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´.
___

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. :(