Getting ourselves a social life...and C´s in hospital again.

Sorry, mis amigos for the infrequent posting...this last week has been MANIC.

Monday evening, bought more stuff for my kids and for the refugio. C´s getting pissed off that whatever he brings in soon gets stolen, lost, kicked over the wall or trashed. He rejected a ball I suggested for a much cheaper-quality one and still annoyed, said, "frankly, it´s all they deserve". I gently suggested that maybe they don´t respect or care for things as they don´t get any respect or care either. He conceded I had a point.

We bumped into Kirsten, Ali and John outside a bar; they´d texted me earlier but I hadn´t checked my phone, so a lucky spot. We joined them for a quick drink (well, quick once I manged to get the inattentive waiter over) before heading back for dinner - Aida cooks each night, so it´s a bit of a bind for not being able to spontaneously stay out, but I´m getting nicer, healthier food than I would be able to get in a restaurant anyway. And we´ve paid for it in our accomodation costs, so it´s in effect now ´free´.

We told Aida over dinner, how much we liked her cooking. That the other volunteers haven´t been so lucky; poor Catherine got served FOUR meat empanadas for her dinner last night (like Cornish pasties!) and nothing else. Kirsten gets given a range of sweet biscuits and some ´random weird mini breadsticks´ every morning (she thought her breakfast was so strange, she took several photos of it). Yum.
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Tuesday...fairly non-eventful as I remember (I´d like to blog more frequently, but Flor has theses to do, so I can hardly hog it for my own more leisurely pursuits...)

Oh yeah, John told me C was playing footy with some of the boys on Wednesday. I was surprised because C hadn´t mentioned it, although I said he´d be well up for it.
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Wednesday - C hadn´t mentioned it because no one had told him about the footy, but as I guessed, he was enthusiastic.

Today, the heavens opened pretty much all day and what must be all the rain in the world washed the streets with rivers of red from the coloured earth. Amazingly, I managed to catch 20 minutes on my walk into work when it stopped for a bit, and on the way back a nice lady offered John and I a lift most of the way home when we were huddled in a shelter waiting for a bus or the rain to stop, whichever came first, so I managed to *not* get drenched, unlike C.

That evening I texted to rally the chicas to come and watch the boys (thankfully it was a covered pitch), but Ali was heading to bed, and Kirsten had the best excuse EVER. She sent a fantastic text, which I just have to transcribe for you:

"Hi! Thanks to my rubbish spanish i´ve landed myself the job of 24 hour care of a week old honey bear! i should stop just nodding and saying ´si´ when I don´t understand something."

I replied saying it sounded so-o-o cute, but did 24 hours mean she was living on her project now?

"No i had to bring it home with me! it is so cute you guys have to see it....I have to feed it every 4 hours so staying in tonight. Will call...to arrange a show & tell!"

A honey bear!!! A week old!!! C and I did a little dance in excitement. We were already a bit ga-ga over some gorgeous little pups we´d seen. The nice pet-shop owner let me cuddle a very young black and white mongrel puppy (maybe 4 weeks old?), and he rested his tiny head and little paw on my chest, and nearly went to sleep, calmed by the beating of my heart. C wanted to take a pic, but I didn´t want to scare him, so sorry everyone, no puppy. I had to eventually hand him back, before I fell in love and wanted to buy him.

Hmmm. With images of a real-life baby ´Pooh´ bear in my head, I did a Google Image search and was disappointed to realise a honey bear looks more like an anteater :(

Anyway, so it was just me, una sola chica, that went to the footy with los chicos. I took the flash off my camera so as not to cause a distraction, to try and capture some of the moves. I´ll post pics later...

5-a-side turned out to be C, John, Tom, Marcello (V´s hubby) and one of his teenage sons opposite a group of 15-17 yr old Argentinian lads (!!!) who, C later said, had amazing skills, better than he ever had even in his competitive days. C was still pretty tasty on the pitch though, fancy footwork, nimble and *fast*. I was quite proud that the old man (he´s 35!) still had it in him and was easily better than most of his team mates.

That is until he injured himself in the last ten minutes and had to hobble off the pitch.

He took off his trainer (Squeamish?! Eating?! Skip this paragraph) and the whole nail had turned black as the blood was building up under his big, now throbbing, toe. Ouch.

The game had been a lot more exciting than the Guarani match we´d gone to, and although no one actually seemed to know the score, apparently we won by 1 goal. Bet the other side said the same.

After the boys went home for showers, we later met John & Tom at Cristobal (that restaurant I first had fish in) for a few beers. Getting there was a joke.

I´d asked the taxi driver to take us to ´Cristobal, por favor´ and he looked at me blankly. I repeated the name, clearly. Still a look of ´Que?´.

Oh come *on*, I thought, he´s probably lived here all his life, Posadas is hardly happening, and I can´t imagine he´s never dropped off or picked up at one of the most popular joints in town. I guessed he was pretending not to understand so he could take us tourists a merry route. Exasperated, I pulled a map out and we pointed "Aqui!". The taxi driver shrugged and set off. As soon as we saw the huge sign for the bar, we pointed it out "Aqui! Aqui! Cristobal!". He pulled up and feigned sudden comprehension, "Aaaaah! CrisTObal!".

I couldn´t resist a bit of sarcasm. I always think if you can have a joke and be sarcastic in a language you are getting more fluent, so I was secretly a bit pleased with myself.

Me: "Como se dice?" ("How do you say it?")
Taxi driver: "CrisTObal"
Me: "Aaaaah. CrisTObal. CRIStobal." (comparing how he said it and I said it) "Por que es *muy* diferente, no?"
C: "Come on you...!" (pulling me out of the car)

But HONESTLY! If a tourist came up to you in England and asked the way to "SANSboorris" or "TesCOSS" you´d guess what they meant, wouldn´t you?!

Idiot.

We passed a very agreeable evening out with the two boys (although I had to dig myself out of a hole when Tom gave himself an 8 for attractiveness, and I - generously, I thought - said I reckoned he was nearer a 7...). We decided to leave just before midnight as things were hotting up between the boys and a table of 5 nearby Argentinian chicas. Pretty boy John was attracting all the attention, much to Tom´s chagrin, and the girls had passed a note over via the waitress, saying that they would very much like to see them sometime (how very forward!). John, in his far-better Spanish, wrote a note back on the reverse saying that they would be in Power on Saturday night. Cool, I like his style!
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Next day, C was limping like a good ´un. We´d slept at the other end of the bed so he could elevate his foot on the wooden headboard with a towel underneath it, but it was the worst night´s sleep for him. My G&Ts meant for once I slept through his thrashing about all night, even through the annoying yappy dog that wakes us every morning from about 5am. (Even dog-lover C wants to kill the little b*stard).

I said there was no way he was going to the refugio - what if one of the kids trod on his foot? - and he´d have to go to hospital to get it sorted.

Like a typical bloke, he croaked that he´d soldier on (why does a sore toe mean a croaky voice?!) but I sternly told him that I wasn´t having him limping for days in pain and besides, with him incapacitated again, he was ruining my trip too by not being able to do anything (tough love, OK?!).

Besides, we had arranged to meet Ali & John for our first Tango class tonight. If he couldn´t dance this week, fair enough, but I knew he wanted to come along as he didn´t want me getting swept off by a dashing Argentinian hunk.

So off he went to the docs. Again. I wonder if C breaks the record for the most visits to a hospital in the shortest time for aany of i-to-i´s volunteers?!
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In the staffroom that morning, John was red-eyed and broken. He said he was up till 4.30 being sick (twice), and that after we left, Tom had decided to stagger home about 1.30 and he´d gone off for a drive with the chicas (one on each lap, apparently...) and when they later saw Tom passed out on a bench, they had to rescue him.

John was still wearing last night´s clothes, but he swore he´d just crashed on his own bed fully-clothed and got up really late this morning. Riiii-i-i-i-i-ght.

Ali & I carried John today, he really did look really bad; I was quite proud he´d turned up at all. There was a moment when he had to run out of the classroom, but luckily he didn´t actually throw up again.

5b were HILARIOUS today, screaming like girls at a Take That concert as we walked in and running over to throw themselves at me with hugs and kisses (they are still a bit shy of doing this with the newbies) and chanting "Ingles! Ingles! Ingles!"...I think it´s what being famous must be like, all the kids want to say hi, touch you, hug you, kiss you, get a smile or a wave from you, carry your stuff for you, wipe your board down for you...very very sweet. You wouldn´t get that in England. We had a relatively quiet lesson after the initial cacophony (John had to cover his hungover little ears) as they were filling in their revising Animals sheet, so John, I think, was grateful for small mercies! I asked the kids to not use their books and try and remember them, and I think it was a better lesson as they had to really think about it. I gave the boy who finished first a smiley sticker on his jumper. He proudly tried to show it off to his mate on the next desk, who would not look up and sullenly said "Yo vi" ("I´ve seen it").

We finished with a drawing game that John invented but needs my drawing skills. The class gets put into 2 teams, and I, Rolf-Harris-Style ("Can you tell what it is yet?") draw an animal, starting with the parts that least give the game away (eyes, teeth, a tail or ear...). The first with the correct name of the animal "En INGLES!" gets a point. The winning team is always over-excitable and sing footy chant-style jeers at the crestfallen losers ("O-lay, o-lay, o-lay, o-la-a-a-y.....") None of that polite English sportsmanship over here it seems...

John had to leave Ali & me to mark the work as he felt so nauseous, with promises to pick up the slack another day, and to see us later for Tango. That´s cool; there´ll be days when we all have to cover for each other a little bit, we´ve slipped into being a team pretty quickly and even Ali is growing in confidence day by day.
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Tango was excellent fun. C hadn´t expected to enjoy it, and as I said, was only coming to um, protect me, but really, he needn´t have been worried. The class was mainly full of middle-aged and older women, with a few older gents (far fewer in number). We cooed as one statuesque older gent, dressed in a tweed jacket and with a big white handlebar moustache ("A bit Lesley Philips" said C) gently guided a 6 year old chica round the floor (who turned out to be Ariel´s daughter - of Ariel & Cecelia, our Posadas-famous, award-winning Tango teachers).

That´s my gaydar out of sorts then; he was VERY camp with slicked back hair and the tightest T-shirt & trousers (and was that GUYliner he was wearing?!)

C and I swapped and danced with Ali & John respectively for the last 15 mins or so, which was really really weird, a bit like starting a new relationship, as I had to get used to John´s style with his far quicker and smaller, less sweeping steps and adapt my own to suit to stop toes being trodden on.

(I did tread on C´s sore toe once, lightly, btw, which I was soooo sorry for, but he did point out it was him who had taken the wrong step...)

We enjoyed it so much we´ve all signed up for a month (4 lessons) although we´re going to try Mondays as Thursdays were packed. In a new bar we found after Tango (our now post-Tango joint, we decided), Ali said this experience had *made* her trip so far, and she was going to sign up for classes when she returned to Ireland. She might have a point. For me, it was especially nice as I was learning something with C, kinda romantic.

Plus it´ll give me chance to get my Tango heels out once a week at least and put a floaty dress on!

That night, I drifted off into a contented and happy sleep. I´ve finally got workmates, we´re all starting to get a social life, work´s going brilliantly and it´s all good.
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Friday: the last two days have been BITTERLY cold (3 degrees last night V told us!).

As it was I was struggling to pack 3 month´s stuff in one rucksack and it was sweltering when we left London so I couldn´t and didn´t think to bring a winter coat, boots, tights or even jeans ("Argentina? It´s foreign, innit?! Bound to be ´otter than England!") so I´ve been making like Joey from ´Friends´ having to wear virtually everything in my wardrobe all at once.

At school, I introduced John & Ali to the cutest classes 4a & 4b. We did ´the alphabet in English´ for 4a and revised it for 4b quickly before moving onto everyone´s favourite lesson, ´Los Animales´.

John´s developed a great snail impersonation. He´ll grab a kid´s rucksack, put it on and start crawling along the floor, oblivious to the red-earth dirt, and the kids LOVE it. He´s really good with them, a natural. I like how all our different styles and strengths are coming together and we are finding our equilibriums in the class, I´m the "rock", the one the kids and newbies look to for reassurance and help, John´s the silly teacher, like a big brother to the boys and a dreamboat for the girls, although he´s also really good with disciplining them, and Ali, the shyest of the 3, is gradually coming out of her shell and feeling more comfortable with helping the kids out as her Spanish improves. She´s also good at planning lessons.

Later that day after marking Ali & I sat at the staffroom computer (Windows 98!) and typed up the progress made for each class into a spreadsheet (yeah yeah, me and my spreadsheets!)

I´d been writing it down in my notebook on different pages, but I needed to do something we´d all have access to. I felt an amazing sense of satisfaction as I looked at how far we´d come already in 3 weeks. With all this info at a glance, we even managed to plan the following week!
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At 6pm, Kirsten came round with her baby honey bear, all wrapped up in an old checked shirt of Pilar´s (her host) and then in her zip-up fleece to keep it warm. She looked pregnant, and therefore very funny with the glass of wine I offered her. We cooed over the tiny thing, although I was a bit disappointed it didn´t do anything, but as C pointed out, I don´t do much when I´m asleep either. Fair point.

When it finally stirred, K offered me a chance to hold Pooh Bear (or Winnie) as we´ve decided to call it. (Honey bear, Hunny, geddit?!). As my hands were freezing (we have no heating!) I put my gloves on to hold the wee thing. It rested on my shoulder and sniffed my face with it´s tiny cold, wet nose which tickled and made me laugh. It then started to drag itself up my body with surprisingly strong grip, which meant I eventually had to let go as it scrabbled to dive under my hair and to the warmth of the back of my neck. I then *squealed* (a little in pain) as it clawed it´s way through my hair to the top of my head! K eventually pulled the little critter off and C took over. Pics to follow...

We were planning to stay in tonight but it was Tom´s birthday, so V invited us to hers for pizzas, empanadas and a few drinks. Flor kindly lent K & I a warm coat each before we headed out.

I think it was being so tired (not the vino, oh no), but C said something I got upset about and I blanked him childishly for a bit at the end of the evening. Stupidly I can´t even remember what it was about, but I went to bed in a huff.
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Saturday: Woke up knowing we´d had a tiff last night but I was too embarrassed to admit I´d no idea why I was annoyed with him, and he didn´t want to bring it up again either, so eventually I think we both decided to ignore it and carry on as if nothing had happened.

Tried to buy a coat today: can´t find anything I like, so I´ll have to borrow Flor´s again tonight.

Am about to get ready to meet Kirsten in town (at midnight!). Ali is round now and I´m being anti-social, so I´ll end here for now and hope to blog again in the week, Flor´s workload permitting...

Los nuevos voluntarios...WITH MORE PHOTOS!

The new kids on the block arrived on Saturday. We met them in the afternoon in a bar in town, had a spot of lunch and I think I´ve discovered two new drinking buddies, to (temporarily) replace my regular gal pals in London - YAY!

Tom is from Ireland and is teaching football. The quietest of the four, I think he was pretty spaced from jet-lag; he didn´t say much more. John, the other guy is a *very* pretty boy with huge blue eyes, from Eastbourne (Lisa! Someone else from Eastbourne!) and a gap year student, then we have Alison from Ireland - a another gapper - and Kirsten from Oz, who´s super-fit and plays hockey to some competitive sort of level as well as producing multimedia stuff and documentaries. Her work gave her 9 months off and are holding her job open. (Hmph!)

John & Ali are my new colleagues from Monday, so they fired questions at me rat-tat-tat about the school. C and I told everyone about Posadas, ´Power´ nightclub, the bars on the riverside which we hadn´t visited yet, and the pound shops where they could stock up on stuff they might need. We advised Kirsten, who is doing the conservation project, to get thick gloves or risk bites from potentially rabid monkeys. And she´d thought she´d be dealing with ickle fluffy animals!

The new boys left for a siesta soon after eating (lightweights), leaving us chicas and C (he always gets left with the girls, have you noticed?) to demolish a couple of bottles of wine (no vino por C...para las antibioticas), before we tottered home and I had a tipsy snooze on the sofa.

I woke to find I´d missed 3 calls from Natalia, presumably to cancel that evening´s plans, but I couldn´t reach her back. C & I headed out anyway, with vague plans to meet the newbies and Catherine later, which in the end didn´t materialise because they were all tired. What´s wrong with youngsters these days!?!

But remembering we were in bed by 9.30 on the first night, I´d expected as much.

We two tried to find the recommended fish restaurant in our guide book, failed to, and, hungry now, I whinged a bit as we struggled for 45 minutes find anywhere that was open on a Saturday night (weird!). Plus my new, v. cute patent black ballet pumps with a little bow on - a necessary purchase as my Primarni pumps are already trashed, that´s 8 quid shoes for you - were rubbing after all that trudging (that´s 42 pesos shoes for you...7 quid).

Eventually we fell on the first place open, Cristobal, a busy brasserie-style joint, and I wolfed down the first bit of fish I´ve had all trip (salad, no chips...losing the lard, remember?!) whilst we people-watched and marvelled at the amazingly retro hairstyles (Status Quo and home perm kits were mentioned), and, not for the first time, the love that knows no (style) boundaries, that which Argentinian girls seem to have for eye-wateringly tight spray-on jeans and leggings, which pretty much means it´s Camel-Toe Central.

Yeuk - don´t they know we´re trying to eat!??!

Fell asleep watching Kill Bill. Only Uma can get away with something that clingy round her nether regions.
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Yesterday, Sunday 25th - we joined Kirsten & Ali for a day trip to San Ignacio - site of the Jesuit Ruins (apparently featured in the film The Mission, which I haven´t watched). Today at school, John told me that Misiones has the third largest Jewish population in the world (after Israel and the States). C was incredulous - what about Golders Green? - so I´ll have to verify that fact tomorrow, don´t quote me yet.

Our coach took an hour to get there and cost 5 pesos each. About 80p. We ran onto the top deck to bagsy the back row like kids on a school trip. Our seats were big, plumptious and comfortable, reclining to 45 degrees, footrests, with cup holders, and a man with a tray of hot coffee came round during the journey (precisely before we got to a very bumpy bit...I nearly christened C with mine). Read and learn, London Underground!

Now I don´t drink coffee, but the Northern bird in me says ´It´s freeee! ´ave it!´, so I took the double-espresso-sized cup offered. C passed. Us 3 girls then spent the next 10 minutes delicately sipping the over-strong, ridiculously-sweet coffee, and wincing between sips, before I discovered the aforementioned cup-holders and we got rid of the offending beverages.

The best bit of the day was actually just *before* the ruins, when we stumbled across a charming little cafe/restaurant with a smiley man we found out was called Diogenes Lenguaza (´un poco dio, un poco diablo!´ he joked), who reminded me of my dad with his warm hospitality and mannerisms, and, unusually, proceeded to *talk* us through a lengthy menu, a lesson in comprehension if there ever was one. I was delighted to realise I understood most of it and latched onto the grilled salmon, as did the other chicas. C had steak & chips, like a proper Brit.


A ´welcome´ in every language from Diogenes


Ali & Kirsten, my new drinking buddies


My Argie ´Dad´...apparently you can Google him.

After the meal and another two bottles of vino (I love these girls already!) Diogenes took us through a large collection of photos (on the end wall, with more on a long trestle table below it) of him on his travels. D and his wife in Scotland, London, New York, Germany...etc...meeting the Queen and the King of Spain (as you do), and with various famous Argentinian singers, actors and dignitaries at his gaff. He told us he loves travelling, although he only speaks Spanish. He also told me, as C played with his dog...a cross bred German Shepherd called Palermo (in honour of his favourite team, Boca Juniors), that he lives in Posadas too, used to have a restaurant there, but it closed in the recession, so now he just has two. Think he does alright though; our meal came to 300 pesos all in, about 50 quid (they have no pound sign on this keyboard if you´re wondering), which is quite pricey for here. Still, we´d eaten well and had a lovely time, so we agreed it´d be good for a couple more Sunday lunches...there´s bugger all to do where we live, I´m realising, after all. (Although we probably missed the most exciting day in Posadas as we only remembered it was Revolution Day, as we left on the bus).

The Jesuit ruins were...well, a pile of 400 year old rocks. Go figure. Still, I´m the sort of girl who, in the middle of vast rolling countryside, has yawned ´Seen one tree, seen ´em all´...so you might be more impressed than I was. I´m a city girl...and Buenos Aires is 9 weeks away!


The artiest shot I could get of, basically, a pile of old rocks.

Still, my lack of interest might also be as after 3 glasses of vino, we girls were struggling to concentrate on reading the descriptions of the artefacts in the museum. Even in English.

It got dark really quickly as we walked from the ruins to catch our bus back. As the road seemed to go on forever, C started joking about us missing the last bus and having to spend the night, horror-movie style, in the woods. Before we could run to the stop, 2 buses went past. Shit! When *was* the last bus? Why hadn´t anyone checked?! Panic set in.

Then next vehicle that pulled up to the stop was a minibus, the sort that takes old people out on day-trips. But it had ´Posadas´ on the side.

Lo and behold, the ´conductor´ beckoned us on, and took our 5 pesos each. We realised too late that it was the most packed minibus *ever* - standing room only and C was stood virtually in the doorway. We were all pressed up together, like the tube at rush hour, but it felt *far* more precarious. A mini-bus. In the dark. In rural Argentina. With a driver who kept taking his eyes off the road to reach for the fresh maté his assistant kept brewing up from a flask.


Fear. On the bus back. We actually *were* packed this close

I tried to put images of me hurtling through the windscreen out of my mind for a whole hour, whilst also trying not to think about those girls who recently died on that bus ride in Quito. Of course it didn´t work; if I tell you *not* to think about pink elephants, that will be the image in your head now, yes?

I sincerely hoped this wasn´t going to be the last thing I ever did.
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Thankfully it wasn´t.

Monday; school today with my new colleagues. We will need to find our rhythm, it was a little chaotic finding the best way of working in front of an unforgiving audience, with no dress rehearsals, but I can see that extra people is a good thing, although 3 might be overkill.

They´ve asked me to start doing afternoons next week too (eek!), so I might see if we can start working a shift system, with 2 people per lesson.


Above: A couple more pics of my kids from last Friday. Just for fun.

Fresh meat is always exciting in any environment, but I noticed John in particular was getting lots of attention from the chicas, in particular a 9 year old in 5a, Triana, the one who looks like Drew Barrymore in her ET days. (And if you think that´s a bit young, remember most kids round here are parents by 16/17)

Whenever John went near her crew of girlie girls to give them their exercise books, she squealed and fanned herself with her hands as she´s probably seen ladies on the telly do when they see a good-looking man. (OK, OK, I´ll get a pic of him, but I didn´t want to scare him by papping him on day one, OK?!)

As John and I were marking later (Ali had to whizz back today), he laughed when I told him about Triana and said he did notice it was hard when he was trying to get them to look at their work and they kept gazing up at him. Hilarious!

BTW The newbies are not 23, as I was told. They´re both only 19 (although quite mature, you wouldn´t guess).

But Christ, now I really *do* feel old! :)