A Picture of Posadas

Well Readers,

A few days in to the project and I´m settled in, here in Posadas. It seems I´ve saved the best home stay until last...Christina and Julian are my age (although Christina hit 30 yesterday!) They are lovely, make me laugh (and make me dinner!) and make excellent hosts. I did a double take yesterday when Julian waltzed down wearing a Hearts top though....the last volunteer to stay was also from Auld Reekie.

I am delighted to say that now I have shipped all my winter clothes home the temperature dropped down from theoppressive 39.c which it was earlier in the week to something around 18.c, amid much thunder and lightening. woo-hoo! I am so chuffed!

As for the placement........well I´ve started at the orphanage in the mornings, butthe girls home in the afternoon hasn´t been organised yet. The orphanage is notactually an orphanage, it´s really a day care centre for children who´s parents bothhave to work and can´t fund child care. The average salary is 800 pesos (133 pounds)per month, which only covers the rental of a pokey 2 bedroom place. Most of these families are in temporary/irregular work such as agricultural labour etc so won´t earn as much as that.

My job is not the teaching English task I was prepared for, which is a disappointment because I´d prepared for it. Instead I am in the nursery with the toddlers. There are nine toddlers to one nurserynurse. During the 8am-12pm slot they are fed twice, and each one bathed. She´s a busywoman! Engaging the children in activities is less of a priority. Crayons etc are generally not brought out until there´s trouble. My first thought was if there was more stimulation perhaps there would be less trouble....easy for me to say!!!!

I am now on bath duties. Rather unfortunately the first one I changed andbathed had one almighty upset stomach. The bath in fact is a sink, and the washingequipment for the babies and toddlers is a brillo pad (Yes, a brillo pad. ouch!). So after I´dcleaned/washed Mr Toddler in the sink I dried him off etc and put him back in thenursery. I then discovered that I´d used the only cloth and towel so that all theothers in my group as well as the other 10 in the babies group got washed with thesame cloth and dried with the same towel! A complete hygiene disaster.

On Wednesday there were no children in the group. A combined total of 2 in the centre (pictured) It wasn´t because of the stomach upset.....they are dropped off at the centre regardless of that. Instead, it was the weather. When it rains heavily people don´t go to work, so they keep their children at home. I turned up with the the other volunteer, and after sitting for a while drinking mate with the other staff, I asked if there was anything useful I could do. I could see plenty of things to be doing (like CLEAN) but thought I should ask first. There wasn´t enough disinfectant to do much more than the soft play area so after that and revamping a wall display I asked for the next thing to do. They were happily chatting before I interrupted...and the only thing they could think of to do was clean out the cupboard. Only that didn´t involve me apparently so I kept being asked to sit and relax which nearly drove me insane. I thought they would dismiss us if there was nothing to do but they didn´t. So after a while of this we asked if there was really nothing to do, could we go.

Thursday I had a very dodgy stomach so I am ashamed to say I didn´t go in (either brought on by poor hygiene in the centre, or by a big night out with wine and shellfish the night before with the other volunteers). And Friday I got a call to say the centre was closed for the day. So really volunteer time has been pretty short so far. I hope I start at the girl´s home next week. Otherwise, I´ll feel a bit superfluous. Overall not quite what I had in mind, but I am sure things will pick up.

The city of Posadas has about 300,000 people and probably isn´t the kind of place you´d linger in unless you had cause to. But as with most places, with the exception of Cumbernauld and Skegness, it´s growing on me the longer I spend in it. Mum found a backpackers´blog; they clearly didn´t like Posadas but then they didn´t give it very long and their judgement was based on their hostel and a quick wander round. I am sure I have judged other towns on the same criteria, but thankfully the more I see of Posadas the better it gets. For those with cash to spend there are plenty pavement cafes (pictured here at Siesta time), a riverside promenade with restaurants and bars and a few expensive shops. But there are also a lot of people with no money. 50% of this province live below the poverty line. It´s not very visible to the tourist....there are not many beggars. Most of it is hidden in poor neighbourhoods and out of town; you see people living in decrepit vans and shacks by the side of the road.

So, with all this free time the other 4 volunteers and I have been meeting quite a lot. 3 of them are 19, and the other is 34. It´s good to spend time together but I also crave time alone so I am trying to get a balance at the moment. It´s a great program if you are on a post A level gap year. You arrive here, are placed in a friendly family home in a different culture, you have an instant group of friends (other volunteers) to hang out with, and there is a group of locals who watch out for new volunteers in the cafes/bars....in a good way (!).

There´s also the project coordinators on hand who organise the both the conservation and community elements. I am glad I didn´t sign up for the Conservation project; so far they´ve carried a lot of supermarket reject meat and fed it to the animals. I don´t fancy throwing horses´ heads to the big cats myself though. The last volunteer on the community project I am doing was a 75 year old man who was here just before me. So there´s a mixture of people.

The thing I have still to master is the body clock....to get to the day care centre on the bus I have to leave at 7.10am (taxi it´s 7.50am and 90p, but I am not keen to roll up in a taxi). So I can cope with a 6.30am start under normal circumstances, but here, bedtime is never before midnight. Dinner is around 9 or 10pm, and drinks don´t really start until 11.30pm. For example last Saturday the volunteers were meeting for drinks at 10.30pm which I declined as it was late, and I am a long way from town. However, as it transpired my homestay´s parents were coming for dinner and then despite being in their late 60s were meeting their friends sometime around midnight in the town. After his parents cleared off, Julian suggested we went for a drive round the town and an ice cream. It was only midnight after all. As a result of this, the siesta is strictly observed between 12.30pm and 4.30pm. So the high street is completely dead on a Saturday afternoon. As it gets dark though, at 6pm the shops open up again and people are out in force.

Last night was a good example of standard form...I´d been to Corrientes*, the neighbouring town for the day. It´s only 4.5 hours away on the express bus. So I´d been out the house from 9am and when I got back at nearly midnight not all the guests for Christina´s 30th birthday bash had arrived. After the food and drink, dancing started at 2am (which is when the Bailandarios...aka traditional "dance hall" and the discos begin to open). I joined in, but after 2 hours of dancing tuition from the Argentines who really can throw some shapes (that´s a Mr Cree phrase), I thought I could make my escape at 4am before I disgraced my country any further on the dancefloor.

*More on Corrientes and other excursions, and a map next time.

Anyway, time for a much needed SIESTA !

Chao

Salud! (April 18th)

Readers,

Just a quick updte to congratulate my friends on their new arrivals. We toasted baby Matthew´s arrival with some vino tinto (from a french grape, for Cedric) and raised a glass for baby Lucy. So great news.....Louise & Cedric, Luke & Sarah. Salud!

I am delighted to hear they arrived safe and well and I can´t wait to meet them when I come home.

Congratulations!

The Party´s Over!

Well Reader,

There are several blog entries I have written on paper as internet facilities have been limited here near the jungle. I´ll get them typed up as soon as I can, from somewhere where I can add photos.
This is today´s update though...

It´s only 10am but already the temperature here in Misiones Province, in the Northeast of Argentina is 35.c. It´s hot, humid, full of insects and evidence of poverty is everywhere. Whilst the jungle is immensely rich in biodiversity, most of its nearby human inhabitants are not rich in cash. Although in general there is a higher standard of living in Argentina, with less poverty than many of Latin America´s countries poverty is still rife. The discrepancy between rich and poor is also less than other Latin American nations, but again, it´s still very much apparent.

Colin has headed off to Patagonia today, since I now move on to the last part of my itinerary, the month long orphanage work program I signed up to where I am to use my newly aquired TEFL skills to teach the children some English, as well as help out with "other duties", ominously yet to be defined.

Colin will be nearer the other end of the country in 4 hours time by plane, whilst it will take me 5 hours on the express bus to get to the capital of this province, Posadas this afternoon. I am currently in Iguazu at the very North Eastern tip of the country, where it borders Paraguay and Brazil. We spent a day in Brazil, but I´ll be able to walk over the bridge from Posadas to get to Paraguay, if I want to tick of another country.

Posadas is 300km south west of here, and I am told it´s a couple of degrees cooler. It better be! I´ve booked the bus for the afternoon so I can enjoy the aircon in the hottest part of the day.

I think the project in Posadas is going to be a far cry from the cycling trip, the wines of Mendoza, the buzz of Buenos Aires and the Spanish lessons (and spa!) in Bariloche, and some of the lovely places Colin and I stayed in and visited.I can´t help feeling the party´s over! However I am sure a bit of hard work will do me good after all the holidaying........ it will be great to meet new people and hopefully get a better understanding of the country and a sense of community. And of course I hope to be useful too. We´ll wait and see.

Anyway, as I mentioned it hasn´t been easy to find places to blog from in the last week or so but I will post the entries as soon as I can, along with the all important photos. I did try and start writing the blog updates the other night from this web centre but I found I could not settle to write them here and after I squashed something rather nasty which was crawling up my leg I decided to call it a day. Today there´s a pitiful looking man with no legs sliding along the floor near my PC terminal asking for cash. I feel a little more prepared for such things since I went to Malawi, but I am not immune. Nor should I be.

Anyway, time to head for Posadas...Chao!

Musings on Mendoza

So folks, here´s some more words and pics from Argentina.

Colin is a little more settled in to the way of things here now after his first ten days. It did take a while, but it was the same for me on the cycling trip, I guess. Apparently he booked his trip as a challenge, and he´s found plenty of them so far. The poor bellboy (!) at the lovely hotel we stayed in Mendoza hadn´t seen a Paton Panic before. Colin´s feeling better now and has been busy taking photos. I nearly dozed off waiting for him in Plaza España...but I got caught on camera!

Anyway Colin enjoyed his first Mate (Argentine tea, pron. Mat-tay) at the home of an estancia owner. Here he is slurping up the contents of a bull´s testicle aka the mate cup through the bombilla (straw). Tasty!

Mendoza was a bit of a shock to the system after Bariloche, it was a highly refined and sophisticated metropolis full of tree lined wide pavements with cafes and beautiful plazas and delicious food. And proper bitumen roads, and decent cars. Hurrah! Possibly Mendoza was a little too sophisticated for a Gainsborough Gal like myself to feel completely at home in, but I am sure I could get used to it. The city (pop 2 m) was rebuilt after an earthquake one Easter, 150 years ago and most of the city was rebuilt in one go. The buildings in the centre are low rise, ornately designed by a French architect, with 5 beautiful plazas dotted round so people have a safer place to run to in the event of another earthquake. Each street has an irrigation channel beneath it to water the beautiful Plane trees which are mostly taller than the buildings. Because it is so arid, water is very precious - each vineyard gets a share of the water supply from the mountains only once per fortnight.

I tried to drag Colin off to the Episcopal Church on Easter Sunday but needless to say he was delighted when I couldn´t find it. So we went to the park instead. I thought we´d seen most of the city but when we got to the park we discovered it was 5 miles wide - the same width as the island of Jersey. It took a full day to get round it. Most of it was intricately landscaped and manicured and the influences were clearly European. Just like the rest of the city. We later watched some street theatre and had yet another steak for dinner washed down with the all important Malbec.

Since then we´ve from Mendoza and are ensconced in the miniature apartment I rented for us in the leafy Palermo district of Buenos Aires right by the Porsche garage. Just like Colinton. Except the street I´ve to cross to get to the tube station to go to class has 13 lanes of traffic, all on tidal flow. Not that the direction makes much difference.

I have had a few days at the language school here in BA. Colin and I were both checked in for lessons but Colin opted out in the end. Not sure why....he assures me it wasn´t anything to do with the 9 am start the other side of the city!

More on the big city next time.....ahora we must get ready for the dinner and tango show we´ve booked in for with some friends from the language school.

Adios!

Pascua Feliz!

I know it´s not all about chocolate, but..........

A Good Friday

Well, I didn´t quite manage an update before I left Patagonia....here´s what I did write though....

I wanted to spend time more exploring Patagonia, learning about it, but because I am so nosey I keep getting distracted when I meet other visitors so much of my time and thought has been focussed on people I´ve met. Having said that it is hard to get out into "el campo" en solo and sometimes group excersions are a bit tedious. But the countryside is what Patagonia is all about and I am sorry not to have spent more time there. (Pic from Caña Colihue woodland in Puerto Blest, nr Bariloche)

It would be easy to pack back around Patagonia and only see the towns. But it´s the miles and miles (900,000 km² actually) of vast emptiness that makes Patagonian what it is. The population is only 1.7 million which when compared to the UK´s 218,595 km² and 58 million people, makes Lewis looks densely populated. (Pic of glacial river from Valdivian forest near Puerto Blest)

Anyway, here´s what I have been up to.........

Last Saturday I shared the morning with a management consultant from Chicago. Although we worked the same hours and had similar backgrounds and skill sets our ages and salaries were rather different. Unfortunately neither were in my favour. But then he worked for the best management consultancy on the planet. Charge out rates 5 times that of Booz Allan and Andersons...10 times the value apparently. One night he´s staying in the Dorchester and the next he is digging a hole as a restroom on the camp site on his overland camping tour. I didn´t get chance to mention I work for the world´s leading supplier of integrated solutions.

I´ve met a couple of other management consultants about my age but far more investment bankers. Mostly girls who´ve quit once they´ve got their bonus...... fed up with working in the City but armed with a plane ticket and some cash. The single en suite rooms in hostels seem to fill up their single rooms quickly with such people who have the money to stay in a hotel but the desire to stay in a hostel and meet other people. I´ve also chatted to lots of women in their 50s, 60s andone who´s in her 70s who are travelling solo. Everyone has a story and it´s usually interesting to hear it.

Before I left Bariloche I went on a "canopy tour" joining up with a friendly Israeli family. Apparently a canopy tour (pictured) constitutes for ecotourism...........I assume it is because one travels by the power of gravity through a forest canopy (on a zip wire) offering the chance to view the trees from above. I´ll overlook the small matter of 50 miles worth of fuel to get to the start point and the noise made by the wires which would scare any winged/legged living thing away. The wires were up to 70m off the ground, and the descent at the end was by rope. I am so glad they didn´t tell me that before we started. I was more amazed that the guides´ child, aged 3.5 years went on some of the 200m runs on his own, and did the descent on the rope alone. The descent depended on the descendant´s (?) ability to control the rope as per abseiling...a glove-behind-back operation. Kiddy managed absolutely fine on his own. But he is only three and a half!!! Ironically he was much better at controlling the abseiling rope than he was his personal plumbing....a little mishap on the walk home. With rent costing 100 pounds a month for the most modest studio flat and salaries averaging 125 pounds per month, child care is out of the question for some working parents, so children do seem to hang about the workplace a lot. Still, the Isreali family and I both found it hard to believe the little boy was "learning the ropes" at such an early age.

Before my 20 hour bus ride up to Mendoza (waiting area for buses- pic on left -remarkably like a disused rail line) I had chance to look round the shops in Bariloche...there´s an artesans´ market on the street too where you can buy direct from the craftsman. Some of their wares I could have put together myself in half an hour with a Pritt Stick, but for the most part the items are beautifully crafted. I only hover at stands if the guy looks vaguely clean and honest (getting very predjudice and judgemental in my old age!). The average hourly pay seems to be 60 pence, excluding material costs and other overheads. Which is nothing when you consider a coffee and cake is three pounds in the coffee shop opposite the market.

Monday (2nd) was the 25th anniversary of the invasion of Los Malvinas (ahem, Falklands) by Argentina, but there were few commemorative public events around Bariloche but loads of media coverage. I have spoken to various people about it and have heard some interesting views. Not much anger or resentment towards the Brits though, from those I have spoken to.

Since Monday I´ve met Colin in Mendoza. He´s found adjusting to a new country difficult but it shouldn´t be too bad given we are in a nice hotel and have been out for delicious dinners and wine tasting tours.

Very naughty for Good Friday, but yesterday we went on an indulgent day of wine tasting, horse riding tour of the vineyards and olive groves and then had a delicious Asado. The Asado is an Argentine BBQ where the dead animal is skinned and put on a cross and staked in to the fire for a few hours to cook. Suffering and the Cross. After that we watched the solemn procession of several thousand Catholics through the streets of Mendoza, listening to the Passion account from John´s Gospel which was profound to witness.

Today we went on another tour of the vineyards and wineries, without horses this time, but with our new friends from New York City, Jeff and Sarah. We all enjoyed it, and they were really fun people to share it with...we were supposed to make it to 3 wineries but after the first two and a gigantic lunch with a bottomless glass of vino tinto we were ready for home.

All the Mendoza wineries from yesterday and today have been very different in size, history and production (not to mention taste). Each one has adopted particular techniques throughout the process resulting in distintive wines between each winemaker, and the different microclimates also made for significant variation in the wines. I learnt a great deal, anyway. And wine is always fun to learn about! All had great views of the Andes though, and beautiful weather.

Today´s first winery, Catena Zapata, (http://www.catenawines.com/eng/index.html) which produces the Alamos brand which I´ve been buying at home also had an incredible feat of architecture in the form of a recently completed winery. It was inspired by Mayan pyramids but was build using local materials. I can envisage Kevin McCloud animatedly enthusing about each room. Colin´s got some good pictures and I´ll put them on when we have them from the camera.

Pascua Feliz!

What Lies Beneath

An update from Bariloche..... Lots to tell, but I or you won´t get through it all! I´ve moved from second homestay into a hotel for the next 3 few days, where I have freedom. Woo-hoo! No more homestays until April. Hurrah. Oh...........it is April.

Amanda (the last homestay hostess) cooked lovely food but was a cross between Hyacinth Bucket from Keeping Up Appearances and Val of Bonaly fame. Shudder! She did things like move my plate around as I ate a pear to ensure it was perfectly centred around the pear slice I was eating. She never ate with me but always stood over me with a cloth. I kept having to remind myself I was closer to 30 years old than 3. How I love my own space.

This week I have been finding out about "the disappeared" which my Amnesty magazine has sometimes written about but which could, as a tourist or backpacker here, be completely overlooked. I wasn´t sure if this terrible chapter in recent Argentine history was taboo or not, so I asked my teacher who said it was talked about, and that children now learnt about it in school.

I am not too hot on politics and international relations....wish I was..........I am sure *someone* will post a message if I get this next bit wrong...........anyway, as I understand it the Dirty War or Guerra Sucia, was the state-sponsored violence against citizens of Argentina, which happened after Peron´s death, and his wife´s rule (cue Evita) between 1976 and 1983 by the then military dictatorship. It was something which the Argentine court later refered to as Genocide. This was going on at the same time as the war with Maggie and the "Malvinas" (or rather vice versa) and I have heard some interesting views on this.
Basically 30,000 innocent Argentine members of the public were taken from their homes, work and from the streets as they walked to work etc by the military and never heard of again. What I didn´t realise were that most of those taken were only aged 16-25. Almost everyone in this area knows someone who "disappeared".

Whilst I was kayaking on the beautiful lake on Saturday (as per last Saturday too) amid this utterly stunning scenery it hit home that beneath me, the 110m depth lake, is where it is likely that some of these 30,000 individuals had met their end; drugged or weighed down and pushed overboard in the centre of the lake. For what? Although a few were communists, I understand that the vast majority were not, but were, as Ani told me, people like me.
The disappeared would mostly be in their 40s now, so it wasn´t even that long ago. So hard to imagine, in this completely European style city. Horrendeous to think about, but important I think, to do so. Not for the first time here I am very thankful to be British, and also that in my time here in Argentina there is freedom to talk, to find out facts, to think freely and of course to
write this.

Grim thoughts, so on to cheerier topics. Yesterday I went on a 10 hour minibus trip up to a glacier...........apart from the bus ride it was great. We heard little chunks fall away, but couldn´t see them. It was incredible to listen though. So here are some pics.




I am going to Mendoza on tomorrow to the grape harvest (!) and to meet Colin for 10 days. He´ll go to the ends of the earth to put off looking in to changing careers!! We are going to be in Mendoza for a few days then Buenos Aires for some more Spanish lessons, before I head up to Posadas for the orphange project.





There´s so much more I want to do here, but time is running out! I hope to write again before I leave for Mendoza....I´ve hardly mentioned Patagonia and what I´ve seen of it.

Buenos Noches Amigos.