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...