Viva Espana

In the last week of the TESOL course, the refuse collectors of Andalusia go on strike. The cobbled streets of Cadiz reek as the city walls begin to rot. I vary my route to school each day, testing new corners, avoiding certain plazas where the stench of festering tapas scorches the nostrils and turns the stomach. The Tall Ships Races begin, and scabs are paid to remove the worst of it from this year's bicentennial city. And in all of it the heat, the relentless, unwavering, toneless heat.

Underneath it, there we are, with the highest population density in history of Cythnias on a teacher training course (two-thirteenths). Phonemes and phonics and aims (subsidiary, objective and stage aims) and on Wednesdays, the passive tense is learned. Teaching begins, real live Spanish people, named Jose and Fernando and Raquel. Organic, living things, students that question and second-guess their teacher. My omnipotent authority toppled. The Japanese reign is over.

We are together ten hours a day, a tiny group embracing, encouraging, feeding back, cheering on, taking supportive fag n stress breaks in the square. After the first week, the space between our bodies begins to dissolve as everyone starts to touch. First an arm squeeze, then a shoulder rub then a full on bodily embrace. They collapse inwards, constantly feeding pet pressure dragon. But it is a persona, a way of being, a something to hold on to. People walk out of their classes, unable to continue, deadlines are unmeetable, two public break downs, three private and a pregnancy scare. There is a tense called Future Perfect.

I run, so hard, the first week. The group work, the group mind, crushing and encompassing all. I'm a recovering introvert, I explain, I can't do the group sessions. At 7, I dart from the rooms, flippity flopping down the stairs, into the square with children on new bikes and little girls throwing popcorn in the air. Streets teem with the 40% unemployed, and I weave, home to the empty flat, I must leave it before the lovely other girls get home, I must be alone, change and get out, rush down to feel that velvet squish between my toes, on the sand. On the beach, I can stare out at an infinite stripe of sea and sky, not just the back of Cynthia P's head or deep down into Joaquim's workbook, but stretching headlong into the distance, running along with me.

20 minutes and then I can leave a pile of moist pink clothing under my usual rock and I slink into the sea like a retarded sea creature, my legs useless, my arms begging to be used, and then another half hour later, my body is as tired as my mind I've achieved some kind of equilibrium, I'm me again and I will wear my flamingo dress tomorrow.

Home, and Robyn and Beth are making sandwiches and doing dinosaur impressions. And I will apologise for my behaviour and join in.