Hullo from South

Ladiez!
Hullo.

Well, wull wull.

Currently I am in a hostel in Cordoba, Argentina´s 2nd biggest city. The Tango Hostel is full of people drinking beer and talking and smoking in the garden. Western music is playing- where is it not around here? - and there are recognisable Scots, Irish, English, American, Aussie accents outside.

It´s weird, being put back into this ´tourist´realm, after the last week of being an ´Argentine´. Thrown into the deep end without any sense of traveller empathy I´m feeling here. It´s easy to feel isolated in a country where no one speaks your language but you soon realise that there´s travellers everywhere. It´s so deceivingly authentic.

Cordoba pulls lots of tourists for outdoor sports- hiking, riding, skydiving/ handgliding and the like. The Sierra Cordobas snake their way around the western side of the city.

My placement is in Ascochinga, 60 kilometres north of Cordoba. I´m in Cordoba this weekend with five other Australians, taking some time out to explore the town.

The first week of placement has gone well. Michael, Rueben and I are staying at a mentally disabled house run by the church. The owners, Marta and Juan, are very nice. ´Los chicos´, the 24 dudes who are looked after there, are funny, intruding, annoying, interesting, loveable. THeir characters are very distinct. It´s hard to obtain too much information about the place, as no one speaks English.
I´ll probably spend my first month in Argentina there, and then go to Villa Allende, which is closer, about 20kms from Cordoba. There I´ll be at an orphanage. Three Australian girls are there now. They say it´s very full on, and difficult to maintain sanity/ privacy at times. This is after a week, so we´ll see how four months goes. I think it´s a matter of time to get used to that really. They´ve also said that there´s not much for them to do there- when we visited today they were quite bored. Again, I suppose as comfort grows, we´ll create activities and fun things for the kids to do. They live there 24/7 so understandingly life is pretty mundane. 300 kids! Bonza.

Life at Ascochinga so far is very tranquil. It´s so quiet, and a simple life is lead there. When we´re not helping paint the place or help in the kitchen or clean, we often head down to the ´rio grande´- pretty small creek on the farm- to practise Spanish in the shade next to the wild brumbies. Pretty sweet.

I got pretty sick this past week. Not anything serious, perhaps just a cold, but I slept for 2 days. I´m better now, Marta tended to me real good, but now I have a hoarse voice and I think tomorrow there´ll be none left of it.

I have not written about the finale phases of the Ginnivan adventure, but I feel it´s too far gone. Alas, in person.

This is about it for now, I suppose. It´s 12.30am now and there´s a possibility of us going out tonight. Thing is, clubs don´t open till 2am. It may be a struggle to stay up till then. We´ll see. Definitely tomorrow night is a must.

Love for you all, hope all is well.

ps. ROCK ON FOR YOUTH ALLOWANCE!!! Kudos from over here.

xooxox Georgia