Good Bye SALTA, Hello Bueno Aires!

Saying goodbye is never a pleasant feeling as you can imagine. Especially to a Church, a family and friends. It was a very busy last week, fun filled with lots of dinners, parties and tears... from laughing and from saying "Chau". Well what can I say? This week was a week which I will never be able to forget! Thankfully I could spend the day with "My family", Luz and Abraham and their four children up the cable cars over looking Salta! It was a really unique day and thankfully I was able to present the children with Bibles which I had designed the cover to! The last night was brilliant thanks to the young people from the Church. We all played games in the new temple and just chilled and chatted. It was a really a very special time with them and i´ll def miss the "banter" from the group! My last morning, Helen and I headed into the plaza for the last time where we just had breakfast and then went to the terminal. There I was met with a huge group from the Church to see me off! Struggling to get onto the bus with the weight of my luggage and from the tears streaming. Abraham just made it to see the bus just as it was pulling away. Never will I forget this time. Although it may be "Chau", i´d rather see it as "See you later Salta!" and "Hello to Ireland".
Love from Argentina! Megan xx

"Traditional Irish Dress"

As Naomi was packing her bag just before she left, I was lying on my bed and for some reason I thought it would be funny to dress Naomi up. She literally put on every type of clothing she had at once and I said, "Now you have to buy something in the local shop". As you can imagine the tears were tripping me from the laughter. We arrived in the shop and the 2 woman at the counters acted completly normal so we went down the back to get some juice. So as you do, we paid and the other woman burst out and said "Sorry I have to ask, is this some sort of fancy dress?" At that, I couldn´t resist and said, "in Ireland we don´t have a traditional dress so we basically put all of our clothes on at once and this would be our national dress." We didn´t think they were going to actually believe it to be honest but it seems so as people keep mentioning it within the neighbourhood. Just take a look at the photos, I think it says it all! Good times!

Coming to a close

Hey Everyone!
I hope everything is well with you all in Northern Ireland! As the last 3 weeks are quickly passing before my eyes, I find myself at the most busy time of my trip so far! Hard to believe really that i´ll soon be packing my bags for Buenos Aires as it seems like yesterday when I arrived here in Salta!

So much has happened in the last 8 months of my life here in Argentina as you´ve been reading through my updates. As Naomi prepares for her journey home this Sunday, we are preparing the Farewell parties. What we had arranged was a surprise party until the Pastor announced it infront of the whole Church, oh well, it makes it easier to prepare. Also we are having an “Irish Night” on Saturday for the women just to say their last goodbyes to Naomi. This week we will be visiting people and having dinner with them which should be really good fun. Apart from the dinning and surprise parties, we are managing to work. Don´t worry!

In my last update, you may of read about the Natural Disaster in a town called Tartagal in the province of Salta, about 4 hours away from Salta City. The town was destroyed by an unexpected mudslide due to the excess rain which Tartagal had experienced. Aid wasn´t able to reach the victims, as the only enterance to the town was the bridge which was hit. Lives where taken, everyone was evacuated from their homes and many livelyhoods where lost. Where is the light in this situation some people may ask?

This morning we packed 12 boxes of brand new shoes which a local factory had donated to the cause, which thankfully will reach the people of Tartagal on Friday evening. The donations of clothes, food and shelters that have came to the Church has been amazing. In such a horrible situation, i´m glad to be able to say that there is light once again. It was very serial being part of an “Aid Distrubition” process. It´s reassuring that when you give to charity to be able to say, I know that it arrived where it needed it most. Thank you for all your prayers about the situation in Tartagal.

Thankfully my English classes are still up and running and are going very well. This has been a really blessing throughout my time here in Salta. The progress which I have seen through my students has been totally amazing and it will be hard to say goodbye. I will still continue to teach my students for the last 3 weeks and when I am home in Ireland. Please pray for this as it will not be easy, although with some determince and some hard work on their behalf, I have faith that they will continue to learn.

I think leaving here will be a very difficult step of faith. Leaving my friends behind, a culture which I have grown to love and a Church with so much potential. Sounds like home! I have done that journey once and I know that I will have the strength to face it again. I´m really looking forward to seeing you all again and being able to share some of my 10,000 photos that i´ve managed to snap!

See you all soon,
God Bless,
Megan from Argentina

My best evening in Salta

I´m sitting here at 1am writing this blog entry after probably the best night I have had here in Salta. This evening it was just like every Sunday evening where we attend the normal Church service in "El Redentor". Although the difference about tonight was that I saw friends that I hadn´t seen in quite a while and it was really brilliant just seeing them again. Marcelo and Ana were in Corduba studying english translation for a month and it was amazing to hear them come back to Church and speak confidently in english. Their english has always been a very high standard, probably better than mine, but this evening was the first time she spoke to me all in english! It may seem simple but small things like that mean alot! I dropped them home with Pite and Andres who are the most adorable elderly couple! Marcelo made me laugh as he reminded me of a little child. The conversation went as follows.

Marcelo : "I refuse to speak spanish"

Pite : " Yo no intiendo - I dont understand"

Marcelo : " You need to learn english, so i´m going to keep talking in english"

Ana : "Don´t be rude Marcelo"

Marcelo : "I am always rude, why should I start being nice?"

You can imagine me trying to drive with tears in my eyes from laughing at Marcelo refusing to speak spanish and wee Pite not understanding a thing! I think that will be one journey I will never forget! What really struck me tonight was the passion Marcelo and Ana came home with and this is so encouraging to see as he travels to Peru next week to translate Bibles into the local dialects. Please pray for him as he travels without his wife but travels with faith.

Also this evening, I got to see Raul and Maggie, a couple from my Church who I hadn´t seen in a while. Raul was learning english with me and was doing really well and I´m so proud of him how far he has come with his english! They are very special to me and I will miss them alot when I return to Ireland but I have confidence that I will see them again one day.

Tonight, it wasn´t about going out and having a great time, it was about sharing time with my friends here in Salta. These are the moments that I will treasure the most. I know that only a month to go, but so much can happen within that period of time! I plan to spend as much time as I can with the people here in Salta until I go as I can learn so much from them and hopefully visa versa. I feel sad that I have to leave, although I know that God has a plan for me and this is all his hands. I feel that I have learnt so much here in Argentina and for that I have to thank God and the people he has put me in contact with. That was my best night in Salta!

I´m going to go to bed now!

Good Night! Megan x