OK...it wasn´t man flu...NOW WITH PICS

Firstly, thanks for the posts and Facebook comments, dear readers...it´s nice to get feedback and these little snippets of love and support from back home are a real boost. (PK, the full ´blackboard debacle´ (as it may forever be known) is on the link below the one you read...click from the bottom link up for the story in the right order! ; ) x

Secondly, I´m slowly (due to the connection) adding pics to previous blogs over this week, so do scroll back through the posts, and thirdly, to answer a question, I´m blogging 2-3 times a week, so keep checking for updates!

Thursday 22 May; today, my two naughtiest classes, 5B and 6B. We revised telling the time in 5B. Again, I´m not sure they can tell the time in Spanish, but we try. (Sigh!). I also noticed, after a chat with C last night, that at 1 hour 20 mins, the reason my kids go a bit mentalist is because the lessons are too long. I can keep their attention for the first 45 mins (as C reminded me, our own lessons were only about that long: a double period was 90 mins), up to an hour they started to get twitchy. You can forget teaching them anything in the last 20 mins, when the naughtiest will start tearing it up good and proper. Imagine trying to keep the tykes interested in a language that´s not your own, whilst trying to teach them a language that´s not theirs, and then a concept they don´t get in their own language?!?! I´m amazed I kept them interested for as long as I did. I mentioned my thoughts to Graciela in the break, she said she´d look at changing the classes. BTW, if you think my Spanish is coming on leaps and bounds...sorta, but there´s a lot to be said for using your hands and facial expressions too!

We had that old favourite...´Los animales´ for 6B. They weren´t nearly as impressed with my drawings as the other class : ( , although my animal impressions went down well and the boys at the front took great pleasure in trying to guess the animal *beneath* the current one through the cheap, thin paper of the pad I´d drawn them on. The blackboard, to my eternal relief, worked *OK* with a damp rag. It´s still more legible than it was before, which is the main thing: I noticed far fewer spelling errors in their work this time.

Back home; C *still* not well and getting *worse*. This, I felt, after days of teasing from Aida and Flor, really did necessitate a visit to ´el medico´. Besides, me spending so much time with him, and not getting this ´cold´ didn´t seem right...

I, (like you, John), am still perplexed as to ´the mystery of the missing bra´, and fear it will never be solved (C reckons there may be a black (bra) market in underwear with proper cup sizes) but mummy dearest has done her stuff on figleaves.com so we have reinforcements (quite literally!) on their way.

V came round tonight and between us 4 women, managed to nag C into going to the docs with V, whilst Flor & I settled down to watch ´Memoirs of a Geisha´ (with Spanish subtitles). I last saw the film with my mum on a girlie (and as it turned out, Oriental-themed) day in London. I then took her for a potter through Chinatown and through a seedier bit of Soho (much to her amusement) before a final stop for tea and lovely little rainbow-coloured cakes at Yauatcha (go! And the dim sum downstairs are FAB too).

Anyway, I digress.

C´s only gone and got himself PNEUMONIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I´m not sure how you catch it, but I appear, for now at least, to be in rude health. As I joked to Aida and Flor later that evening, ´Las mujers estan *mas* fuertes!´

But I do feel a little bit guilty now for thinking it was only man flu ...

Still he´s on the pills, feeling better for finally knowing what´s wrong with him, and should be back at work on Monday (I thought it was life threatening?! The wonders of modern medicine, eh?!) so worry ye not.

PS Mum/Dad, if you´re reading this, please don´t tell C´s mum as she´ll only worry and get on a plane out here. He´ll tell her when it´s over. I had to mention it here though to apologise about thinking he was exaggerating in my last post!
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23 May...Friday; my cutest classes 4A & 4B. I got to school and realised the whole school were all dressed up in their finest; one of my boys, Lucas, in an obviously hand-me-down suit jacket a few sizes too big, a lot in fancy dress, and the poorer kids - the majority - in their white ´lab coats´ which act like a cheap uniform, covering - and keeping clean - whatever they are wearing underneath. It was big celebrations for Revolution Day in Argentina (actually on 25 May, Sunday). At 9am, the kids were gathered in the playground, and each form did a little dance/song to celebrate. Little Macarena looked adorable in the dress her mum Fabiana said it took her 10 nights to run up (blurry pic, but you get the gist!)

Lucas and his crew...

The ceremonial opening

´Yaaaaay, Macarena!´

A shorter lesson due to the celebrations, so as I only have 4a once a week, I figured, revise numbers. I´m getting good at games which require audience participation, but noticed the bright kids *always* come up to write the answers on the board. So I concocted a game where each child gets a number (1-25) and I write sums on the board. Anyone can guess the answer, but only the kid with the right number gets to come up and write it, as a word, (´Si, en Inglés!´) on the board. It kept *all* the kids involved as their number could come up at any time.

I decided to do ´the alphabet´ with 4b, as the English alphabet *sounds*, and is sightly different to the Spanish one (no ´ñ´ and no ´ll´...I had to explain to the kids as they shouted ´Falta! Falta!´ thinking I´d made a mistake in missing them out...). Flor had suggested I teach them this basic - I´d skipped it originally, thinking ´of course they´d know the alphabet in English by now´, but I was wrong. Note: these kids are 8-9, and have been learning English since they were 5. What *exactly* did anyone before me teach them?!?!? I used a similar tactic with alphabet picture cards, calling out words and the child with that word´s initial letter had to step up and write it on the board.

At lunch I went to the nearby cafe and got talking to the lady behind the counter. Somehow she started talking about her daughter, who it turns out is 15 and suffering from lung cancer. She showed me a picture on her phone, a pretty girl with a headscarf on, presumably covering the effects of chemo. Her mum´s eyes filled with tears when I asked if she was in hospital and she told me no, at home, because they couldn´t go to the hospital any more. Whether that was due to distance, cost, or the physical state of her daughter I wasn´t sure, and didn´t know how to ask, so I just said sadly, ´Lo siento´. I mentioned my oldest friend Lizzy who is battling cancer at the moment, I guess, to show I understood a little bit, but I thought about the difference in access to medical treatment in the UK. I felt a bit depressed about this poor lady´s situation, and how helpless she must feel, as I walked back to school.

Met Fabiana´s son, Lucas, 11 at lunch as I was marking. A bright kid with very good English, he goes to an English speaking private school (so she doesn´t send her kid here, I noted!) and we had a lovely little chat. He´s so much more advanced than the 11 year olds I teach. He showed me a perfectly-spelled essay he´d written on the history of Walt Disney. Mine can´t write a sentence about their own family yet!!!

Me marking (with my homemade exercise books, tied up with string...)

More ´Revolutionary´ shenanigans after lunch, so I stayed to take pictures for Graciela and Cristina, who decided to make me unofficial photographer for the day.

´What *YOU* looking at?!´

Altogether now...´aaaaah!´

Dancing in the playground/assembly area

All day, that is, except for the bit when G introduced me to the whole school (and their parents) and I had to step up and say a few words in Spanish to them all. CHRIST, I could have been warned!!! I managed to burble out something about being ´muy contento in la escuela´ and Cristina got some awful shots (all but one deleted now) of me looking nigh on pregnant. Note to self, ´that top + those combats = don´t do it´.

Everyone said the weight would start to drop off me out here, but Aida´s cooking, puddings and the ´dulce de leche´ (a sweet gooey caramel-ly spread for bread which they also use in yummy pastries) have put paid to that. I regretted the two slices of pizza I ate at lunch and am now on a no-puddings-no-dulce regime, I told Aida.

The new voluntarios have arrived in Posadas today and have their orientation tomorrow, so V said she´d call me to meet them. From next Monday I´m going to have two young whippersnappers (both 23) joining me in my class (I´m sticking to 27, then!). It´ll be nice to have some English-speaking company at school, and help in the classrooms, although I have relished being able to bond with the staff and kids alone, and my Spanish has improved for it too. An interesting new dynamic, anyway.

Got home, checked outfit again in mirror - why does it look alright now?!?! - and popped round to see Norma, our Spanish teacher and V´s mum, to apologise in person for our absence this week due to C´s illness (we agreed to resume classes on Monday), and also to see if she was OK. V told me last night, her mum had broken her arm in ´a stupid fall´ - aren´t they all? - last weekend. Poor love is in a cast past her elbow. It´s her right (writing) hand too!

Guess what...it was pizza for tea...!!!! But it was very tasty, Flor´s homemade.

I stopped at three slices and tried to pick the ones with least cheese on.

Ah well, ´el diet´ (I made that one up) begins tomorrow.

Oh no, we´re going out for dinner with Natalia and her bloke...Sunday then...?!

Feeling drained, achey and a little bit homesick...

C´s been fluey since Sunday - he wasn´t feeling great at the match and deteriorated after that. It did seem like a cold to me, but you know men, there was a lot of dramatic holding of his head and lots of loud snuffling, which of course means I haven´t had any quality sleep for 3 nights.

He´s been off work all week (today is Wednesday) so my days were simply going to school and coming back to bring him Gatorade, cakes, cough-sweets etc. It did mean we got to miss Spanish lessons for a few days, which to be honest is a welcome break as my head is screwed after having to communicate mainly in Spanish at work anyway (I have to explain concepts to the kids in Spanish), then marking for 2.5 hours, then wolf lunch down and rush back to cram more Spanish for 1.5 hours.

I´m ashamed to say I didn´t go into school today, exhausted by the last two weeks and lack of sleep catching up on me. I also feared I was coming down with C´s thing, feeling achey and hot, but I think a day´s sleep and I´m feeling better for it.

I´ve been in a *foul* mood since yesterday, too, as Aida has somehow managed, in my first clothes wash to lose one of my bras. I´d seen it hanging out to dry, but now it´s gone and she *says* she´s never seen it...hmmm. I only brought 3 out with me, so I´m mightily annoyed. Tried to find a new one out here today, but the quality is far inferior and they don´t seem to do cup sizes?!?! (And I need cup sizes!!!).

This experience alone suddenly made me feel very very homesick, and I rang my mum & dad. It was nice to hear their voices, however briefly.

I´m going to have to go on www.figleaves.com later, send my mum a reference number and get her to mail one out with my new cash card (I managed to lose that in the first week).

I´m a little bit worried though, because I don´t want my mum to find out how much I spend on underwear!

A few little bits from my school days this week; firstly, my suspicions were right (John, one of my blog fans, you´ll love this); it *wasn´t* blackboard paint. Gulp.

I haven´t taken 6B yet; that joy is tomorrow, so I´ll have to deal with it then. Says a lot that their form teacher was pleased anyway as the kids could see the board, but I think I´ll have to try and find some proper blackboard paint and do it again...I can´t leave it like that! They have to wash the chalk off with a damp rag. I realised this as I walked past at lunchtime and snuck in to have a quick go on the blackboard. I ran out when I couldn´t rub the chalk off.

Tuesday, I did ´Los Animales´ with 5a. This lesson is popular with all the classes, what with my animal impersonations and my drawings. I overheard some of the boys chatting about the pictures and asking each other where they thought I got the drawings from. One of them supposed it was a computer. I interrupted to say ´Nooooooo! It was meeee!´(in Spanish, natch), to which they said ´A mano?!´ ... ´Si! A mano!´ ...´Noooo!!!!´

So I proved it by re-drawing my monkey on the board (that´s not a euphemism, it really was a picture of a monkey), to amazed ´ooohs´ and ´aaaahs´ from the children, and then, a little round of applause when I finished. I beamed and took a little bow. Think I´ve gained cool points with the boys, especially.

They did then of course expect me to draw every animal on the board, so I did a few random ones. The way I teach them is they first have to tell me the name in Spanish (sneakily improving my Spanish at the same time, see?!) and then ´En Inglés´. As I was drawing one animal, I was a little shocked to hear some kids shouting out ´F*cker! F*cker!´ over and over again.

Had I done something wrong?!?!

No, I´d just drawn a seal.

Which is ´foca´ in Spanish (See?! Now you´ve learnt a new word too! Stick with me, kidda...you´ll be as fluent as me by the end of this experience)

When one girl persuaded me to draw tiger in her book, of course they all wanted one, so as the lesson wrapped up, I said if they wrote ´My favourite animal is...´ I would draw that animal in their book. Marking time then saw me drawing an awful lot of tigers and snakes, a few crocodiles and lions, a couple of goats, and one dog and butterfly.

As well as cool points for my drawing skills, I´m also scoring fashion points with the chicas. On Monday, the girls of 5a (I love the girls, they are no trouble at all, and one mega-cutie looks just like an Argentinian Drew Barrymore in her ET days) also said they liked my pink dress. I´m already sick of dressing down in combats all the time, so I thought, sod it, fuschia pink dress, (with black footless tights, the more naughty boys could try looking up my skirt) and little black ballet pumps. And on Tuesday, I wore a Che Guevara t-shirt and mini denim skirt with more footless tights and pumps, which the girls of 6a said they liked.

I´ll be working the tango heels to school before you know it.

For 6a, I did ´mi familia´. Fabiana had puffed her cheeks out and told me that would be a difficult lesson as most of them came from broken homes, but I managed to get somewhere. I asked them to put the names and ages of their family in a picture first (hoping the picture would act as an ´aide memoire´ when we got to the writing bit...but very few children actually got that far) and was amazed that a lot of these 10-11 year olds had parents in their mid-late 20s. No wonder education doesn´t seem important to the kids here; it evidently wasn´t to most of their parents. And their chances of using the English I teach them after I´ve gone are probably next to nothing; most people in Posadas don´t speak even a smattering of English, bar perhaps ´Hello´/´Goodbye´ (and that´s the teachers in my class, educated professionals!). They don´t need to if they´re not going to be going anywhere else.

I met Natalia yesterday in the staffroom, who, I was amazed, greeted me in perfect English. She´s the English teacher. I was surprised as I´d been there over a week and wasn´t aware they had one. Turns out she only works there part time. She asked me to join her to teach 8a, so Fabiana offered to make me a sandwich as I was about to go to lunch. These kids, she explained on the way to class are rude, disruptive, disrespectful, difficult, come from poor backgrounds, and are this way because most of them have already done this year (so they´ll be 14) and have been held back, so they are a bit bored, too.

It was a bit of an impromptu lesson in comprehension as Natalia asked me to tell them about myself and they had to then repeat back to Natalia what they understood. Which even when I spoke in the most basic English, at slow pace, and repeated what I´d said, wasn´t very much. As she kept asking me for more and more info about myself, I struggled to find stuff that was *appropriate* for 14 year olds, and for kids from such a poor area (I couldn´t start talking about heels and designer handbags, cocktail bars, client lunches in nice restaurants, advertising deals worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, going to loads of gigs and parties)...but somehow managed to paint an edited and wholesome image of my previous life in London.

They all thought I was mad to give it all up. Perhaps I am, but it will help me appreciate my lot more than anything when I return, I´m sure.

At least a new element in their class (me) meant, on the whole, they behaved. None of them wrote anything down, some didn´t have books. One boy just sat on a chair (no desk) and swung back on it till he fell off, to raucous laughter from his mates. I´m amazed at how disorganised and undiciplined the teachers are.

A highlight; when Natalia asked them to guess my age, one said ´diez y ocho! diez y ocho!´. Eighteen! He can go *straight* to the top of the class, I don´t care *what* his English is like.

They were of course all amazed then when I admitted to being ´27´. Natalia will properly fall off her chair when I tell her the truth! She dashed off after a very short and unstructured lesson to her other school, presumably a private one that pays better. We have agreed to go out this weekend. It´s a relief to have a ´colleague´, no matter how obviously disinterested she is in these children, to talk to in English. It´s the kids I feel sorry for though. If even she has given up on them and can´t be bothered, they haven´t got a rat´s chance, have they?!

When I´m feeling a little negative, I start thinking, what´s the point?!

Then I was marking Facundo´s work, a boy who was the most polite and studious in my first week (the only one with a workbook) and, Jekyll & Hyde-like, an absolute horror on Monday. After the lesson, I mentioned his behaviour to Fabiana and Graciela, and they said he was from a very poor, bad home and very changeable in his moods. I noticed, although he´d done everything wrong in the lesson on how to tell the time (I´m not actually sure most of these 10 year olds know how to tell the time in Spanish, either; they were shouting some very random numbers out when I asked ´Que hora es?´ ...so me teaching them the time in English is getting a little ahead of ourselves, I now realise...), he had found time to write, in very neat writing, and highlighted in yellow felt tip ´sos la mejor maestra sapna´ (you are the best teacher, sapna). Either he was trying to butter me up after being naughty, or the other teachers truly are rubbish.

Either way, I took the book home and asked Flor to translate ´And you could be the best student with a bit more concentration, Facundo!´

Tuesday, I was marking his next lot of work on los animales. Even though he´d been a bit naughty still, he´d somehow managed to catch up on his work and... it was faultless. I gave him a ´Fantastico Facundo!´ And a shiny sticker (My Goofy stamp, like most things I´ve bought here, is poor quality and running out already).

Back to school tomorrow; 5b and 6b. This teaching lark is hard work.

Respec´ to you, Lisa, Kev and auntie Mira for doing this full-time in England.

Balls! NOW WITH PICS

We went to our first footy match in Argentina today, courtesy of ´el Presidente´ of Guarani de Franja (local footy team), Cesar, who is the boyfriend of Flo´s eldest sister Mariana, so we sat in the director´s box, right on the centre line, second row.

M says that she gets to travel a lot as his girlfriend, and gets called the ´First Lady´of the club. She´s certainly perfect WAG material, beautiful, slim, immaculately turned out, big shades and heels, loves shopping...but bright, sweet and funny as well (dammit!). As Steve had asked at the BBQ the other night, ´So she looks like Penelope Cruz and loves football...what´s wrong with her?!´

A slightly scary moment; within the first ten minutes, the fans kicked off and were throwing BRICKS and stuff onto the pitch until the riot police came on. M said this was the first time it had happened in 4 years. Must have decided to put a show on for us Brits. Turns out some away fans were goading ours from outside the ground which set off the home fans trying to kick the door down to fight them. Anyway, luckily we were in the posh bit on the other side of the pitch. The game had to stop for fifteen minutes.

I´m not saying the game was dull, but...

Says a lot that this was the most interesting part of the match.

As the game was a bit dull and we were down and getting nowhere near the goal, in the 2nd half I decided to focus on the cute players instead. There was a shaven-headed one who looked like ´Sucre´ off Prison Break who was more watchable than most. Another player who provided much entertainment was ´Mr Fall Guy´ on the opposition who took diving to another level, even when there was no-one near! Got a few pics of Sucre, but a bit blurry - he kept moving, dammit! C said that was kinda the point, but as far as I could see, the point is to score and they weren´t doing that either.

´Sucre´; quite fit

I also amused myself by understanding most of the Spanish swear words being shouted.

Also funny was that the main reason for the 6 or so riot police, seemed to be to escort the ref off the pitch at half-time and at the end of the match. I know he made some duff decisions, but was he *really* that unpopular...?

Not a popular man

In the end though, ´we´ sucked, lost 2:1 and the other team get promoted. Cesar, M said, will be crying all night.

Anyhoo, got lesson prep to do now. ´Chow´ for now...

NOW WITH PICS! Too much gin, dancing to bad music and painting stuff green...

We had a lovely evening last night, a meal with Aida, Flo and Silvina (the middle sister) and Aida led a round of applause on how much Spanish I had learnt in a week, and she said we were the nicest couple they´d had stay yet (Aida tends to get the couples because they have a double room to let). I joked she probably says that to all of them.

Catherine and Jen came round and we headed out for a few drinks about 10ish.

Found a bar and ordered a G&T. The biggest ever (a full tall glass of gin & ice, a bottle of tonic AND a double-shot glass on the side, with...more gin), for just over a quid. I actually felt giddy after half of it and we left the bar a couple of hours later with it still only half drunk (as was I).

There is, as yet, no T in my G, and note the shot glass of extra G.

Decided to stick to cola in ´Power´, which we hit about 1.20am. The club was weirdly full of boys. Where were all the chicas?! I wondered if we´d hit a gay night, but Flo´s told me tonight at dinner that the boys tend to hit the town on a Friday, the girls and couples on a Saturday. How very strange. How do the single boys and girls meet in the first place?!

C & I struggled to find one of the 8 rooms in the club playing any music we actually knew or liked (OK we are both music snobs, but still), so after a vain attempt at a bit of a dance to some electronica, we decided, seeing as we´d pulled anyway, to go home by about 3. Still can´t get used to Latino socialising hours. ´Mucho mas chicos´ were arriving as we left, and C was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. God, are we getting *that* old?!

Next day, up to the DIY store before 12 (they all shut after that) and I managed to ask for blackboard paint, roller tray, rollers, brush, sandpaper and a sanding block (OK, I cheated with mime and a bit of pointing and drawing). As the point of language is to make yourself understood though, I was quite pleased with this random achievement - and all before breakfast.

We met Fabiana at 3pm outside ´la escuela´. She´d brought her 2 ´sobrinas´ (nieces), Macarena and Camila (again!) aged 6 and 15, who, all unexpectedly, started helping us sand the board down. Many hands, light work, and C and I were left to paint the board eventually (Fabiana did try to ´help´ but I kept having to stop her making a mess and offering un-needed advice, in Spanish, bless her).

Fabiana, Macarena, Camila and C get sanding

Macarena, with sooty moustache from the sanding

Macarena shows off her sooty hands. Cute, huh?!

In between coats, C & I went out for a little break and casually watched a few local boys playing a footy game on the red-earth pitch over the road. Little Macarena, who had become our unofficial ´helper´ followed us out. She shyly informed us she didn´t like football but loves ´el basket´ (basketball is huge out here too) and then started hiding behind things and appearing as I played at ´Donde es Macarena?!´.

As we sipped maté in the sun with Fabriana and Camila, F informed us her nieces actually had 4 other ´hermanos´ who lives in a ´refugio´ as their father had died of leukaemia five years previously. Their mother didn´t care about her 6 kids, and F had taken these two girls in to raise with her own son, Lucas, 11, but unfortunately she couldn´t take them all in as her house was too small. (Are you amazed I´m understanding this much Spanish?! I am!).

I thought of the kids at C´s hellish-sounding refugio and shuddered. How could their mother could give up on her six children and split the family up like that? And how amazing is F, taking in these children, holding down a job and renovating her school in her spare time? I found out today that she, the head and another school director, Cristina (the one who keeps trying to get me off with the maths teacher), also attacked the guttering, roofing, gardens and changed the rotten windows, helped by money from donations.

It´s obvious F adores children, and seeing her with the kids at school, that they do her. Camila sweetly leant in, kissed her ´tia´ (auntie) and said ´Ella es mi madre´.
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Second coat and the board, I have to say, looks spanking new. I´ll post some pics when I´ve worked out how to do it. My slight fear is that my baby-Spanish has meant we got paint that was merely the *colour* of a green blackboard as opposed to actual blackboard paint (it had a picture of a house on the tin, confusingly). I´ll see on Monday when I can´t rub the words off, I guess!

That´s not real chalk. It´s a pen top. The camera *does* lie, see.

We left F and the kids at their little house (it is *tiny*), played with her dog ´Junior´ for a bit and headed home, exhausted by an honest day´s graft in the heat.

Dinner tonight was a girls night in (Flo, Mariana, Silvina, me, Camila the dog...and C). Lots of banter, mainly at poor C´s expense, being the only man...and M commented how much my Spanish had come on too. Yay!

We looked at the kids on C´s camera, and I did end up shedding a tipsy tear when I saw the kid he´d bonded with most, a 4 year old boy who looks like a tiny Tiger Woods, with a face that lights up when he smiles, which C said, is a lot. What chance do these kids have? What happens when we (and other voluntarios, who bond with these kids) leave?

As I type, C´s gone to bed, he´s been wiped out all day, I guess after a very intense week, and Flo and her chicas are having a drink before going clubbing (it´s midnight and they´ve not headed out yet).

After today´s manual labour, I´m ready for bed too...

Bummer...I *am* getting old...!

Straight to the top of the class...

Sorry I´ve not blogged for the last few days - they´ve been whizzing by in a routine of walk to work with more books for my new classes (the ladies at the stationery store know me very well by now), classes, then I mark all the way through lunch so I don´t have to carry the bleedin´things back again, power-walk home to grab some food (usually a whole green pepper, cucumber - they´re a third the size of ours - two plum tomatoes, a corn on the cob and a bread roll from Elsa, the grocer across the road) before 1.5 hours Spanish with Norma.

Late arvo, we usually take a walk into town for yet more stuff for our projects. C wanted some more cheap clothes too, his stuff is too nice (I was better prepared, my travel/festival stuff is mainly Primark) and ends up getting trashed by the kids. On Tuesday he´d had a dirty nappy thrown at him which hit him square on the chest.

Wednesday we bought some outdoor paint so they could paint goals and a penalty area (although C is not sure where any of the 17 balls he´s so far brought into the refuge have gone), plus a few simpler things like hopscotch so the kids have some games that they can´t lose, steal, hoard or trash.

That evening we had a crisis meeting with V. I won´t bore you with the details - C monopolised the conversation, Catherine didn´t much chance to speak and I´d heard it all before, so I got up halfway through and went online for a bit.

C said to me earlier that he thinks Catherine is being too sunny and ´Mary Poppins´, unrealistic in what they can achieve, whilst he is ´just being realistic´, but I know which take is slowly driving me ´un poco loco´.

V then turned to me and asked how I was getting on. Before I had chance to answer, she said that Graciela and Fabiana loved me and had said I was the BEST volunteer they had ever had...YAY!!! Anyone who knows me knows I can be quite tough on myself, so you can imagine this was a massive boost.

My only question to V was as I´m loving the school and the refuge sounds like hell on earth, could I stay doing what I was doing?

She said they have a break for 2 weeks in July (winter holidays!) so I may do a short stint at the refuge still, or, she suggested another refuge which is smaller and apparently better run. She was, to be fair, embarrassed that her volunteers had had such a bad experience and actually said that she would look into i-to-i not supporting that project any more, which probably made us all feel worse. What happens to the kids then?

Apparently the lady who runs it is seriously ill in hospital, has been for a month, which is why it´s all descended into a filthy, wild, chaotic mess. The children, C said, have reverted to animals. I´m thinking Lord of the Flies, but smellier.

In the end though, C agreed to see the week out and think about things.
________

Thursday 15th May

C visibly struggled to face the day when his alarm went off. I felt guilty as I, by contrast, was full of beans and raring to go, day two with 6b. (No 5b, so I had a tiny lie-in).

He moaned about having to do the painting in the yard, how they wouldn´t be able to get a quiet moment to do it, how he was really rubbish at drawing, etc etc. I sat down and drew him a few simple shapes and ideas, memories from my own playground. One was a winding snake, stripey, really simple - with a head and forked tongue. We´d run along the path that windy snake made for hours if we could...I´ve no idea why to this day.

C frowned. He didn´t feel capable of drawing a snake, so I quickly came up with other games that could be done with parallel lines and numbers, making myself later for work in the process.

Everything I did made no difference. Frustrated and exhausted from lack of sleep, I let rip.

I said since we´d arrived he´d done nothing but moan, every conversation had to be monopolised by how bad it was for him, he´s moaned so much he´s managed to put me off the other project too, yet Catherine was coping, how come? That we all have our troubles, nothing is ideal for any of us, but that´s what we´re here for and he should just get a grip and GET ON WITH IT. My project was difficult at first too - and I´m the only volunteer there, it could have been a lonely existence - but I just got stuck in. PLUS when I do try to help him by listening, advising or helping in a practical way (the games, helping them buy special paint for the tarmac in my slightly-better Spanish, paying for his project equipment with the money I raised), all he does is moan some more, and frankly, I was getting SICK of it.

He looked at me, stunned at my sudden outburst, thanked me curtly for bringing those points to his attention and walked out of the door, without a kiss goodbye.
__________

My earlier rant seemed to work. When I called C later to check in (and apologise), he said he´d talked to Catherine, pulled his socks up and decided he wasn´t going to let those kids down.

And as luck would have it, Catherine could paint snakes.
_______

I was exhausted that evening so had a disco nap 7-8.15 and woke disorientated, thinking first it was the middle of the night and where was C, then ´Oh God, I´ve slept in and I´ve got 4a and 4b today!´. A quick check of the time and I calmed down and read a bit of (a now out-of-date) ´Heat´ magazine. I´m rationing these silly little tastes of home.

That night all of us i-to-i ´voluntarios´ (Catherine, London girls Jen & Kat who are doing C´s next football project for 2 weeks, Gail and Katrina - an American mother and daughter working on a cnservation project for two weeks, and later, Glaswegian Adam and Irish Steve who work part-time at the refuge after their footie project - I hadn´t met the guys until tonight, but knew the rest from our orientation day) went to an Argentinian barbecue at V´s.

C tucked into the meat like a man possessed (lovely options for the 3 veggies...) and we all swapped our experiences voraciously, OD´ing on the fact we could speak English all night and not have to struggle for vocabulary for once.

Poor Katrina was sporting a rather fat bandage on her finger where a monkey had bitten through her finger (to the bone, apparently - yeuk - she´s getting rabies jabs) which made a great story, but I did have to reel C in from telling them about the dirty nappy incident as we were all eating.

Party boys Adam and Steve were up for going bowling. I am a bit of a demon on the lanes, the only sport I´m any good at, weirdly, so I instantly got a bit competitive and decided to stop drinking more ´vino tinto´.

Then Catherine pointed out it was gone 1am and I suddenly got tired, realising I would have 50 new kids to cope with the next day in two classes, plus 50 more books to carry in, and there was just no way I´d do it functioning on 3 hours sleep. C decided to stick with me, and so us 3 party poopers left the kids to play. I feel responsible for my kids though, and just can´t do this job with a hangover (a state which is virtually *de rigeur* in media!)

It´s alright for the others - they just swing the kids around, kick a ball about, paint a ´muriel´, muck out a monkey, and then they´re done. I´m shaping young minds!

We promised the guys we´d join them Friday at´Power´, (seeing as we never made it that far last Saturday...I´m such a lightweight...)
______

Friday: I bounded into work, looking forward to the day ahead.

I bought 2 reams of photocopy paper for the school copier on the way in as I was warned by Fabiana not to make too many copies as the school hadn´t got much money...but equally, the kids have no textbooks, so what am I to do?!

On Wednesday when when I was marking 6b´s work, I realised that the kids were making the same mistakes - and it wasn´t my writing, either. Their blackboard is so old and faded, it´s almost impossible to see anything written on it. How they learn anything, I have no idea. I brought it up with V and C & I are going to try and find some blackboard paint and sort it out. The only time they can let us do it is Saturday.

Fabiana thanked me for offering to do this. She told me that things were even worse two years ago and that last year three of the teachers, including herself, had taken it upon themselves to paint the school throughout. I asked how many days it took and she said ages, they did it little by little and paid for it out of their own pocket. And these ladies don´t get paid very much.

Fabiana had asked me what I did in England and when I explained I used to work for Él Telegrafico´ but gave it all up to come out here and now had ´no trabaje´ when I go back, she shook her head disbelievingly and said I was mad.

You check my highlights though...did you have as good a week as this...?

1) Today, some of the boys from 6a running over as I walked through the school gates, excitedly yelling ´Hi teacher!´ and asking me if I was taking their class that morning. I was secretly thrilled they looked so crest-fallen when I said not, but they did perk up when I added ´a lunes!´ (on Monday).

2) Pretty much every child I´d taught waved, smiled or yelled ´Hello!´ or ´Hi Teacher!´ as I walked to and from classes / the staff room today.

3) A pudgy boy, one of the ones who gave me a hard time on Monday, high-fived me yesterday.

4) One of my little girls in 4b today returned shyly as I was packing up and gave me a wrapped boiled sweet.

5) All the kids falling over themselves to carry my bags, books, etc to the staffroom after lessons.

6) The look on the kids´ faces when they realise the pens I handed out did not have to be returned and are, in fact, for them to keep.

7) The fact that I´ve told all my classes I´m ´veinte-siete´ (27) years old and they believe me. (One little boy, 10, even put up his hand at this information and informed me that ´Mi madre es veinte-seis´ - 26)

8) Me understanding and joining in on staffroom banter. Cristina keeps trying to get me off with the maths teacher, who, according to her is ´muy lindo´. I informed her ´hablo uno nobio´, which isn´t as weird as it sounds, as the Spanish pronounce ´b´ as ´v´ and the word actually means ´boyfriend´. (Which means I´m a ´nobia´. Nice.)

9) Graciela the Head, giving me a badge that the staff wear and telling the rest of the team that I was now a colleague. I proudly put it on.

10) ´Torta de chocla´ (a local corn cake) and salad for lunch, in the sun. Healthier, tastier and cheaper than anything my chums at the Telegraph will find in the canteen, I thought.

11) Having a conversation and proper banter with the cafe owner and his staff in Spanish.

12) Fabiana having saved me a slice of her birthday cake and offering it to me today. Yum.

13) THIS IS THE BEST ONE. Marking a little boy´s work yesterday who had made lots of mistakes in my first class. I hadn´t wanted to discourage him, so merely put ´Buen´, whilst his classmates got ´Muy buen, Augustin!´ and a red cartoon ´Goofy´ stamp (one of those self inking things) with the word ´GOOD!´underneath it. If their work is faultless, they get ´Éxcelente, Brenda!´, the Goofy stamp AND a shiny sticker (the stakes are higher now I´m running low).
Day two: his second set of work was *faultless*. He´d raised his game to get the reward! I wrote ´Excelente! Perfecto, Santiago!´, stamped Goofy on his work and adorned the page with a shiny red ladyird, ecstatically.

I started thinking yesterday that if I´m making that much of a difference to that little boy in 24 hours, then what could I do in a year? I casually mentioned to C that I could afford to live out here and do this for longer if I rented my house out in London. He said nothing.

Anyway C´s back and I need a disco nap if I´m to give the *real* twenty somethings a run for their money tonight :)

Must try harder...

I didn´t blog yesterday. It was all a bit depressing.

I did my first day at school. I had, until Sunday night (thanks to a power cut that prevented me from accessing my emails till about 9.30pm), no idea of my timetable, the ages of the kids I was teaching, nor what they had been taught previously or what levels they were at.

Flo had kindly lent me a few of the books she had used when she was 9 or 10. Honestly, the language and grammar in there would flummox most 16 year olds in England, never mind Argentina. I had to take into account that she´d been to a private school and was very well educated by Argentinian (or any) standards. She´s also frighteningly intelligent, and as she´s doing her degree in Psychology, I frequently see her with her head in a book by Jung or Freud.

I looked at my email. My kids, by contrast, had learnt numbers, weather, days of the week, etc.

A month ago.

The last time they´d had any tuition in English at all.

I´d have to start from scratch.
_____

Next day, I went in, really quite unprepared for what hit me.

Veronica drove me to the school for the first day and introduced me to the teachers, none of whom spoke any English. Iwas introduced to ´Susan´ who I was told (in Spanish) would sit in my class and help me, keep an eye on the kids and the class, 5a (9-10 year olds).

Turns out, Susan was as good as useless, using the time to do some marking, and ignored me, head down, ´busy´ when I approached her for some help (when the class was running riot, and I had no idea how to say ´Sit down and be quiet´). She might as well have been wearing a Walkman (retro reference I know, but you haven´t seen her hair...).

Hard though, as only one or two of the kids had paper to write on, a couple had mini blackboards which allowed them to write about 6 words (and then have to rub them out to fit more on) and the rest, unable to take anything down, or in, were at best reduced to watching me, or at worst, got bored and started running around the class, play fighting and asking to go to ´los banos´ (about 7 of them needed a wee, apparently, and I hadn´t sufficient Spanish or experience to know they were, quite literally, taking the piss, as Catherine told me later that evening).

I ended the class a nervous wreck and dreading the older kids of 6a. In the interim break, I managed to make myself understood to the deputy head, Fabiana, a smiley, friendly earth-mother of a woman, that ´la classe ´cinco ah´ ese un poco ´waaaaaah!!!´´whilst waving my hands madly. Thankfully she understood.

She then gave 6a a pep talk (in Spanish, natch), which basically told them I´d come a long way and they were to be polite, well-mannered, listen to me, not be naughty - or else I´d go back home. It seemed to work, and with renewed confidence, I started to find my mojo.

The class ended without too much disaster (and only one legitimate ´banos´visit for a girl, who had to take some medication) but I still left an emotional and nervous wreck.

I thought of friends and rellies of mine who are teachers and wondered how they do it. I am used to meetings with people who are interested in what I have to say (or at least fake it) and certainly don´t start throwing stuff at each other when their concentration wanes. Can you imagine that in a pitch?!?!

C and Catherine returned later from their stint in ´Él Refugio´, shell-shocked. They´d had an even worse day. The first thing C had to do that day was clean up a pile of human excrement on the floor, which a child had left in the night.

The ´refuge´ (a misnomer, if ever there was one) has about 30 kids, and the building has one bathroom, which is filthy and frequently overflowing (and why the kids ´go´ anywhere else). They have no toys, most sleep in the same room as they eat, and others sleep in the hallway. There are 2 kids with learning difficulties who are left to cause havoc. They punch and hit out in their frustration (they are 6 and 4 and can´t talk, C says they are feral), and the other kids do the same back, bully, gang up and jump on them. Meanwhile, the refuge ´workers´ sit and watch TV. They are on minimum wage and basically don´t give a damn. C said it was like a living hell. He looked tired and close to tears.

Suddenly my day didn´t seem so bad.

We spent the afternoon scouring the shops for provisions for the kids on both projects - which I am thankfully able to do without worry, thanks to the money my friends and family generously raised before the trip. Basic toys, crayons, paper and cleaning up stuff, antiseptic and baby wipes, etc for the refuge, exercise books, chalk and stationery for my kids. (I already have 150 pens thanks to the lovely lady at Barclays who gave them to my dad for my project - who says banks are all money-grabbing w*nkers, eh?!)

Then a bottle of fizzy plonk (2 quid!) for Catherine and me and 3 beers for C, which we sat and drank like down-and-outs, on a bench (...it´s not our house, so we can´t really bring mates back to have a few drinks and chain-smoke the stress away, and we´re on a budget, ok?!), and just exorcised our first-day demons.

Then C and I sat up till midnight sorting out my textbooks (turns out I´d actually bought loose leaf, not books, thanks to my baby-Spanish, so we had to individually tie each pack of paper sheets together through the holes with bits of string...80 in all) and I drew to the point of exhaustion - more than 20 animals for the following day´s lesson.
_____

Tuesday. Woke feeling sick with nerves and exhausted. Forced breakfast down. Walked 40 mins to school with 80 bloody makeshift exercise books in my bag (bloody heavy, if you wondered).

In the staffroom, as I rubbed my aching shoulders, Fabiela made me a cup of ´maté´ (Argentinian tea, they´re all at it) with milk and too much sugar, and I politely sipped it whilst I did more prep. I felt the maté start to rise as 9 oclock drew near. As Fabiana took me back to 5a, I nearly threw up with nerves.

I took a deep breath and entered with a smile on my face, and after F´s pep talk and my preparation, the lessons this time seemed to flow.

Bringing the kids books and pens worked a treat, and when they did good work, I gave them a shiny sticker (thanks mum!).

A few of them even gave me hugs and kisses, one girl shyly said ´Thank you for the pen´ as she left, and there were a group of boys (and one girl) clamouring to help me carry my books, bags and other stuff to my next class. Think I´m getting somewhere and the feeling is amazing.

6a were even better. They are a bit more advanced, so we quickly revised yesterdays numbers, dates, months, days and moved onto ´animals´. My drawings impressed some of the cool kids, and with the impressions (´Woof!´, ´Oo! Oo!´ etc - that was a monkey btw), we seemed to be finally having FUN.

I spent the next 2.5 hours marking the work in the staffroom and giving out stickers to top mark pupils. Met Graciela, the Headmistress and she was very interested in what I was doing - and kept telling me (again in Spanish, don´t ever think these conversations are easy!!!) I was doing really well, I seemed really very well prepared (quelle surprise, eh?!), she was very pleased with my work and to keep it up.

I allowed myself a little inner glow of pride as I realised I hadn´t been feeling nauseous since 9.10.
___________

Back at the ranch and our daily 2.30 language lessons with Norma are turning into somewhat of a therapy session for C and Catherine. All they can talk about is how awful their day has been, and whilst I´m there to learn Spanish and do occasionally have to reel them in a bit, I can´t begrudge them having to get it off their chest. Norma is easier to talk to about it than most, with her fluent English, wisdom and years of experience. Our lessons today and yesterday pretty much consisted of learning the phrases for ´Sit down and listen´ (for all of us), and sadly, ´don´t kick/fight/spit at/punch me´ for them.

I´ve not yet used my cocktail ordering skills.

Afternoon spent buying paint/brushes, paper, and more toys for the refuge and 80 more books for my new classes, then back to do more lesson plans.

Dinner with Flo and her eldest sister Mariana (a stunning Penelope Cruz lookalike) turned out to be a 3 hour therapy session for C. He really wanted to walk out this morning, and is struggling with that. He´s not a quitter, but he came out because he wanted to make a difference, and because conditions are so desperate, nothing he feels he does will make much difference. Not now, and certainly not in the long-term. The toys they brought yesterday have already been trashed, shredded or stolen, hidden away - today he didn´t see any of them.

He is caught between moving to a project where he gets a sense of achievement, and abandoning those who need him most. I could only support him by saying if he didn´t want to go there, then I wouldn´t do the refuge project either (he said he really wouldn´t want me in there anyway and to be honest, I´m starting to have the fear already, and I´m already making progress at the school...) BUT if he chose to stick it out, then I would do it too. Solidarnosc and all that.

Flo and Mariana said apparently this is normal and most volunteers end up in tears by now. But upshot is, he´s going to do this week and see how he feels.

It´s gone midnight here and I have two new classes tomorrow, kinda back to square one.

Wish me luck - and C more...

My turn to panic

I´m having a major crisis of confidence today.

We had a yummy but hugely fattening lunch of fried mandioca (a local vegetable, tastes like potato, but a rougher, looser texture so absorbs a *tonne* of oil), stuffed cheesey pasta and a tomato sauce (poor Flo, I think she´s missing her meat, and Aida is concerned, I think, with how they will feed us for two months...they talk about meat in every meal already). I am going to end up the size of a house at this rate. Everything veggie here is cheesey and fried. The pizza I had to have last night in a bar was fat and doughy (more Pizza Hut than Domino´s thin crust!). I miss my normal steamed veg and fish diet. Also with having our food provided at the homestay, and not wanting to seem ungrateful at the huge effort they are going to for little ol´ veggie me, I feel powerless to offer to cook, and loathe to make my dietary requirements even more specific.

I´m going for a run later today, when the sun´s not so strong.

My crisis has been quietly sneaking up all week, and Aida and Flo verbalising it brought it glaringly out into the open, namely: if I can´t understand much Spanish, how am I going to communicate with the kids?

The i-to-i handbook says it´s OK to only speak English, as that is how kids will learn fastest, but Flo mentioned a teacher who adopted this policy, and everyone thought she was a bitch for not bothering to try and explain concepts in ways the students would understand (i.e their own language).

I realised I can´t ask the kids to turn to a page in a book, or even to sit down and be quiet in their own language (although I can order a round of drinks, no problem!), and sat glumly in the garden, looking through my 80 page i-to-i document - a fat help in the real world.

C´s well-meant but incessant words of encouragement only served to irritate me, so I asked him to leave me to mope alone please.

I know I´m blogging as displacement. I should really get back to work. :(