Prior to coming to Barcelona, Spain, I was eager to get an apartment. I saw photos of previous apartment options and was extremely excited. I was even thinking about the kinds of decor that I would add to my new apartment. Long story short, I was late for housing registration and the only options that they had left were the residence halls and a homestay. I ranked the residence halls option as my first choice and then the homestay.
I was emailed on August 10th about my housing assignment. I had been anticipating reading the email and again, I had my eyes set on the residence hall. I opened my email and saw homestay as my fall housing option and was disgruntled. My mother used to tell me that her grandmother would say to her, “you’re old enough for your wants not to hurt you.” In this instance, not receiving the very thing that I wanted did hurt me. After two weeks, I sent a letter to my homestay mom and introduced myself and thanked her for letting me stay at her house.
Since arriving here, I am so happy that I got a homestay. I consider myself to be a people person and I am community oriented. If I were staying in a touristic area or upscale housing, I simply do not think that I would be gaining what I need which is an authentic experience with texture and grit and organic moments. Last week, I complimented a woman’s dog on my way home and asked if I could take a photo of him. He was very precious and I forget what kind of breed he was but what I do recall is that he looked like a “oso” in the face.
The woman invited me to sit on the bench with her and we talked about what I was doing here in Spain, what she does for work, how the dog belonged to her friend’s mother, and how she always wanted to come to the United States. She is from Peru and I also taught her “cute” and she thought it was only used for animals but I shared with her that it can be used to describe just about anything, an individual, an outfit, etc.
The name of the district where I reside is called Nou Barris. Nou Barris consists of 13 neighborhoods. During the 1950s and 1960s, there was an immigration wave and since then, there have been many newcomers in the tail end of the 20th century and today. Nou Barris is known for its diversity of inhabitants as described by Metropolitan Barcelona. Before it was known as a hub for diversity, it was an area with farmhouses and farm properties.
Some of the neighborhoods that make up Nou Barris are Torre Baró, Passeig de Verdún, Trinitat Nova, Maraguell (where I live) and there’s many more. When I first arrived I was told that this community was not touristic and was composed of students and elders. Since being here, I can definitely attest to the lack of hustle and bustle. I enjoy being in the city of Barcelona but I am so happy when I come back to my home in the evenings and at night. There are bars, shops, and restaurants in this city which maintain its working-class character.
Nou Barris is also known for green spaces and is home to the Barcelona Blues Festival and is one of the most important centers for circus arts. The last fact I especially find to be interesting because when I was little the first career that I ever said I wanted to be was a contortionist, which is an acrobat who bends and twists their body into unusual shapes.
On the terrace of our apartment where the lavadero is, I’ve saw a little boy grab his backpack from a drying rack, a family of about eight or nine have dinner, and someone sawing some sort of furniture piece. I really do believe that Nou Barris is the perfect place for me and most importantly, I am so happy that I am living in a homestay. I love my family and my roommate dearly and after a long day, it is a delight to come home and have dinner and then have my personal favorite, sobremesa which is a practice in Spain where you linger around the dinner table long after dinner is over and talk about any and everything under the sun. I am getting the best experience because I am with the people, the working-class folks, the camareros, dependientes and local business owners and most importantly, my family.
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Denim Fisher
Denim Fisher is a Spelman College junior hailing from Baltimore, Maryland at Spelman College. Denim is interested in poetry, museums, social justice, and film (she is a social justice fellow and John Lewis scholar at Spelman and performed and created a poetry workshop at the biannual Toni Cade Bambara Scholar-Activism Conference). As a literature, media, writing major with a double minor in comparative women’s studies and Spanish, she aims to pursue a career as a poet, novelist, and teaching artist. Denim loves archival research and aspires to have a literary career that honors memory, identity, and “knowledge that pertains to cultural, artistic, and historical records.”
