Catch up...week 5...

It´s been ages since I blogged. Sorry about that. We´re supposed to have broadband at our homestay...well, we *do* except Flor is on it all the time, 40% for college work, 60% it seems, for MSNing her mates. She then hovers over you, pointedly, if you manage to jump on briefly to check your emails.

Don´t young people go out and drink in parks any more?!

In frustration, C has virtually given up his blog (don´t worry, mine´s funnier), but in my determination here I am in a crappy internet café (like a common student), on a keyboard with some of the keys faded completely and others with the letters rewritten on bits of paper and stuck on with sellotape.

The place is called ´Cyberrott´, which sounds like a fungal infection to me. C said it sounds like a computer virus...geddit?!).

You have got to admire my dedication to the cause...i.e keeping you amused dear readers - so keep those little messages coming!
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Monday: it chucked it down ALL day, I seriously didn´t know there was that much rain in the sky. Today was meant to be my school´s 75th birthday party. I texted V to check if it was on. She phoned the school and they said they would ´probably´ cancel, in which case I texted V t say I would ´probably´ stay in bed! I texted John & Ali to let them know and had a BIG SLEEP. Couldn´t venture out all day; the rugby we were invited to wouldn´t have been on, but I felt bad we didn´t go to the refugio as C & I had promised the kids we´d be back today. C was meant to start his footy project today, but rain stopped play, again.

Tuesday: back to school. John had slept in (he said his alarm didn´t go off, I reckoned it was a chica...) so Ali & I took 5a alone.

They were really really naughty today. Acting up, running around like proper LOONS.

I put it down to the fact they´d not been in school for 4 days, and probably not even been able to play outside due to the weather (these kids won´t have the luxury of Wiis or X-Boxes) and were a little stir-crazy.

Or it could have been the E-numbers and sugar in the sweets and luminous fizzy pop the kids consume throughout their lessons. I´m not sure the teachers have made a connection between this diet and that nut-nut behaviour, but it´s a bit difficult to enforce a no eating/drinking rule as a voluntary teacher, when the permanent staff don´t seem to give a toss.

Anyway, we started ´Partes del Cuerpo´. Oh how the kids laughed when we got to "bottom" and I had to point at my arse.

Damn John for not being there, I was going to use him for that one.

There was a bizarre break in proceedings when a scruffy random woman was let in (by their form teacher!!!) to start selling Boca souvenirs (presumably for Father´s Day, C said, but *still!* in my class?!?!?) and she hawked her wares, showing off various plaster plaques; horses, ties, horseshoes and football shirts, painted in Boca Juniors´ blue & yellow stripes. How very strange. The kids seemed as bemused as Ali & I were, and, not surprisingly, didn´t buy any of her tat.

BTW They *do* celebrate Father´s Day here (Dia del Papa), but I have searched up and down for a card for weeks. No cards! No card shops! Not even any postcards! Bizarre. I found some truly crappy birthday cards, but they didn´t seem appropriate, so sorry, Dad. Happy Father´s Day!

Back to the lesson. On the plus side, at the end of a difficult class, one of the fat kids who´d given me a hard time in the first week, Geronimo (really bright kid), made me an origami frog that actually hops! And Ali got a homemade bracelet from one of the girls. Cute. I do like 5a, they´re a rewarding class to teach.

6a were much harder work (I don´t like this class so much, there´s a few too many that think they´re too cool, and therefore it´s really hard to reel them all in), but we managed between the 3 of us to get through it.

And we used John´s bum this time.
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Tuesday evening: TANGO - yay! I like that it´s on Tuesday at it makes me feel closer to my girl-friends back home, who I usually do my regular dance class with. Different dance though!

We´re doing OK, C & I. John & Ali joined us again tonight and new girl Kristen came along. (NB: not KIRsten, who´s the Aussie, KRIsten who´s new and from Florida, Claro?! Bueno. I´ll use their countries of origin in future so you know I´m not misstyping)

As we were 3 girls and 2 boys, we mixed it up a bit and shared the John & C man-love. This did mean that at any one time, one of us chicas was left hovering like a wallflower at a 50´s school prom.

However, that didn´t last long, some of the local men, probably glad of some younger laydees in the room, came over and asked us to dance.

NOT the dashing one with the chiseled cheekbones and fancy footwork, before you get all excited. *He* stuck to a *tiny*, cute, lithe and petite girl of about 19 with the pertest arse ever, wearing a figure-hugging grey towelling tracksuit (John was agog, but C had the grace to pretend not to notice!) who was equally slinky-of hip and fleet of foot.

No, I got an old feller in his 70s, about my height (or shorter) and rotund of frame, who gallantly took me by the hand and asked me to dance.

I thought "Sweet! I might learn a thing or two from this old-timer", and started the ´one, two, three...´ I´d been taught. I didn´t get past the first step.

He appeared to be doing a jig, hopping from one foot to the other very fast whilst wiggling his hips and turning me round and round the floor, motioning that I follow. I had to anyway, to prevent my feet getting trodden on. It was quiet the weirdest dance ever, and I´m convinced it wasn´t Tango!

My next new partner was a man in his late 30s, Martin, who spoke very good English and actually taught us a few new moves. Softly-spoken and studious-looking, he told me he was an actor (I thought), but then Ali said he´d said "architect" to her, which seems more like it.

So we´re making local friends now...I´m really enjoying living here and really not missing the turmoils of London life at all, which is the biggest surprise ever. I always thought I was a London girl through and through.

We went for a drink after (Ali headed home early, but Tom came out to join us). I wasn´t feeling great so had water and a smidge of beer (couldn´t bear the thought of wine!), but we had a good evening chatting about all John´s conquests.

He´s met a local girl called Susannah who even cooked him lunch today, although Tom said he reckoned she was going to be hard work as she only allowed John a kiss on the cheek so far after two ´dates´.

Anyway C told me later he reckons John´s now got the hots for US Kristen.

Honestly, the boy is one big walking hormone! Oh to be 19 again, eh?!

Kristen *is* very pretty in a clean-cut, high-school cheerleader, All-American girl-next-door kinda way. Straight long light brown hair, clear skin, cute little button nose, perfect white teeth.

That´s where the cliché ends though; she´s also funny, self-deprecating, thoughtful and intelligent (Lisa, hon, I´ve found another one!).

She has just completed a degree in Speech Therapy and I was quietly impressed when C told me that she wishes to transfer to his old refuge project as the one she is at is relatively clean and happy (12 kids as opposed to C´s 30 or 40), already has Leanne (the other new voluntaria whose name I´d forgotten when I introduced them a few days ago) and Finula working there, and K felt she could better use her therapy skills with Danny & Walter, the two special needs boys, as well as make more of a difference with the other kids.

C too, is reconsidering going back to the refuge. His time is split between two football projects now, but one, it appears, already has a local coach who has it under control, and C´s role is reduced to that of gopher (fetch balls, stand there as a marker - a job, he pointed out, a plastic cone could do). Not really helping anyone, is it?!

It´s an amazing turnaround (remember how he moaned in the first week?!) and I´m really proud of him, and K, for not taking the easier option.

I think he´s really bonded with, and is missing those kids too.

I suggested he do the one footy project where he *is* of use, and then spend the other 3 days in the refugio. V is cool with that, too.

Wednesday: Really bad tummy ache and didn´t sleep all night, dunno if something I ate, so took the day off. Ali & John took 5b & 6b for ´Partes del cuerpo´ today. Ali came over to get the notes and I went back to bed, slept all day.

Later (10 ish), I was persuaded to go out as it was Tom´s last big night out before we go to Iguazu Falls (C & I & Oz Kirsten & Ali) and Tom finishes this Friday. He´d arranged for bowling. Now I´ve told you before I get all competitive, but I kept a low profile about it.

Just as well. I bowled probably the worst game of my life, finishing 2nd from bottom. C came top. I was SO angry with myself; the last time I bowled (at my emap leaving do) I was the highest scoring girl, with 120-something, so this was *appalling*.

I put it down to not being used to bowling Southern Hemisphere (well, gravity´s upside-down here, innit?). Yeah.

Or more likely, because I wasn´t feeling well, and therefore not drinking.

We went off for an earlyish night whilst Tom, John, US Kristen and Leanne went off to the (in)famous Cristobal.

C told me John had been taking photos of US Kristen´s behind as she was bowling. His courtship rituals are nothing if not subtle. Oz Kristen, Ali and I have started using the word "SUB-TUL!" (pronouncing the ´B´) to when he does stuff like that. Like "Oh! John´s being SUB-TUL again!"

(Should US Kristen read this, John´s cover´s blown. I know Tom´s reading this (Hi!) and finding it funny). Think he´ll not be successful though, she´s 26 and I´m not sure it´s reciprocal. She apparently went home from Cristobal early, so John sloped off and left Tom and Leanne alone together...(woooh! A budding blarney romance! Shame it´s Tom´s last week...and as he pointed out, he came all this way, only to meet an Irish girl...)

Thursday - more torrential rain. No school (again) as they had shut for cleaning; their birthday party had been postponed till tomorrow. John had arranged to come round so he could get some of my pics and I could transfer all his stuff onto a USB stick - Flor hovered over the computer *again* when she came in for our last 15 mins. (Jeez! This is really winding me up! It makes us feel really uncomfortable)

We headed into town for 1pm lunch (in the only place that´s not closed for siesta, the shopping mall) with Ali, Tom and Finula (the other newbie) who´d been in bed with flu all week. John had cancelled his date with Susannah by *text* to join us (I did tell him he should call her, like a man). He said she´s getting "a bit clingy" (after 2 dates!) and she´s "not that pretty" (like US Kristen?!). Ah the fickleness of youth (or is that just men?)

Everyone was knackered Thursday, so we didn´t do anything in the evening. Good to give the old liver a break and I´m still not feeling right or sleeping well.

Friday am: school birthday party. A balloon arc and big banners on approach, it looked so promising, but turned out to be a *lot* of speeches, a police band, a few flag-bearers, a few class songs, it was over in 1.5 hours, and wasn´t really very party-like, but there you go.

A lovely day, really hot, so I think the school missed a trick in not making some money selling fizzy pop, sweets and souvenirs for profit (they do it in the lessons, after all).

And a bouncy castle and coconut shy would have gone down fantastico!

That same morning, C went down to the refugio, and it fair warmed the cockles of my heart to hear later, that he was virtually mobbed by every single kid in there. It took him 5 minutes to get through the door as they shouted his name and reached to grab and touch him. He said he felt like a star. They obviously really missed him, as he did them.

It´s already really upsetting me, the thought of going home and never seeing these kids again, never knowing how their lives turned out. We can´t keep in touch with them; they are largely illiterate and of course will not have access to computers/email, and the staff (when in evidence) are the same in those respects.

I kinda wished I was doing the refugio project now, these kids so need attention and love, but I made my decision to stay at the school for valid reasons, and I can´t chop & change. I can´t wait to go there again though, I´ll work some afternoons in with C if possible whilst we´re here.

That afternoon, C&I packed for our weekend trip to Iguazu Falls (6 hours North, and predicted 25 degrees and sunny, YAY!) this weekend. We´ve taken 2 nights at the Hostel Inn (the idea of a hostel sounded horrid - we´re a bit over dorms! - but I checked the website, it was recommended and I could book us a private room with its own bathroom, so phew!).

Oz Kirsten & Ali are following on the night bus to save a night´s stay (and money), but we quite liked the idea of an evening to ourselves, the first we´ve had since we got here.

I have to head back ´home´ for dinner soon, and I´m nearing 2 hours logged up here, so I´ll do a separate post about our trip, hopefully tomorrow - it´s a Bank Holiday, so no work (again!), although I´m not sure if the cafés will be open.

This may have to keep you going for a bit. Ciao!