The Slums

Hola Chicos,

I'm sure everybody is aware of the travesty that occurred this week and the subsequent mourning. Yes, I am talking about the loss of Manchester United in the Champions League. I think the whole situation is summed up perfectly by the man who phoned up the police, asking for the ref to be arrested for sending off Nani. He considered (correctly) the decision to be a crime. And in other, less interesting news, Hugo Chavez died this week.

Anyway, back to my trip now. Before I came to Argentina I was having Spanish lessons for 3 months. I cannot explain how useful they have been. Especially as, on Monday morning I spent 3 hours arguing in Spanish with my colleagues at the boys institution. As a Brit in Argentina there are some touchy subjects, one of these being The Falklands. On my first day here I was told by my supervisor to avoid ever mentioning them and also never to call them the Falklands. In Argentina they are called Las Malvinas. One of my colleagues at work has some very strong feelings about Las Malvinas. He questioned me, in Spanish, for 3 hours about why Britain won't give the islands back to the "rightful owners".

On Tuesday I spent pretty much the whole day glued to BBC Sport, checking all the updates for the match. Ten of the other volunteers and I found a bar to watch the match in, 8 of us were supporting United. The screaming and shouting at the TV was not appreciated at all by the waitresses, who were insisting that we calm down. There is no way to calm down when an injustice of that scale occurs.

I had an extremely interesting day on Wednesday as I spent the morning in the slums of Cordoba. Now the slums are not like the ones you get in India, where the houses are all made by the inhabitants out of whatever materials they could find. The Argentine slums are concrete buildings with electricity and running water. However, the poverty is obvious. Upon entering the slum, the road instantly disappears and is replaced with dirt tracks, along which horses and carts are moving. We went into the slum to visit the boys who go to the institution. They are all about my age. We entered one of the boy's house where there were about 12 people living in a very small room. In the middle of the room there was parked a knackered car - I have no idea why and didn't think asking was the best idea. The smell is pretty damn awful and the flies buzzing round doesn't help. I felt very out of place dressed in my designer jeans and t shirt, yet all the boys were very welcoming and friendly. I could do without the staring though. They see a white person and just stare.

Later in the day I did a bit of sightseeing around Cordoba. My opinion of churches and cathedrals remains the same: Once you've seen one, you've pretty much seen them all.

On Wednesday evening Projects Abroad had its Social. The idea was that all the volunteers had to prepare some food from their own country and then we would eat it. I have to say some of the food was brilliant, I was a big fan of the mac and cheese from the States and also the carbonara from Italy. In typical English fashion we decided that our contribution to the event would be some drinks. We decided on Gin and Tonic, they went down very well.

Unfortunately today I have fallen a bit ill and had to take the day off work. My housemate is also very ill. Think it's a combination of going out every night and not having the healthiest diet. Going to have to start eating more fruit and veg. Its a shame as today I was meant to visit the bakery in the slum where the boys are learning to bake bread. The idea is that when they leave home, they will have a skill to use to help them find a job. Hopefully next week I will get another chance to go.

I'm very excited because hopefully this weekend I am going to go skydiving. I should get some awesome pictures which I will add to the blog.