlike any I had ever seen.
Fortunately/unfortunately, my Spanish curse knowledge was very limited at the time, so I was involuntarily speechless upon seeing the largest rat probably to ever exist. It’s long, bald tail swished against my leg and I waited to see what Carmen and Marta would do and time stood still and I like to think I kept my cool as they picked up the animal and proceeded to pet it and shower it with love.
Yes, folks, I made the common mistake of mishearing “rata” instead of “gato”. I don’t feel as bad about it as I feel about a lot of my mistakes here though, because it could happen to anyone, really. I mean even in English “cat” and “rat” sound eerily similar. And this cat, which I later learned had a son, (so there are two), has an uncanny resemblance to its rodent counterpart.
I actually like them now, which I think speaks volumes about how much my adaptability has improved.
This is just an example of what the tail was like. They are as soft as a baby’s bottom or maybe an elderly person’s because of the wrinkles?
I don’t think hairless cats are super common in Madrid or Spain in general (possibly also called Egyptian cats) but my new brother, Victor, is allergic to cat hair so these are the cats we have been dealt.
One is named Nea and the other does not have a name to my knowledge (like in Breakfast at Tiffany’s), but I am sure in a few days time I will learn the truth and feel foolish for thinking this.
On the bright side, a few weeks ago, a Spanish couple new to Madrid asked me for directions because I think my hair gives me a Spanish look and I have knowing eyes. To prevent this sort of false credibility, I probably should start wearing my Fourth of July outfit everyday (I had to leave behind pajamas to allow room for this but I’m proud to be an American).
Full disclosure, I don’t have Madrid figured out yet. The couple that asked me for directions ended up using the wife’s phone to point me in the direction of my apartment. “Es muy irónica” were her words, not mine. When I stumbled upon them I was heading confidently in the opposite direction- so confidently, in fact, that I looked like I was the best person to approach on the street.
Right now, I am reading Harry Potter in Spanish to improve my Spanish, and because these books are fantastic in any language, and much like “el niño que sobrevivió”(the boy who survived), I too will face these obstacles head on without or without the accompanying cool scar.
As time passes, I find myself less incompetent every day then the day before. As they say in the tune, started from the bottom, now we’re here.
