When I last left you on Saturday I was about to go to a fundraiser selling alfajores. For those of you who know me well, you know I'm slightly impatient (only slightly) - fortunately, so were the rest of my group. We had a total of 26 packets of alfajores to sell. Our group (the people selling the goods) bought 12 of these packets ourselves...
However, it was a good thing we did sell them all so fast as I then went off to watch a local football match. I have no idea which teams were playing but I found myself standing with the away fans. I am now an expert at swearing in Spanish, and some of the insults being thrown around were extremely imaginative. Nothing like the unoriginal stuff you get in English football stadiums. The highlight of the match was when the away team scored. All the fans seemed to turn into spiderman and scaled the fencing blocking the stands from the pitch. Some of them were about 7 metres off the ground. They clearly hadn't thought it through though and watching them try to climb back down was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
As everybody probably knows, last Sunday it was Saint Patrick's Day. Being abroad with an Irish sounding surname is absolutely epic. Each bar or club I entered on Saturday night were more than willing to give me a free drink once I had fooled them with my terrible Irish accent and showed them my driving license with my surname on. Understandably, the next day was spent nursing a pretty horrific headache.
I'm sure if you're reading this you will have seen the pictures of my skydiving on Tuesday. I don't want to sound like the guy from the "Gap Yah" video, but honestly it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Having lived in Britain all my life, I'm used to extreme levels of health and safety - its a little bit different in Argentina. As soon as we arrived we had to sign a form saying in the event of injury (lets face it, death) the skydiving company could not be held reliable. This is understandable. However, the next thing the instructor said to us was "Alright, lets go to the plane". Eh? We don't know what to do, what about training, what about safety procedures. Not to worry, we were then shown four torn pictures of the body positions we should be in at each stage of the jump. 5 minutes later we were pounding down the runway. Nothing can describe the feeling when the door of the plane opens and the wind rushes in. Absolute terror but excitement at the same time. Then you jump. 20 seconds of the most exhilarating feeling, then the parachute is pulled and it is completely calm. As soon as we got to the ground I already wanted to do it again, maybe give it a while though. I'm sure people saw the pictures of my hair - it still hasn't quite recovered yet.
It sounds like I've been having a bit of a jolly for the past month, and to rectify this, on Tuesday afternoon I went into the slums with the other Human Right's volunteers. We held a meeting with the women from the slum about what we can do to help them. Their main desire was for a community centre to be set up to give them legal representation. The main problem is that only 20% of the houses in the slum are legally recognised as houses. Therefore only these houses can get electricity and water. Obviously the other houses nick this water and electricity yet the 20% are paying for all the water and electricity that is consumed. I'm not going to go into all the issues with it (mainly because I couldn't understand a word they were saying) but it is going to be a mammoth task to achieve what they want.
Wednesday and Thursday passed by in an absolute blur, saying goodbye to everybody and packing all my stuff. Fittingly I spent my last night at the same bar I spent my first night - all the other volunteers were there and it was a great opportunity to say goodbye to them. I'm really going to miss the other volunteers, I've had some great times with them. My last dinner was spent with my host family. They have been absolutely lovely to me and made me feel very welcome. For my last meal one of my host mum's friends was round; she is one of the eccentric women I've ever met. She also taught me a new Argentine swear word which she very kindly wrote down for me on my phone. "La concha de la lora". Concha in Spain is a totally innocent word meaning shell, not in Argentina though... Lora means parrot. I'll leave you to find out what concha means in Argentina.
And so now begins the second leg of my trip. I arrived in Rio de Janeiro about 6 hours ago. Dear god is it hot. I had just got accustomed to the Cordoba heat (about 35 degrees on a hot day and then cool evenings). Here it is a step above. I have just got back from an outside gym. I don't want to be too graphic, but I don't think I've ever sweated so much in my life. Ed arrives early tomorrow morning and I cannot wait, think we're going to have a chilled day tomorrow on the beach.
Chao
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