Life
Our Mallorcan Life:
Back to School
By Lucy Hawkins
After recently relocating from Melbourne to Mallorca, artist and writer Lucy Hawkins shares the joys and challenges of her family’s adventure as they settle into the picturesque town of Pollença, nestled in the northern part of the island. Through her reflections, Lucy offers a glimpse into their journey of adapting to a new culture, new languages, and way of life in their dream Mediterranean setting.
There’s always one question we get asked when telling people we’ve moved from Australia, and that’s, “Why?”
My husband, James, and I recently relocated to Mallorca from Melbourne, bringing our reluctant 7 and 4 year old daughters with us. They loved our home in the Australian countryside, our acre property with chickens, their grandparents only a short drive away and all the friends we had made in the small, picturesque village of Healesville.
We moved because I grew up in England and spent holidays here and in France and Italy, and I wanted Europe for my daughters. I wanted them to learn Spanish, experience other cultures, to run safely through cobbled streets and to live in a community that comes together and celebrates.
But that is of course of no interest to 7 and 4 year old’s who have already been through the ordeal of starting kindergarten and school a couple of years ago and who have just made friends and don’t want to have to do it again in a language they don’t speak, thank you very much.
“We’ll have so much fun, we’ll go to the beach every day!” I say, enthusiastically. “I don’t want to go to the beach every day, I want to go home.” Josephine, my 7 year old, says and my heart breaks. For her and her sister Georgina, selling our house was unforgivable. They’re very attached to their possessions and don’t want to share and certainly don’t want to sell them to strangers. “Petal’s buried there, who will put flowers on her grave?” Josephine says of her pet rabbit. Oh god.
We’ve rented a house in Pollença’s old town. It’s completely different to anything they’ve seen in Australia. The house was built hundreds of years ago, has no garden and is squeezed into a narrow lane which is part of a maze of narrow lanes that snake around the central Plaça and ancient church. The girls had no idea that so many people could live so tightly packed together, coming from an area of huge open spaces.
But they’ve made friends with our delightful neighbours and are constantly knocking on their doors asking to play with their cats or invite them round for a disco. However, they can’t fully invest in the house because it’s rented. I hadn’t anticipated what a big deal that would be to them. Despite numerous explanations, as far as they’re concerned some mean person is now living in our house and we’re squatting in someone else’s.
Daily ice creams are softening the blow.
We arrived in Pollença at the end of May and quickly visited both the local and the international schools, conscious that it would be great to start for a few weeks before embarking on the long summer holidays.
We were really impressed with the international school, both its facilities and staff. We knew a family whose daughter went there so the girls would have a friend before they’d even started. The lessons would be in English and with students coming from around the world we knew they’d be accepted and welcomed. It would be the easiest option by far.
But I couldn’t shake the thought that the main reason we were moving was so the girls could speak other languages, and the international school was honest in telling us they couldn’t guarantee fluency. It’s my understanding that to be able to speak Spanish as a Spaniard, you need to be fully immersed from a young age. I kept thinking that if they could just get through the first few months of not understanding at the local school, how wonderful it would be if by the time they had finished primary they had this incredible skill.
I had always wanted them to speak Spanish. I had started learning it myself when I was 29 and teaching English in Mexico. It’s taken me 15 years to get to the standard I’m at now, which is conversational, not fluent. Countless people have told me that children at this age are like sponges and that they will pick up the language in no time at all. To me that sounds wonderful - the opportunities it would give them, the conversations they could have and the people they would meet.
I spoke to several language teachers before making the move to Mallorca, and they all told me that the window for fluency starts to close at age 8, that it gets harder from then on. It was the catalyst for leaving when we did.
I have been teaching the girls Spanish since they were babies, my concern was that, whilst they had some Spanish, none of us knew a word of Catalan. And the local school here in Pollença teaches all their lessons in Catalan, whilst the language in the playground is ‘Mallorquin’ a dialect of Catalan. Everyone in Pollença knew Spanish, but we weren’t quite sure how.
It was time for our tour of the local school and to find out if it bore any resemblance to schools as we knew them.
An ex 16th Century monastery, from the moment we rang the bell and stepped through the heavy wooden doors, it felt safe. It was a world of sanctuary, of old fashioned purity. It reminded me of my primary school; wooden toys, tiled corridors, a sense of serenity and calm - which is no mean feat as anyone who has experienced lots of small children en masse will know.
The teachers got down on one knee and held the girls’ hands, looked them in their eyes and smiled. Warm, genuine smiles. They spoke in what little English they knew, but they didn’t really need language to communicate. These were, mainly women, that genuinely loved children. I’d seen that before at my daughters kindergarten and it is a beautiful thing.
The rooms were filled with sensory objects, the children making potions out of sand and glue and goodness knows what else. Teachers sang and played instruments wherever we went. There was a theatre with an entire production being run by small children. We finished the tour and I asked the girls what they thought already knowing the answer from the looks on their faces. This was the school for them.
I already had my NIE from living here 15 years ago so after a quick trip to the Ajuntament de Pollenca with our rental contract we started school two days later.
The girls skipped the whole way there they were so excited. The moment I had nervously anticipated for months was finally here, my babies were starting school in Spain. Of all the scenarios I had imagined, what I didn’t expect was sheer elation, they barely turned around to wave us goodbye!
I promised the girls I would sit outside the school so they knew I wasn’t far away so I sat on a bench and closed my eyes, imagining what each of them was doing. I reasoned that they would have been taken to their different classes. How would they feel when they were separated? Would they smile as they entered their new classrooms? Would anyone smile back? All I could do was just picture them in my mind and send them love.
After the two hours agreed trial were up, the door opened and out popped my little girls, holding hands and beaming. They were thrilled, everyone had been lovely. They couldn’t understand a word anyone said, but they didn’t seem to mind. They’d done it!
Unfortunately the novelty wore off pretty quickly for my 4 year old. On day 2 she had been brave at drop off but apparently had soon started crying and wanted her sister. And the same happened on day 3. On day 4 I asked the teachers if they could call me instead so Josephine could focus on her own full plate.
So that was the day I started in Class 4T. The seats were quite small but I learnt the word for ‘pee-pee’ and I made some excellent paintings with a balloon.
Meanwhile, in Josephine’s class, boys were writing her notes and leaving them on her desk. Girls were holding her hand and showing her around. She seemed to be doing really well.
We only had two weeks before the school holidays and everyone was on that end of term high. Georgina was happy I was there, which we all knew wasn’t sustainable, but for the time being was going to have to do.
While everyone was happy when they were at school, the energy, positivity and enthusiasm I had to muster to get them up and through the door every day was heroic.
Josephine loved that we could walk to school rather than have to take the car and she loved the independence of leading the way. On the 2nd week of school she took a wrong turn and I had to steer her back - and that was when the flood gates broke. She had just about been keeping it together, all of the huge changes she’d experienced. But this small wrong turn was the final straw. Tears poured down her beautiful cheeks as she let it all out:
“I don’t want to go anymore, I want to go home! I’m scared. I’m hot. I’m tired.”
My poor baby. I’d always thought this might happen but I thought it would be on day one, not day 12. We cuddled in the street and she hid her face as other children walked past. As tough as it sounds I knew we had to keep going, she had to go to school, that if I said she didn’t have to go today it would be the same every day.
I told her how well she was doing, how strong she was. That she only had a few days left before the end of school and the summer holidays. I told her she was the bravest kid I knew and she stood up, wiped her face, and said, “Ok.” And the little thing set off again for school.
A few hours later the bell rang and that was the end of school for the year. Both the girls were ecstatic, not that there was no more school for 12 weeks (12 weeks!!!), but that they’d done it, they had made friends, they’d started a new school, in a new language. They were proud of themselves.
That night we went to the school’s end of year party. The mums kindly spoke Spanish to me instead of Mallorquin. James and the other dads quickly established they had no lingua franca and handed each other beers. The kids hugged my girls, grabbed their hands and lead them into a foam party where they all danced together in delight.
As we prepare for their return to school next week I’m looking at the photos of that night, the looks of rapture on their faces and I’m thinking of all the things I need to say and that they need to hear when it comes to their first day back. Or their 3rd, or 30th day, when they invariably melt down and say they hate it and they want to go home. And I know that one day this will be ‘home’ to them.
Lucy Hawkins is a writer and artist who lives in Mallorca with her husband and two young daughters. She studied Journalism at the University of the Arts in London and worked at Cosmopolitan Magazine and The London Paper in the UK as well as newspapers and magazines around the world. Her original artwork, prints and homewares are sold in stores across Australia and her children’s book, The Salvager’s Quest, is available through online book retailers worldwide.
About our Columnist -
