VIPs and RIP

It's Monday again, and all of a sudden I only have 4 days left in Posadas. It's gone so fast, but in many ways I am ready to come home. I think that's a good thing, though! I had a great time on Saturday night. Sile and I were lucky enough to be invited to a family barbecue at Cuca's daughter's house - I get the feeling that it's a real honour to be invited. Tim and Jonny went along too, but while we were picked up at 6.45, the boys didn't arrive until nearer 9 and we didn't eat until after 11. I had stopped being hungry by then. The dichotomy between Cuca's timekeeping and the lax approach taken by everyone else is stark - I arrived home at 6.40 by my watch and got a ticking off for being late, even though I wasn't... It seems Cuca sets her clocks 10 minutes early. Very frustrating! We were getting picked up at 6.45, but then no one else turned up until 9ish and we didn't finish eating and get back home until half one in the morning. It made me wonder what the fuss was all about, especially as I have checked and my watch is in sync with others around the city, including the one in the locutorio I am in right now!

It was such a lovely night, though. We sat around and drank wine in the garden of Cuca's daughter (Anna Maria)'s house and listened to the jokes told by José Luis. He is a right old joker, and was working the assembled crowd, who were rapt by his jokes! I could barely understand a word, but we all found ourselves cracking up at whatever punchline it was, as the the tone he delivered it in and everyone else's hysterical laughter was infectious. José Luis is the boyfriend of Emilse, who is Cuca's late son's wife. Cuca's son died in a motor accident 15 years ago, and it's nice for Emilse to have a new partner. Emilse is also Jonny and Tim's homestay mum and she speaks a bit of English.

When we finally got round to eating, I wasn't all that hungry. I had a bit of steak, some chorizo sausage (the Argentine stuff tastes very different from the chorizo you get in Spain or at home, but is still delicious) and the tiniest bit of morcilla, which is Argentine blood sausage. It's a national delicacy and I wanted to try some, but I have to admit I'm not a fan. It was like slimy, smooth black pudding. Urk!

Much hilarity ensued including Jonny narrowly escaping a dance with Anna Maria, who knows how to enjoy herself! We were dropped off home at half one, with each of us wondering if we could manage to stay awake another few hours to go out.

We made it out at half 2, which sounds obscene in the cold light of a Monday evening. But that's how things work here - Power (the legendary and massive Saturday club) doesn't open until 2 am. We went back to the VIP section - no VIPs were in there, sadly - but we did manage to share a bottle of champagne, which cost the equivalent of 5 pounds. Stranger-to-romance Sergio promptly informed me that he was working and would not be in Power, which was no piel off my nariz! I was very excited as they started playing some retro classics in the VIP, and at one point I could have sworn I was in the Egg all over again. They played "My Sharona" by the Knack and some Erasure and Depeche Mode. It was all so incongruous with the surroundings and Tim and I had a good dance off in honour of the randomness.

It all got a bit too much for us around 4, though, and we retired to the seating area. Tim decided earlier that he is very excited by the notion that there might be someone out there called Peter Bread (I might google this later) and we decided to see how many names we could come up with that were also foods (this may have been a result of food deprivation earlier in the evening). We came up with Victoria Sponge, Di Gestive (I threw in Rich Tea at this point) and Sam On. Any others would no doubt please Tim endlessly, so do leave them as comments at the end of this, presuming you are as sad as us.

I was really glad to get home to my bed. One thing I will say is that I hadn't appreciated before how much the smoking ban has improved the smell of my clothes after a night out. Every time I wake up after a going out anywhere here (even after just 1 drink in a bar), my clothes reek of smoke. I had forgotten how unpleasant it is, and won't miss this aspect of Argentina, although I will mourn the loss of the cheap prices of everything here!

I was up sharpish (for me) on Sunday morning, as Jenny, Hannah and I had arranged to go to San Ignacio. We had been tipped off that there was a lovely beach close by, so I duly packed my bikini and tiny travelling towel. The bus only took an hour, but it was incredibly hot as soon as we got away from the air conditioning.

San Ignacio is one of many sites of the former Jesuit compounds that were set up in the 17th century, where the Jesuit immigrants established colonies of the local indigenous people, the Guaraní. The Jesuits came over from Europe to set up religious colonies that "civilised" the Guaraní, while encouraging them to move away from their subsistent lifestyle, to farm and trade, and the Jesuits protected the tribes from the invasions of slavers from Brazil and other areas. From what I can gather, the colonies became almost Utopian societies, although they did have a house in the compound in which (according to the translation), women were shut away if they were widowed, had an absent husband, or were "dissolute", which doesn't sound very modern or socialist to me!

The Jesuits were all forced to leave the colonies by decree decades after their founding, and the buildings were destroyed by weather and various wars. All that is left of San Ignacio is some very grandly carved stone walls and the outline of the various rooms and divisions of the compound. If it hadn't been for the deep red colour of the stone, the blistering sunshine and the huge cactus growing by the ruins, it could have been a Historic Scotland site, which was funny!

The heat was almost too much to bear, as it often is here. We left and decided to try to find a taxi to take us to the beach, as we had been advised to do by Carolina. We also checked with the man at the front gate of the ruins where we should get the bus home from - as I think I said, bus stops are few and far between, and hard to discern if you're not local! We walked down the street, but there were no cars, never mind those with the white and yellow that shows they are taxis. I went into a shop to ask where we could get a taxi from, and the woman said "oh, these boys' uncle is a taxi driver. Just go round to his house and he'll take you". We followed the kids round the corner to the house, but they came back out and said he was asleep. His wife came out and said she would take us to the archway, where she said there was a taxi company. We felt very uncomfortable about this, and I was very stressed as I couldn't really understand her thick accent, and Jenny and Hannah don't speak much Spanish so couldn't help me out. In the end, she totally overcharged us for a 5 minute journey that did not result in us finding a taxi company at the archway, so who knows what she was on about. We ended up walking back into town and going into the casino, which appeared to have the only cafe that was open. We felt better after a coke and some air conditioning, and decided to abandon the trip to the beach, as if we couldn't get a taxi there, there was little chance of getting one back.

According to the timetable, the next bus home wasn't until 10 past 10, so we watched the sun going down (like switching off a light!) and then went for steaks in a restaurant near the ruins. I am quite used to things being set up for tourists, if not exactly touristy, and although it had been a bit stressful, it was really good to be doing something and seeing somewhere that is not at all touristy. The way things are going, Argentina in a few years' time may be a lot more built up and tacky and I'm glad I'm getting to see it now.

The bus didn't turn up where the man at the gate said it would be and eventually we realised that we had to go back to the Archway, after missing the second last bus home. Luckily we were able to get on the last one, but it was totally full and we ended up sitting on the floor of the top deck for a while. One thing they do here on long bus journeys is serve you a shot of black, very sweet coffee and a little boiled sweetie, and both were very welcome by the time the guy came along with the trays.

I felt like I had only been asleep for a minute when I woke up this morning, so it's just as well that I have had quite an easy day. I'm glad, though, as Friday was almost more than I could take. We made it really early to Arcoiris - for some reason the buses were being quite kind today. The kids were mostly really chilled and I had a couple of lovely moments with Mile, the youngest baby. We had brought a foam jigsaw map of Argentina, which proved very exciting to the kids but almost impossible to do. Each piece of the jigsaw was a province of Argentina (including territories in Antarctica and the Falklands, which are featured on all national maps) and I was ashamed to realise that I hardly knew any of the geography of the country that is hosting me. It was ok, though, as none of the kids did either. We pieced it back together eventually and managed not to lose any of the bits.

Sile went off to the locutorio after work, but Jenny and I bought cheese and bread from the local shop and had a wee picnic in the park. It's stupidly hot, though, and I was in danger of falling asleep. That feeling continued at the Refugio, but hardly any of the kids seemed to be there today so we spent the afternoon taking photos and chatting to 3 of the older kids, who normally don't really get much one-to-one attention.

One thing that is really sad about El Refugio is the state that some of the kids are left in. Daniel, who has stunted growth and severe learning difficulties, is constantly in wet and dirty nappies. He is 7 and although he doesn't seem to be aware of it himself, the other children notice that he smells very badly and it is very hard to be near him. It seems to be to be tragic and unfair that he is forced to smell like a dirty toilet all the time, and that is his life. He is already very psychologically damaged by what happened to him when he was wee, but I wonder what further stress that puts him under.

I also made the mistake of asking about the puppy. I am very upset but not at all surprised about what I found out - the puppy died last week. Apparently one of the younger girls threw him across the room to see if he could fly. This sums up the way the children live there. They are not looked after properly and have no guidance or discipline, therefore they have no idea how to look after a tiny creature like a puppy, and I suspect they had no empathy for it or any caring feelings. I am so sad that the puppy had to die, but deep down I knew it would only be a matter of time. It was the possibility of situations like that that made me think very seriously about not coming here, as I knew that in places like orphanages there was bound to be a degree of heartbreaking situations. I did not, however, expect to feel this over a puppy.

On a brighter note, the broken bench covered in rusty nails and the huge piece of wire that have been littering the patio for a week or more have finally been removed, and Jonathan, who was being really cheeky and annoying on Friday, was really cute and spent ages going through the dictionary, learning English words. Their Scottish accents are so cute. I now have Luis greeting me every day with a handshake and "awright, min" and Salomón in Arcoiris saying "stoap it" whenever someone does something naughty!

I know that in light of what I have just written about the puppy that the paragraph above seems totally inappropriate and facile, but I have to look for silver linings around the very dark cloud of Refugio and any achievement is still something to be celebrated in a place where there is not much to feel happy about.

I also know that some readers are worrying about me as things seem so bad. I have to reassure you that the Refugio is only one part of what I'm experiencing here, I have become desensitised to things a bit (however tragic that may seem, it's the only way to survive) and I am still having the time of my life. So don't worry - and anyway, I will be home in 9 days.

I'm going to go now and have a wee sleep before tea. Drop me any of those food names, it would make Tim's day!

¡Hasta martes!