This week, someone asked me to describe a typical day or two here. It's difficult to imagine what a typical day wwould really look like; it would be most atypical in fact. However, I've put together a description of three "not totally way-out" days from this week, which hopefully give something of an idea of what a day might look like.
In the morning we went to the service at the church-plant in Barrio Sacchi. The church plant is about three years old, in an isolated neighbourhood just outside the city limits. About fifteen people come to the church, and there are others in the neighbourhood who we have contact with but aren't (yet) regulars at the church. The service starts at 10 (ish - we're in Argentina now!) and finishes at about 12. Afterwards we are invited to stay for lunch with some Peruvian friends who live just behind the church. In the afternoon we take a taxi home, and have a siesta (what a civilised culture this is), walk the dog, catch up with emails, drink coffee... At 7 (ish) we go to the meeting of the main church. Most of the big churches in Cordoba have their meetings in the evening, I'm not sure why that is, because in Buenos Aires the main services were all in the morning, so there must be some historical or cultural reason why Cordoba is different. Anyway, we digress... church goes on till about 10pm, followed by chatting. They have a "kiosko" afterwards, which is like a tuck-shop, to raise money for mission; they are supporting an Argentinian couple who are working in Morocco. We get home at about 11, and have something to eat. The evening meal here tends to be late, we're often eating between 11 and 12 at night, you get used to this after a while. In fact, we miss it now when we go away.
We're got out of bed by Fernando, our tame baker who sells his wares from his bicycle, we buy bread and sweet things to last for a couple of days. Martin is working on the computer. I cycle into town to the sign language group. There's two Deaf women and four or five hearing women, and we meet together on Tuesday mornings to learn and practise. Today we are talking about forms of transport. I now know the sign for "skateboard". Afterwards I carry on into the city centre to run some errands. To pay utility bills here, you have to go and queue up at a "pago-facil" (literally "pay easy") so I do that, go to a book shop to look at some teaching materials, go and buy some freshly ground coffee (essential supplies...) and cycle home. It's up hill on the way home. After lunch we have a short siesta. Then Martin is off on the bus to his Spanish lesson, about an hour away. And I have a go at cleaning the house. It's so dry here at the moment, everything is covered in brown dust. A lady from church, Mercedes, comes to see me. She is working with a group of gyspies (of Romanian origin many generations ago, they are very much a seperate and marginalised group here, they live in tents, dress differently, speak their own language and have strict cultural rules) Mercedes is teaching literacy there, but she has come to talk to me about an autistic child of five who appears not to be receiving any kind of input or stimulation. I agree that I will go and see him, she says to give her a few days to prepare the women to receive me as a stranger in their midst. She leaves. Martin arrives.
I'm up early to take the bus out to the children's home. It's the first day of Spring here, there's various festivals going on around the province, and traffic is slow in places. The bus drops me about 10km from the home, so I hitch a ride with a truck into the village. I play with the kids, and have lunch. I've brought some alfajores (like a variety of cookie) to share, suddenly I'm Mrs Popular. After lunch I'm working with four of the boys who are struggling at school. That makes me Mrs Less-than-Popular. However they do enjoy the new activity I've brought with me, letters that I've made on cardboard tiles cut out of a shoe box. We were recognising and matching, and they instantly started looking for their own names. Child one manages very quickly, child two succeeds as long as we're reading from right to left(!), child three finds the first three letters, and an approximation of the rest, child four strings together a random assortment of vowels and consonants and looks hopefully up at me. The one thing that I'm really encouraged by today is that since I've been working at the home, the other volunteers are starting to show an interest in finding ways to help the kids with the schooling. I need to think some more about how I can help the volunteers with ideas and activities, and I also want to show them that it is possible to do things without having huge resources. The tendancy here is to think that if you can't afford the "proper" stuff then you can't do anything. Later in the afternoon we take the kids to the village plaza where there's a children's play area. Towards dusk, I hitch a lift out again with another truck, and catch the bus back to Cordoba, with my mind buzzing with ideas and possibilities. I arrive home to find that Martin has done all the washing, and the washing up, and there's a cold beer waiting in the fridge.