living these days takes a lot of energy

As of late I haven't been in much of a blogging mood. I've determined that the energy required to write a post is quite different than the energy required to, say, write an email or have a chat online. I think it has something to do with the fact that if you are just having a chat with someone you can just lay out the facts. It's a conversation, they can ask questions, you can clarify. Blogging, however, requires more language. Everything needs to be explained and if you are nice to your readers (if you have any) then you need to use more varied diction. The whole point of this (stellar) insight is to say that I have not felt, not even one tiny little bit, like this over the weekend and it's only now that I feel a slight inclination to blog. Plus I have a lot to say and I feel like it would be negligent to not tell you until it piles up. So here I go...

The French arrived yesterday. After going to bed at 2am, I was awaken by the stomping of several pairs of feet and the clunk of several rolled suitcases across the hardwood at around 11am. For this I am furious because I suck at sleeping in and I have already managed to do it (and given that I have been woken up by them and not just naturally) and I probably could have done it longer. Oh, well.

Hubert, Pierrick, and Lisa. They talk (a lot and LOUDLY), smoke a lot (like four or five cigarettes a day), and they drink lots and lots of vino tinto (say, four bottles at dinner last night?). They also talk all the time in French (despite the fact we have told them countless times not too) and they require so much energy. They leave, or so they say, on August 7th (so a week for I do- and they stay only a month). Despite the lovely character traits listed above, I have yet to make up my mind as to whether or not I want them to leave.

On the note of people coming and going, Sophie leaves on Saturday. Although I wasn't sure I liked the idea of her leaving so soon I am warming up to it as lately she has been a little critical. Not in a mean way or outwardly but my tendency to spend time alone as opposed to smoking and drinking and talking until 2am and then going to a club with all of them is leading them to think I'm some sort of social retard and I am encouraged to go out, drink, smoke, and the like. I've tried to explain, "I like being by myself," but even that falls flat sometimes. At first that kind of bugged me, made me a little sad, a little homesick even, but now I don't mind it because I've decided I don't care. It's highly unlikely that my two weeks with Sophie have formed a lasting friendship, so I'm moving on with life.

This morning I left early for work (I had to go early to end early, which I needed to do because I was supposed to have group Spanish lessons from 2pm to 4pm). At work I was saddened to discover that both Irina and Dayana had left. Both had been placed with foster parents. And today I was loathe to say goodbye to both Lucia and Luna (sisters), Lucia having fast become one of my favourite. Evidently the feeling was mutual because she spent all morning crying and in my lap and if I so much as tried to disentangle her hand then she would cry, and cry, and cry. Unfortunately she will be in a different foster home than her sister since Cordoba is in dire needs of foster parents and no parent is willing to take more than one child. Lucia had to watch as they took her sister, four hours before she was taken, and she seemed really confused and it was hard to watch.

Tomorrow Camila will go and then my orphanage will shut down (this plan has been in the works for sometime) and the remaining two children (Damian and Joaquin) will go (along with the workers and me) to a bigger orphanage, called Eva Peron, about 30 or so minutes away. Curious as to why only these two would stay I asked and was given some very frank, but upsetting answers. First, let me say that Joaquin is four years old. He is as small as a one year old, he cannot walk, he cannot talk, he cannot crawl, he can barely sit up. He is severely malnourished and his mother didn't want him. While undergoing rehabilitation several attempts have been made to place him in a home, but nobody wants him. And that is exactly how my coworker said it.

Damian, is a different case. Taken from his mother, his grandmother frequently visits him. Normally the custom is that no child remains in a group home in Cordoba longer than three months and usually spends time with a foster parent until they are adopted. With Damian this is not the case as his grandmother refuses to let him be fostered or adopted but will not take care of him herself. Normally the orphanage would not listen to her, but she is the secretary of the mayor and he himself has said that he cannot be fostered or adopted. Which pretty much means that the grandmother is condemning him to a childhood in an orphanage. Which made both me (and apparently all my coworkers) really mad.

I rushed home from work to get on another bus to go to my Spanish classes. Only to find them cancelled today. It wound up working in my favour though as I had a bunch of stuff to discuss with Ariel (the projects abroad Argentina desk officer). We figured out that starting tomorrow I will be taking private (or with one other person) Spanish lessons - 14 hours over the next two weeks. After that I will begin an afternoon placement (maintaining my morning work at the orphanage) at Las Rosas, which is an magazine in Cordoba. Sophie has already negatively told me I will not enjoy it because it has a unique ambiance (she worked there for a month) but I am determined not to listen because she has seemed pretty critical about projects abroad and all her work thus far. Basically, when I asked her whether or not her experience had been good she told me that living in Argentina was great but projects abroad kind of sucked.

So now I'm home, and exhausted because I didn't sleep well last night - something about street vendors blasting loud music until 3am and then people loudly washing the street until 4am, and Sophie stumbling in to bed at around 5am). I don't intend to do anything with what's left of my day (its quarter to five in Argentina) except maybe write some letters and plan out my weekends - so far it looks like I will be spending a weekend in Mendoza (or Buenos Aires - but I'm really not sure about Buenos Aires), and a long weekend (4 days) in Chile, and I'm keen to go paragliding in La Cumbre (apparently the paragliding capital of the world).

This Thursday however I have no work and I am going on a projects abroad organized trip to Alta Gracia, where we are getting a tour of Che Guevera's childhood home and all sorts of other fun stuff.

:)