The b*tch is back...and Aida´s famous SAW-SI-GES

Hola! Sorry it´s been a while: I´ve been DEAD busy: I mean this week, I´ve only had time for *one tiny siesta* - tch!

School continues on apace except the kids are getting naughtier day by day as their term draws to a close. Very kindly, as I am all on my own now Ali & John have left (sob!), the other voluntarios are taking turns come in with me on odd days to help out (and to see another project in action).

Monday was easy enough, left school earlier than normal - today I discovered if I mark standing up, I seem to get through it quicker. Also I´ve stopped being so meticulous correcting work for the kids that can´t be bothered. And as demonstrated in the final couple of days whilst I still had my co-workers I started to take a harder line stance with the kids, so basically they get 3 strikes and they are *out*.

Ho, yeah, the b*tch is back, and this time she´s not taking any prisoners.

Anyway, Monday, C&I joined the girls for an impromptu lunch at Alex´s bar in the shopping mall. Alex became a friend of C & I in our first week and always stops to chat (in English!) and puts the Euro games on for us (it´s not generally played in bars in Argentina, no one cares much...mind you, is anyone really watching in England since we failed to qualify?!). He used to live in Marbella, and has DJ´d in Brighton of all places. He´s about 45, really welcoming, and his place has become a favourite for all the girls now too.
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Tuesday, much of a muchness at school, can´t remember anything major anyway.
That afternoon Oz Kirsten & I joined C to watch the Spain/Italy game at Alex´s. Spain won on penalties and there was a gentle ripple of applause from a few Argies, perhaps because of their common language. C is rooting for the Spaniards as his favourite player, Fernando Torres, plays for Liverpool and C´s a die-hard fan.

V came round Tuesday evening for a bit of a chat about Augustin: her friend was looking into his situation for us.

She looked exhausted and stressed, so Flor asked her what was wrong.

We were astonished as V told us newbie Gen had managed to get *lost* on her way to her orphanage project today. This despite Posadas being on a simple grid system, every volunteer getting driven to work by V on their first day for orientation purposes, and getting their project address(es) on a typewritten sheet plus a map with homestay and project location(s) *clearly* marked.

Getting off at the wrong stop, and completely confused, Gen had tried but failed to call Veronica twice (V has another job, she was probably in a meeting), so she panicked and somehow ended up getting a lift from some random man(?!?) who then took her to the wrong refuge (she didn´t have the address or map on her...).

Eventually she thought to call C for the right address, and when she finally got to work, late and traumatised, (C told me later) the guy started shouting at her to pay him 10 pesos for this ´favour´ (C had to translate for her, she paid). When Gen later spoke to V, she´d said her mother wouldn´t be very pleased about this (like it was V´s fault!?!).

If G really doesn´t know her arse from her elbow, how on earth could her parents let her leave the country alone?! Erm, surely you take your project address with you and get in a *cab* if you get lost, not a strange man´s car, in South America, not speaking much Spanish, 8000 miles from home? Or do as the rest of us did and pay attention to V pointing out landmarks and relevant bus-stops etc on our first days?! As V noted, Gen had even had her orientation alone, so she´d been given more attention and detail than any of us.

C says I´ve been hard on G, that she´s young, but as I pointed out, John & Ali were both 19 and both had their heads screwed on, so age is *not* and excuse. I just can´t abide stupidity, it exasperates me, and nothing she´s done so far has shown me she has an ounce of common-sense about her.

After that big-up, V then asked if Gen could come with C&I to tango! I explained that we´d been looking forward to this lesson being just the two of us (I´ve been sharing C with all the chicas until now), a bit of a ´date´ - to which V said "Well, Gen wants to come!".

I was hacked off at this; I didn´t want to have to babysit of an evening, I have enough children to look after all day, so I stalled and said I´d ask C when he got back from his project.

In the end, thankfully, C agreed, and got me to text V, saying he´d got injured at football (a perfectly plausible excuse, regular readers will know all about how accident-prone he is!) and we sneaked off to Tango, giggling and praying that we wouldn´t bump into her on our way out. I felt terrible lying to V, but we justified, this was a white lie, no harm done. It´s not as if we were the only volunteers in town, there were others much nearer her age. But also, personally, I would never impose myself on a couple I barely knew.

And because I got to dance with C all lesson this time, we actually got much better and we finally managed to work out how to work our way round the room in a wide circle with everyone else, so no more crashing into people.

On the way home, we bumped into the lovely Norma and Fernando (aka Anthony Hopkins), V´s parents. He´d had to leave the house when it got to penalties as he couldn´t take the stress, bless him, so I left C to give im the good news (Fernando is from Spain) as we all walked home together. I had to confess our lie to V in case it got back to her, but Norma tod me she understood, and then proceeded to tell me that Gen had managed to get lost on the way to Spanish lesson too.

"Christ on a bike", I thought, "we´ve got a live one here!".
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Wednesday, the lovely US Kristen (who is a regular reader now...hi!) joined me for my worst class 5B and best class 6B.

5B were so naughty and loud (even the usually good Elizabeth was playing up) - there were only 3 kids who were really paying attention, Danna (who´s too cute for words), Braiham and Orlando (who´s also too cute for words). In the end, I just stood there saying, not at all quietly, "I might as well be p*ssing into the wind, I´ve had enough of you little shits, honestly I don´t know why I bother" - they don´t understand a word of it, of course, and I wasn´t being heard over the cacophony - as Kristen in turn dragged some to the office and valiantly tried to stop the others from running around, talking and punching each other. In the end, I quit the lesson with a few mins to spare, I told Elizabeth, Florencia and anyone else who cared to overhear me (I´d given up trying to hold everyone´s attention) "No Jugar, hoy" (No games today) and when they said "Porque?" told them because the class had been "*Muy* mal".

I then told their useless, horrible teacher (who was sat outside the class doing nothing as it all kicked off) I was done with her class, collected the books up and walked out with Kristen without saying goodbye to them. I felt a bit bad as some of the kids started waving and saying "bye!", I think they finally realised they´d pissed me off.

6B were a welcome relief, we had a good lesson on Physical Description ("I *am*...tall/good-looking/thin/ten years old" etc and "I *have*... blue eyes/brown hair/pale skin..."). A simple concept you´d think: especially after we´ve already done colours, clothes, and put them together to revise and describe clothes, (a blue jumper, black trousers...) parts of the body, revised parts of the body, and now got to describing parts of the body - but no.

Very few kids *still* understood the concept although I spelt it out clearly on the board with examples to "En Inglés, reverses las palabras...´chico´ y ´joven´...", and had the rule "Recuerda en Inglés: el objecto esta siempre en la ultima palabra" on their worksheets.

We had to correct an awful lot of "A boy young..." (I´d even written this one correctly on the board!), "eyes brown" and "hair straight" (as in Spanish say "un chico joven", "ojos marrones" and "pelo lacio".

We all went for lunch in town for Fin´s birthday (oh to be 22!) and the lovely Alex gave her dish on the house. Still, we spend quite a lot by Posadas standards in there!

All Gen said when we asked how the refugio went today was "worse than yesterday" and didn´t say much else all lunchtime. Oh dear.

Wednesday night all us chicas (bar Oz Kirsten, I don´t think she´s the dancing type!) went to a very fun salsa class. A much faster and energetic class, it was also noticeable younger in profile and we did work up a bit of a glow, which *never* happens at tango! C tried to join in valiantly for about 2 minutes, then seeing he was struggling, another instructress pulled him aside for one-to-one coaching, but it was all too much for him - long legs flailing about like Bambi on ice, and not really getting the hip wriggly thing - he gave up and sat on the side after about 10 minutes. I think using the hips in dance is a very Southern hemisphere thing (which is why I was apparently natural - HA!)

C is usually better than me at sporty things, so it was good to be better than him at something for once, although I did console him that it would have been *much* more fun if I could have danced with him rather than some random Argentinian guy.

We left Tango for V´s house where she was hosting a "surprise" BBQ for Fin´s birthday (um, I had to tell her, Fin was arranging other plans!). US Kristen went to fetch the cake and I bought a card "Feliz Dia, Amiga!" and got everyone to sign it.

Once we got to the BBQ, V took C&I outside to chat briefly about Augustin.

Bad news: basically, Argentinian law states adopters must be resident for 3 years and even then, they can´t take them out of the country. Augustin also has siblings in the refugio too (the gorgeous Diaina and Romina...my favourite girls, weirdly) so that would obviously complicate matters.

The *good* news though, is that they still have a mother, who loves them very much. She works as a live-in maid/cleaner to support them, so can´t have them with her in the week, apparently, but the kids go back to her every weekend. It kind of explains why those three are such sweet, well-adjusted kids. And why little Augustin (only 3!) is always cleaning up after the other children.

C showed everyone some uber-cute footage of Augustin on his phone, cleaning a chair and saying "Tio! Tio! A ver?!" (Uncle, are you watching?!) and everyone melted and agreed he was absolutely beautiful. C´s also got pics of him sweeping the yard with a broom about three times his height and said today Augustin quietly went about picking up the clothes the other kids were throwing about, without even being asked.

So anyway, Augustin *does* have someone to love him, which is the main thing that C&I had been upset about, so we can sleep a little easier now (as can someone else - hi mum!). C still wants to return in coming years to see how he´s doing, and I said that was perfectly possible.

Whilst we were outside, V took the opportunity to let off a bit of steam about how much hard work the newbie was being. I think she feels she can talk to us more openly as we are about the same age as she and Marcelo.

And finally C realised it wasn´t just me. He´d been slower to notice that the lights were on but no-one was home, but now, he ended up also telling V about various things Gen had said/done at work. I do feel bad slating the girl so I´ll stop now, but seriously!!!

As we were all having a moment of truth, I felt this was a good time to ´fess up about my lying text. V smiled and said she guessed as much. Turns out we´d had a close shave though, as V had driven Gen past tango anyway to show her where it was, but Gen had decided not to go in as there were only 4 people in at that time.

On a plus note, V said so far, this batch of volunteers has been the best she´s ever had (I do think C & I being older and with a strong work ethic and desire to make a difference, arriving first, have perhaps broke the back of things, set the example and it´s been natural for everyone to continue with the same momentum - Flor´s told me previous groups of volunteers have come out, got drunk every night and slacked on their projects). V said I was probably right.
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Thursday: a bit hungover, I really couldn´t face 5b - they don´t deserve me, and I´m not getting paid to stand and shout till my throat gets sore. In fact, I´m not getting paid at all! So I texted V and said I didn´t want to teach them any more (I´ve only got one week now, I really have given up with them though) and she said cool, so I had a lie-in - yay!

Fabiana did ask me who the good kids in 5b were, and I think I understand that she is moving them into 5a so they don´t miss out, which is good.

Today, Oz Kirsten - who says she hates kids, btw - joined me for 6b. She may teach English in Buenos Aires for cash as she´s in S.America for 5 more months, so wanted to see how it was done.

We had a great lesson learning food vocab (La comida) and a very exciting game of Hangman at the end (I use all the vocab they´ve learnt so far, so they are revising colours, clothes, days, months, parts of the body, animals, descriptions, food...), which ended, nail-bitingly, on a tie-breaker, 5:6 as the bell rang.

As the winning side leapt about shouting football-style chants and jeering at the losers, I turned to look at K. She was stood in the corner, back to the wall, wide-eyed and appeared terrified and shell-shocked.

After the lesson K asked, incredulously, "And this is your *best* class?!" I laughed and said 5B, the little shites, would have put her off for life and she´d had a lucky escape with them. She admitted, 5B had been good, but their sheer volume had scared the shit out of her and that she´d rather go into the jaguars´ cage at El Puma.

For her hilarious take on this experience, check: www.itchytrotters.blogspot.com

That night, I felt she needed a bit of a reward for her valiant efforts, and I managed to flatter Aida into inviting her round for dinner for her famous (amongst all the voluntarios) home-made sausages. Kirsten was delighted. I´ll post a pic.

I´m going to post the rest of my week soon so see you back here shortly...!

Another refuge visit...and a party for *us*!

Thursday night was Ali´s last meal (C & I didn´t eat as we´d eaten at Aida´s and just joined them for a drink), and apart from a slight tension between Kristen & John, we had a lovely evening.

At the end, John made his way home and C & 8 chicas (me, Ali, Kirsten, Kristen, Fin, Leanne, Kirsten´s homestay mum Pilar´s son Xaviers girlfriend Laura(!) and her mate) headed to a bar.

On the way, C said to a group of men, staring at all his chicas "Todas las chicas...com *mi*!" and they started shouting "Ganador! Ganador! Ganador!" at him, like a footy chant, which literally means "winner", but is also the term for someone who´s a hit with the ladies...a birrova player.

As if! But I let him enjoy his little moment, anyway...
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Friday, I had no school again as it was a school play, and having already sat, largely baffled, through two days of performances already (25th May celebrations and the school birthday speeches and songs last week), I turned down Graciela´s kind offer to come and watch, and opted to go with C to the refugio.

I actually really love it there, abysmal though the conditions are, because you do feel you are at least giving them some much-needed love, attention and affection, happiness, and perhaps some nice memories, for the time you are there.

Amazingly, I´d barely walked through the door, when a little boy, Estaban, flew at me clutching a blank piece of paper, shouting "Tia! Tia!". He´d remembered me drawing the animals the previous week, and I think he´d hoarded this piece of paper, waiting for my return, because there were no sheets in evidence.

Luckily, C had brought more pens (which only last a day, again) and paper, and once more, I had a queue of kids shouting over each other to get a picture. Sweetly, when they realised they were all going to get one, they had to wait in turn, they very started monitoring themselves, and gently pushing the little ones forward who might have been waiting unseen behind the bigger kids.

Estaban was my evident biggest fan, pulling a table up to stand over my shoulder and watch me ´perform´. (I lean on the wall as their cheap plastic table is too rocky and shaky to draw on with all the kids pushing in to get a view).

Last time I´d had "Pinguino!" "Oso PoLAR!" and "KOALA!" as the more unusual requests, this time I also got "Girafa!" and "Leopard!" and even got asked to draw a car for one boy, to add to the mix. It´s like they were trying to test me! Touchingly, Romina and Diaina coloured their pictures in carefully and gave back them to me, Diaina´s having carefully copied my message "Para Diaina, Besos! Sapna x" with the names reversed.

Diaina spent a lot of time with me today, lots of hugs. She´s a pretty girl of about 8-9 and really sweet.

Danny, one of the special-needs brothers was really badly behaved today, throwing anything he could find (one was Maria´s tatty hardback notebook, the corner of which hit me on the back of the head as I was hugging another pf the kids...ouch), hitting others with an empty plastic bottle and yanking the hair of any girl he could. It´s difficult to do anything but yell "No!"; you can´t reason with him or his brother, they won´t understand, and I obviously wasn´t going to hit him, so it was frustrating. On top of that, Walter, his younger brother, also appeared to have wet himself and was trying for hugs all day, which I kind of tried to do, but understandably, at arm´s length. I felt guilty for my reaction, but there was nothing I could do. There were no dry trousers (the washing had been rained on), and the kids don´t have underwear (I could tell from the washing line and through the tears in some kids´trousers...), so on this cold, miserable day these piss-soaked sweats were his only option.

By contrast, C´s favourite, little Augustin, was being *totally* adorable today. He is the sweetest, most polite and cutest little boy I´ve ever seen, I´m amazed he´s so sunny and happy when he´s a product of this environment. He never asks for more than he´s got, never cries (unless a kid hits him) and always waits his turn. No idea what he´s like with other voluntarios, but I´ve a sneaky suspicion he knows he´s C´s favourite and therefore is quite happy to wait for the other kids to dissipate with their marbles or whatever before he takes up residence on C´s shoulders for the rest of the day, and singing away to himself. Today I laughed as I noticed he was (unintentionally, of course, the kids wear what is available) dressed like a little mini-me version of C, with an adidas striped-sleeved little zip up blue jacket and accessorised (what other kid has accessorised!?!? I pointed out) with a little blue/grey scarf.

Augustin is the main reason C has returned to the Refugio despite also doing the football project, and he´s the reason I want to go back again. I have this little pipe dream that refuses to go away, that somehow, we´d be able to take him home with us, give him the life he deserves, and all the love we have to give.

Maybe I´ve left it too late for my own kids, and if adoption is the answer, better it was a child we knew rather than one off a list. I tentatively broached the subject with C, who, when he realised I wasn´t joking, said there´s no harm in looking into it.

So I asked V; she said that Argentina´s foreign adoption laws are tough - a volunteer was turned down 2 years ago - but that she would look into it as we were older and situation was quite different. Don´t get excited (or panic, parents!), we won´t be coming back with little Augustin in August, I´m sure it would be a long process anyway, perhaps a year, if it´s at all possible, but I do now get very upset at the thought of this gorgeous little boy living in that hell-hole with no toys, education, dirty shared bunk beds, no bedtime stories, baths and cuddles, crap food and no opportunities for the rest of his childhood... and then what happens when he´s 18 and has to leave?

We left as the kids were sitting down to lunch (C said it was the first lunch he´d seen in 6 weeks that looked edible, a new woman appeared to be working there, for how long who knows...).

A bit of back story...the kids have to say a prayer before they eat (the only 'rule' in evidence). Danny & Walter, the special-needs brothers, cannot understand this and would either start eating or throwing their food about during Grace. This would regularly result in 1) chaos as the other kids retaliate with more food and/or hit them and 2) the two boys being beaten by the staff, a most distressing daily scene.

C had suggested weeks ago, when he finally met the owner´s son, that maybe D&W should get their food *after* prayers to prevent all the daily stress and pain as their state means they will simply *never* understand that they have to wait.

C was pleased to see today though, that they appeared to be taking his advice.

Remembering how hopeless C had felt in his first week, outside, I said "See? You have made things better, in a small way for those kids".

Thinking about it though now, *not* getting a daily beating for reasons they don´t understand is probably a very big thing for Danny & Walter.
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Friday night C & I went to the same restaurant as last night for a meal for two. I´d seen his face when the steaks arrived, so suggested this impromptu ´date´ when our original plans fell through. We´d fallen asleep during a dull game of football (we were watching this, fully-clothed, in bed, it was a very cold day!), so by the time we got up, showered etc it was late. We´d cancelled dinner with Aida earlier as we´d been told V had an asado (BBQ) on which I then was told wasn´t on (when I called her to check) as the new volunteer was "tired and very nervous" (?!?!!?)

We finally ate at 11.40 - how very Argie-style!
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Saturday lunch (skipped breakfast, still full!) became an impromptu meeting for the new volunteer (just one this week), Genevieve, 19, from Chiswick (of all places! 5 mins from us in London) as V dropped her off where Kirsten, C & I were having luch and meeting K´s friend Dani, an Amercian volunteer who came over 2 years ago and loved it so much she now lives here, has an Argentinian boyfriend Fernando (studying law) and she works in a vet´s.

Dani & Fernando were great fun, full of anecdotes, hints on things going on (I had been gutted to have missed an Argentinian Beatles tribute band who were playing in the shopping centre bar last weekend when we went to Iguazu, but she informs me they may return before we leave...oh please oh please! Can you imagine how hilarious that would be?!). Dani also pointed out Posadas´ *only* openly gay man - a debonair Quentin-Crisp type old gent, mincing around the mall on his own. She said she had a friend who was obviously gay too, but it´s not easy in Posadas, and therefore he always talked about his "girlfriend" who she knew was a boy and always wistfully sighed that he wished he could live in Buenos Aires.

The new volunteer, "Gen" (as she prefers to call herself) arrived looking like a startled bunny or a lamb to the slaughter, and sat through this friendly, funny, chatty lunch barely saying a word to anyone. I guess her nerves weren´t helped by C very obviously glossing over the details of the Refugio and stopping me or anyone else in their tracks if they looked like they were going to answer her limited questions. (I did say that´d make me *more* nervous!). Anyhoo, the general consensus was, I´m afraid, a bit of a wet blanket: C´s take was that he reckons the kids at the Refugio will (quote) "chew her up and spit her out" and Kirsten & I wondered why on earth she was putting herself through this when she was so uncomfortable even amongst other voluntarios. Turns out daddy´s a property developer and they were doing up her room, so it was this or her grandma´s for a month. Hmmmm...
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That night in Sampaka, we found out that the party Mario and Carlos had invited us to, was actually a party for C&I!!! Luckily we´d invited our mates along - Kirsten, John & (his on-off-on again-till-he-left local chica) Susanah, V & Marcelo, Laura and a few of her mates, and Gen, except they´d said it started from 9.30, so we, feeling responsible got there just before 10...and our mates joined us by 12, but as C said, at 10 it felt "painfully early" (no one else was there bar the staff) and the local mates didn´t start arriving till about 2am, by which time only 5 of our mates were left!!! Still we had fun and had a birrova dance, left about 5 (I think)

Not much more to write about the party, except check us out getting impromptu parties thrown in our honour in the middle of Argentina...that never happens in London...we´re kind of local celebs round here though...!

Gotta go - will blog about my week soon...

"What´s that American girl called again...?"

This was what I couldn´t blog about last week, till John left, for fear of causing embarassment to him, although I think all the other girls told Kristen anyway as it there was a tangible tension between Kristen & John all evening.

John, who´d spent every opportunity trying to woo Kristen from the moment he clapped eyes on her (at Tango) - casually asked Ali & I during marking if¨"that American girl, what´s her name...?" was coming out again.

As Ali & I gasped incredulously (there´s only 8 of us girls out here, and we´re a tight little team who go out a lot together - it´s not hard to remember our names!), I had to pull him up with "What, that American girl you´ve been trying to pull for the last two weeks you mean? Kristen?!"

Ali & I had to laugh at his very unsuccessful attempts at pretending he´d never cared for her anyway.