It´s been a long time since I wrote here but to be honest i´ve been so busy and i´ve not really had the chance! It´s not even funny how cold it is here!! My body is not used to minus temperatures in the morning that soar to 25 degrees in the afternoon and drop again at night! Also the majority of my clothes are summer clothing so you can just imagine!! Good times!! 2 weeks ago it snowed here in Salta! It hasn´t snowed here in 10 years or more so yeah I def think i´ve brought the weather with me! It was really good to see the kids making snow men etc because it was totally a new experience for them! In the houses here, its generally warmer outside than inside because they don´t have any source of heating etc and when I went to look at my sleeping bag, of course it says, minus 2 dangerous! Just my luck I suppose!

I started working again at Uzzi College where I taught English before! It´s surprisingly good to be back again! It´s a private primary school here in Salta. I´m teaching English but the thing that I love the most is that I know the kids from before and it´s great to see how their English has improved in 2 years and how much they´ve grown up! At the moment we are preparing the school play which they have 2. One in English which is 40 minutes long and then another in Spanish about a famous argentine artist. So a lot of my work at the moment is preparing the drama and getting the children to pronounce the words correctly. In the mornings i´m putting the backgrounds of the sets together which keeps me busy!

It´s quite funny because when I walk around the city, it´s very obvious that i´m not argentine. The colour of my skin and my eyes I suppose is a huge give away. But normally I feel like one of the locals but yesterday I did a very touristy thing. I went on the city tour to hear a little history with a lady who is visiting from South Africa. It was really good but sadly I had to spend the 4 hours translating!

I´m really having a great time but of course with everything comes the tough times too! Trust me it´s not all roses here but the good times def out weigh the bad! Its hard to believe that I will be home in 4 weeks time! Next friday i´m travelling to chile for a week and to get there it will take a day!! Good times!! :D

Corrientes!!

I went on a little break to another province called Corrientes which is about 13 hours on a bus from here in Salta! I went to see my friend and we had a great time! It was so nice to have a little break and to see another place! It was quite funny because they talk another type of spanish, well another dialect and I understood like every 10 words!! They speak even faster than the irish!! I didn´t think it was possible! It was lovely to see the river and to have sand between my feet! To be honest I didn´t really feel like I was in argentina, I felt like I was on holiday! Here are some photos of my time in Corrientes! It was quite sad having to leave to be honest as it was a really short visit but it was great to see my friends again!! Now my work starts again :D

Working In Pichanal

Last weekend a group of 34 of the church from salta headed up north to a little town called Pichanal which is quite a under developed town. we worked in the church with their youth and we had a great time!! We fixed the roof, fixed their really dodgey electricty, cleaned and painted. During the weekend we had kids clubs and I was teaching about mission and trying to encourage them that mission isn´t about travelling to another country but that you can do it in your own community! we all had a really great time although it was FREEZING!!!!! Really not funny!! I brought my sleeping bag and when I read the bottom it said from 1 degree until -6 dangerous! opps!!The weekend was great but also really challenging. Speaking in spanish 24/7 is harder than I thought. I´m loving it but its very difficult! It was amazing to see how another church functions but also quite sad to see how shy everyone was. The pastor, the main figure of the Church was so shy! no wonder people didn´t turn up to the meetings but the weekend we were able to teach them things and we learned from them. It was the first time the young people had ever went on mission in a big group and they really gained from it. I´m kinda worried about the leaders as the don´t seem very united and I know its a huge challenge for the group. I really hope they are able to forgive and learn from eachother. Please pray for this! Many thanks!

Alot of my time so far has been visiting families from the church as they have wanted to cook for me etc! In this photo you can see Marie Esther in the middle and Ana Maria in the pink. They are both legends! Marie Esther believe it or not is about 85 years old missionary whole travels the country teaching children about the Gospels! So I went to her house the other day and over dinner she blurted out... "Megan I´ve been praying that you marry a man from this church" and as you can imagine, I nearly chocked on my dinner!! She has picked out a man for me and she insisted in telling me all of his qualities and good points over and over again!! AHHH HELP ME!! Then as she drove home, I must admit it was probably the most scary moment in my life!! She can hardly see over the steering wheel and insists in looking at you while she is driving and talking!!! Well thankfully i´ve survived to tell the tale but its a little joke going around the church that i´m going to marry this man!!! I can sum it up in one word! NEVER!!

Hora Feliz - Happy Hour (Kids Clubs)

At the moment i´m pretty busy with getting materials ready for the weekend as we have our traditional, Happy Hour - Hora Feliz!! Now now.... I know what you´re thinking... not that type of happy hour!! However, I have no idea why they call it happy hour as it last for nearly 3 hours!!The kids clubs are amazing and the teams this year are even better!! We have 2 on Saturday in a local neighbourhood and then in the afternoon in the Church! Kids from all around the area come to it and its great craic! We play games, sing songs and learn Biblical texts. It has been great to see how all the kids have grown up since my last trip and to see how they are now bringing their little brother and sisters! It´s a real blessing that we are able to do this as the Church isn´t well off and the brothers in the church donate money to the clubs so that the children can eat and for the resources we use! Thankfully this time I´m actually able to understand the kids spanish, as man sometimes its difficult to understand them! It means we are able to have a better relation! However, when I arrived I recieved some sad news about 2 of our little ones from the kids club. Due to personal circumstances they have stopped coming and one is currently in prision. These kids have hearts of gold! It´s just such a pity that due to family circumstances things have ended up as they have! However, it´s great to see how the group has strenthened nether the less and to see how motivated the leaders are this year! Please keep these Happy Hours in your prayers!! Thanks!

The World Cup!

Well, well well!!! What can I possibly say about the world cup! Before Argentina lost the atmosphere was totally amazing!! I´ve never seen people soooo passionate for football!! To be honest it was probably one of the best places in the world to watch the games because of their love for the game!! I mean they consider it a religion!!! NO JOKE!! They consider Maradona to be a god! They even have a cult church in the province of Santa Fe to worship him, yeah i´m not kinding you!! Nether the less, as you can imagine, I´m not a fan of football!! Although to be honest I loved the world cup! It was amazing until the lost..... then it was crazy!! People were literally weeping! The country literally has gone into national mourning!! So now i´m trying to keep my mouth shut about the game... when they were winning, as you walked through the neighbourhoods, you could hear every single tv was on the game! people cheering and shouting at the screens! The atmosphere in the plazas was amazing! A sea of blue and white!! Ok, I know you may be shocked to hear... I´ve joined the local girls football team in the church which is a hoot!! They´ve nicknamed me "Leggy" because i´m taller than them all and generally have NO IDEA what i´m doing with my feet! I keep thinking, on the tv they made it look so easy!!

Celebrations of General Guemes

This month in Salta has been a month of pretty much celebrations and rememberance which of course means holidays! So trying to start work at this time was hard enough with the argentine attitude of "lets do it tomorrow" then of course the holidays. They celebrated the day of Guemes which was their General that died during battle and of course is seen as the provinces hero. In the photo you can see his burial place and some of the celebrations that happened in the pain plaza. The tradition Gaucho and horses symbolise they rememberance of the national hero and it was pretty cool to have seen this of course in traditional argentine style, they had traditional music to celebrate which lasted until the early hours of the morning.

My Welcome

It´s been quite funny because my welcome celebrations have been the last 2 weeks because I wasn´t able to see everyone of course at once! It was lovely the first night in the Church because they had a wee presentation to say welcome! It was a surprise party which had of coursed leaked out so acting surprised was quite funny! They had the NI flag and the Argentine flag up in the Church! They made a very embarassing video of me which they played infront of everyone! In the service they sang a song in english and it was sooo bad because i´d never heard it before!!! Then, to top it off, they asked me to get up and say a few words! All I can say was I was pretty much speachless which you can imagine is quite strange for me!! It´s been really lovely to see how much the Church has developed physically and spiritually!! It´s hard to believe they have doors and windows now which is amazing!! It is looking great! It´s so strange seeing how all the little ones have grown up and how the teenagers are now adults!! Overall, great to be back!!

Tin Whistle Lessons

I thought I would upload this video because it´s quite funny!! I´m sure you´d never thought you would see argentines learning to play the tin whistle! You´re in for a real treat!! Enjoy!!

The Joy Of Learning Spanish!

I´ve been here for 2 weeks now and it´s quite hard to believe!! I´ve been visiting loads of different people from the church etc! It´s been really lovely seeing everyone again! I´ve started working with the church but i´ve not started with ProMujer yet!

Well as you all can probably imagine, i´ve such a headache speaking spanish all the time but I totally love it! It´s such a great opportunity and i´ve started my spanish translation course which is challenging! You all know me, I´ve a way with words!

So imagine this, I´m with friends in the main plaza in the city and I wanted to sneeze! So I wanted to say, I want to sneeze, "estornudar" and of course, Megan being Megan, I ended up shouting, I want to "desnudar" STRIP!!! ohhhh man.... you can imagine their faces!! I was soooooo embarassed! I don´t think i´ll ever live that one down!!

Arrived safe and sound!

Just added the map so you can see how far it is from Buenos Aires to Salta in the north!

My journey on the bus was really good and as a part of the bus intertainment they have Bus Bingo..... so as you can imagine everyone was getting really into it and I was having a bit of a laugh with the people around me then of course, I realised I had won and had to shout "BINGO".... so automatically I was bright red then the prize was a bottle of wine which I had to kindly accept but I think my face said it all! They asked me, "do you not drink?" then from there on in, they took the pee that I was a T total Irish girl!

After a long journey, I arrived in Salta and coming down the mountain, looking over the city, I can honestly say that for the first time in my life I was totally speechless (yes this may be a shock for you all). All I can say is that it is GREAT to be back!! It´s so lovely to see everyone again and to see how things have developed!

I´ve been here for a little over 24 hours.... all I can say is that i´ve embraced the culture already because already I have blinking headlice!! No!! Not much fun but part of life here! Haha.... Another thing which will make you laugh, yesterday I went into the city center and they have changed all the bus stops in the city center! I was sooooo lost it wasn´t even funny then I eventually took my bus and ended up going in totally the wrong direction and I was lost in the middle of the mountains!! Of course when I arrived back home, all the Argentines laughed and said.... "opps I forgot to say!!"

This weekend I will be able to catch up with nearly everyone which will be lovely and they are having a surprise party for me on saturday.... which of course leaked out very quickly!!

Really having a great time so far and can´t wait to get stuck into my work!!

Keep in touch! xx

Argentina here I come!

Well it's hard to believe that it's only a few hours until I leave! I've got a lovely 18 hr flight ahead of me and then my plan is to arrive in Buenos Aires and get straight to the bus station for my 24 hr bus journey up north to Salta! I think I will be putting my student napping skills to use! Right now i'm really excited but i'd be lying if I was to say that i'm not nervous! It's going to be amazing to see everyone again and to catch up with the Church! Its going to be so strange to see how much it has changed! Can't wait!!! Right, I'm off to the airport now!