Adios

I guess all things must come to an end sometime and now I am back in New Zealand, happy to be home but also missing El Bolson!!

My lovely class at Munduna farewelled me with presents and lots of hugs. Moni was such a sweet welcoming teacher to be with. The children gave me a key holder with some Patagonian flowers in it and Moni gave me a mate and yerba. I will treasure my momentos from El Bolson, and the wonderful people who welcomed me and made me feel so much at home.

Nancy, Vicky, Maria and I went out for dinner on the Friday night as I left the next morning to go to Bariloche and then to San Martin for the weekend. Nancy and Vicky were the AFS contacts who planned my visits and made me very welcome in their homes so many times during my stay in El Bolson.

I felt sad to say goodbye to Maria at the bus the next morning. It was freezing cold and very windy, definitely wintery. Only 23 pesos to travel to Bariloche-about $10NZ for a two hour bus ride. I managed to get a couple of hours shopping fitted in during my quick visit to Bariloche.

My month in Argentina was very special, I feel very priviliged to have shared in the lives of so many people and to have the experience of being in so many schools. My Spanish has improved so much but I did feel that I still have so much to learn. I hope I can continue to improve and find a way to continue speaking and practising.

Epuyen

Up early this morning!! I walked down to end of the road in the dark to meet Dianne, a teacher who works out at a new school in Epuyen. It was an interesting experience to go there as they have an environmental focus and all students must take classes in this. There are about 300 students.

They have a lovely big gymnasium, computer room, library and science labs so it is very well resourced, compared to many other schools in this area. The classrooms are quite small, there are usually between sixteen and twenty students in each class.

The students don't have any choice in what subjects they have. They take all the basic subjects plus the environmental ones, then just do a little Art, Music and PE to complement their curriculum.

Dianne is the English teacher, she goes out there once a month and the focus is on conversational English. However, the students needed a lot of coaxing to use English. A few were able to give a sentence. I certainly have a lot more understanding of how difficult it is to use another language and how small the steps need to be when you are learning!

Fiesta

The Anzac Biscuits turned out well but the Pavlova was just OK, it's always a challenge trying to cook in another country!! Even finding all the ingredients in the supermarket was interesting to say the least!! AFS had a stall at a fiesta organised by the Lago (Lake) Puelo community to celebrate the different cultures in the area for most of Saturday afternoon.

We sold food baked by the AFS students and me, representing food from a variety of countries. The money raised will go towards sending Francisco, a local student to Portugal, as an AFS student.

The Pav and biscuits were popular so we did our bit. The local TV network interviewed us and the microphone was stuck under my nose and I was asked what the ingredients of the Pavlova were!! Talking about stuttering and stammering as I tried to think of the words in Spanish!! So, maybe our Pavlova appeared on El Bolson TV.

There were a variety of dance groups and musicians performing all day. It was very interesting for me to see some of the Argentinean folk dances. Some of my students from Munduno were performing. It's starting to feel like home seeing my students at local events!!
Patrick, a NZ AFS student in Esquel did the Haka for the audience. Que cosa!!

While we were in the hall it started to rain and then when Maria and I went out shopping in the evening we noticed a fresh fall of snow on the mountains, just like a dusting of icing sugar on a rocky cake. It did seem strange going shopping at 7.30 on Saturday night!!

University

This morning I went to the opening of the University of Rio Cuarto's new building. The university has numerous campuses across the state, this one in El Bolson has been going for a couple of years. Maria, my host is the head of the university here so she has been hectically busy getting ready for this.

I heard the national anthem for the first time, it is quite a rousing song.

This afternoon, I am going to try to bake Anzac Biscuits and a Pavlova as the local AFS has a fiesta tomorrow at Lago Puelo. The idea is to raise money for a local student to go to Portugal as an AFS student. Hopefully we will be able to sell our products and help out. There are students from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, Switzerland and Russia here so the AFS movement is quite strong.

The students do so well at picking up the language, they just have no fears about using it. Jono is from Christchurch and has been here about six weeks. he is here for a year.

Tonight we have the official AFS welcome so that starts at 9.00pm. Most things don't start until 9 or 9.30pm.

Teaching

Just in case everyone thinks I do nothing else but eat I will share some of my teaching experiences. I have been in a variety of schools, both public and private, primary and secondary. I enjoy my days in Munduno, where I am usually in the Grade One class. I am able to help the teacher with their reading and writing-it's about my level!! There are twenty five children in the class, they have little desks and sit in a group. there certainly isn't a lot of room as the classrooms are quite small. Most of the time there is whole class teaching, with the children showing different levels of achievement within this. The faster finishing sometimes have another activity to complete while the teacher helps those who are slower. The children are very friendly and try to chat.

I have given a number of talks about New Zealand, in Spanish so that is quite a challenge!! The children enjoy hearing about NZ, although most of them find it a challenge to eat Marmite!! They can't understand the Kiwi tastes. Yesterday I talked to a school (public) where many of the children are from the country and board at this school during the week. They had to take notes on my talk and many asked good questions afterwards.

Today I was at the secondary part of the private school and spent a couple of periods in a Spanish Grammar class and a couple of periods in a Biology class. The teachers work hard here as they have few resources and have to photocopy a lot. There is a lot of emphasis on memorising and passing exams but the levels of achievement seem to be very good. This is a bi lingual school so many of the children are here for the whole day, lessons in Spanish in the morning, then in English in the afternoon. Yesterday, I was in the English literature class where the equivalent of Year 11 were reading and discussing Lambs to the Slaughter. Most speak English quite well, although their accents are quite stilted and they needs lots more practice at speaking it. However, I wish my Spanish was as good as their English!!

I know I have learnt a lot of Spanish since being here but it would take a lot more time to become fluent. Trying to remember all the verbs and the different tenses is really a challenge. It is a complex language but I have gained confidence in speaking about certain things. When getting the taxi home the other night I was able to have a reasonable conversation with the taxi driver, telling him about New Zealand and why I was here. Little steps!! The problem is that I want to take big steps and then get a bit frustrated. When one is the learner it is quite a different experience to being the teacher. No doubt, it is a good experience to be on the other side of the fence!!

Cakes!

I am amazed at the beautiful cakes that they have here in Argentina. they look so good in the shops but at the weekend I had a beautiful home made chocolate cake. Rosa baked the cake and Roseana decorated it.

The strawberries came from further north and they were very sweet. First she cut the cake in half through the middle, then she filled it with Dulce con leche, which is really like condensed milk that has been boiled until it is the colour of caramel.

She then covered it with a thin layer of cream, to which she attached the cut strawberries, then she decorated it with chocolate. Quite delicious. She made such a beautiful job of it.

For lunch before this we had chicken stuffed with ham and cheese, cooked in the oven and then covered with a sauce made from cream, mushrooms and onions. Not so good for the cholesterol!! It did taste fantastic but the portions were just enormous!! We ate at 1.30pm and that was enough for the rest of the day. Many of the people are like that, they have the main meal in the middle of the day and just have something light at the end of the day. I do find it rather difficult to eat a big meal at ten or eleven at night then go straight to bed. However, our every day routine is a little different and our main meal is late at night.

Pascua.

Easter is celebrated from Thursday to Sunday here so all is back to normal today. The children in the Grade One class were sharing what they did for the break. Some had been to Bariloche but most spoke of visiting grandparents or friends for an asado.

I took the bus down to Esquel on Friday afternoon. The buses are fantastic here and they are well used. I was sitting upstairs in the front seat so I had a great view. Much appreciated when you are travelling a route for the first time. I am amazed how far some of the people travelled. Maria's daughter travelled from Buenos Aires, a twenty four hour bus ride and many people seemed to be going that distance. It is such an enormous country that I guess the buses are the easiest way for the people to travel. Of course there would also be many who would fly. The main cities are well serviced by all forms of transport.

The trip to Esquel took about two hours, the scenery reminded me of the Desert Road, but there were more mountains and hills in the background. Beautiful in its own way! Esquel is a larger town, the population is about 50,000. The mountains are beautiful down there but the town is quite barren, you miss the trees of El Bolson.

I was staying with friends so enjoyed being able to see them again, although the limitations of language does limit conversation. I often feel as though I'm in First Grade!! There are sign posts every two kilometers giving the distance to the bottom of Argentina. From Esquel it is still over 1700 kilometers to the bottom of the country.