Expat Interview: Mary Margaret O´Hara
This month, the Cheap in Madrid Blog (CiM) is talking to American expat Mary Margaret O’Hara. This native of New York recently formed a translation team called Lively Words Translations, where she works alongside three other translators.
CiM: Why and when did you move to Spain?
MM: I first moved in 2008. I was managing at a translation agency in Galicia. Then I moved back to the U.S. and worked for Proz.com. Then I got a job offer to teach in Madrid, so I decided to come live here. The job offer was actually a very lofty idea of setting up a kind of English university that this woman had created, but it went bankrupt after six months, so I went into a little bit of a crisis of “what the heck am I doing and why did I leave Proz.com?”
So I had to make a decision to stay in Madrid or go home, and I decided to stay. I started applying for jobs in high schools. Luckily, I got a teaching job for September, and I taught for three years in schools.
But when I did move back to Madrid in 2009 a friend in Galicia worked for the cultural department of the Caixa Galicia and gave me the opportunity to translate a book on photography, and I really enjoyed it. I had translated a bit at the translation agency in Galicia, but that job was more about finding translators and translation clients.
In 2009 when I did the book, I was really excited. Seeing it in print was really cool. I was freelancing and I was also getting a regular paycheck from the school, so I was doing both for a while. Then in June 2012, I became a full-time freelancer.
CiM: Tell us five facts every guiri should know before they move here.
MM: 1. If you’re a vegetarian, you’re going to really need to like eggs a lot. There’s great fresh fruit and vegetables here, as well as a lot of different beans. But, there are some wonderful dishes, like cocido, and if you are vegetarian you´d have to have it without the all of the chorizo and all the extra meat that comes with it. So you’re going to have to like lentils and eggs a lot. Madrid is really a town for meat lovers. If you go out for tapas, they inevitably have ham in them. Being a vegan would be almost impossible.
2. Madrid has got great transportation.
3. It’s got some really nice green spaces inside the city, but you’ve got to go outside. I think you should always go to the Sierra a few times a year to hike if you can, because we don’t have the ocean here or nearby lakes. You have to really enjoy the mountains.
4. You have to get accustomed to eating later.
5. If you take a siesta, you shouldn’t feel lazy. It’s just part of the lifestyle. I’ve really gotten used to the siesta. It took me a little while. At first, I felt guilty about it, but I no longer feel guilty.
CiM: What are your favorite hangouts in Madrid?
MM: In the center on a hot summer day it’s hard to escape from the heat, but I like to go to Plaza de la Paja, which is in La Latina. It’s a wider space and it feels like the air at least passes through there, which doesn’t normally happen in the narrow streets of Madrid. It’s a good place to have a drink in the summer. It has a little garden, the garden of the “Príncipe de Anglona,” which I like to call the secret garden because it’s behind a wall.
CiM: What habits have you come to adopt?
MM: The siesta for sure. That and enjoying a summer drink, tinto de verano, which involves mixing wine with gaseosa [sparkling sweetened water]. I have also really improved my cooking skills by living here. Many recipes aren’t too hard. I can make a tortilla and gazpacho. They’re fun to make and yummy.
CiM: Do you feel you’ve become a Madrileña?
MM: It’s really easy to live here. It’s an international city, so it’s got all the diversity and facilities that an international city has, but it kind of feels like a small town. It’s easy to move around. The transportation is very good. I’m not sure I consider myself a Madrileña, because most of my friends are not from Madrid. I’ve adapted pretty well to the lifestyle and I do like living here, but I’m not really a Madrileña.
CiM: Why do you say Madrid feels like a small town?
MM: I’ve lived in Rome, Galicia, New York City, Albania and other places as well. Madrid feels the most like a small town that you’re welcome in. I always feel like a foreigner in other countries. Even in Italy, the people are very effusive and it’s very fun and I speak Italian well. But when it comes down to it, I felt a bit out of place. That’s also true here, but I feel a little more accepted here. I think there is a greater sense of community here in Madrid.
I went and participated in some of the 15M protests. That was a moment when I felt a little like a Madrileña. This town really came together. And they held all these small meetings in every neighborhood. They took back the abandoned Plaza de la Cebada in La Latina. The government was supposed to build a municipal sports center there a few years ago. So people turned it into basketball courts, stages for comics and singers, there’s a huge community vegetable garden. So there are those times when Madrid comes together as a community that I don’t feel that way about a lot of places.
Also Madrid hasn’t lost its village feel. On calle Santiago, if you go behind the church of Santiago, not towards the palace but in the other direction, that is where you start to feel really pueblo Madrid. That area looks and feels like a village to me.
Neighborhoods are very much alive here. I love my barrio. I know my butcher, my fishmonger, my lottery agent, my fruit people. I don’t go to the big supermarkets much. For everyday things, I usually shop locally. I go to a local gym. It’s run by a family. They know me, and I know them.
