On Friday evening after our talk Harry and Susan took us to the local Baptist church where a group of young people from a college in America were performing. The group sang beautifully in Spanish, and were all so musically talented that we were shocked to hear that none of them had specialised in music. The group shared testimonies and we heard a sermon from their lecturer, it was great to chat with them after the service, they were all very interested in Soul Touch!
Early Saturday morning we left for the Good Samaritan community centre where we would be helping set up for the childrens party they were hosting in the afternoon. We were both a little nervous as no one at the centre spoke any English, and our Spanish has quite a way to go! Thankfully we’re both very skilled in non verbal communication so we managed to be helpful.

In the afternoon we had the honour of accompanying one of the ladies from the centre to the hospital to deliver blankets and New Testaments to the new babies and mums. The ladies were delighted with their gifts and were happy to pose for a photograph.
We arrived back on time to catch the second half of the childrens party, the volunteers at the centre put on a show and at the end they released balloons from the ceiling, the kids were all going mad! They were each given a gift as they were leaving, these were the gifts that we’d helped to package last week. It was great to see the joy on the childrens faces as a result of the committed team at San Andres collecting the toys for them.

On Sunday morning we moved to stay with our new host family in the morning before the church service. Church is held in a high school as the building is too small for the congregation. The service was of course in Spanish but we had most of it translated for us. The service was pretty much the same as a Presbyterian service at home.
We arrived at church, which is held in San Andres high school, and thankfully one of the ladies volunteered to translate the Spanish service for us. We met up with our hosts again and headed home for a traditional Sunday lunch! This house differs from other argentine homes, the traditional meal here is pasta, which makes a lot of sense to me considering the time it takes to prepare a Sunday roast! And fresh ravioli is a real treat! We had some time to relax in the afternoon before we were collected for the evening service, this takes place in an old Presbyterian church building in town. It’s a more traditional service but is the same sermon as the morning, so Jenn and I used the time to practice singing in Spanish (during worship – not during the sermon!) and read our bibles.
We’re excited but very nervous about learning Spanish! But we’ve jumped in a little at the deep end... on Monday morning we agreed that the following evening we would give our testimonies and talk about the trip – IN SPANISH – at an ecumenical meeting which takes place once a month in the Martinez area, north of Buenos Aires. So we spent the rest of the morning working on our pronunciation.
At lunchtime we headed to meet with the youth leaders for a meeting about the youth camp which was taking place at the weekend. Jenn and I had agreed to help out at the event, but we were a little concerned we’d be more hassle than anything as everything would have to be translated for us! Anyway we went along to the meeting to meet with the staff and everyone was very welcoming. A few people told us their English was very poor, but the Argentine’s seem to be quite modest and usually their English is muy bien(very good)!
We spent the afternoon with a couple who work with the youths (Ruth and Sergio), they took us to Caminito which is the birth place of a particular tango dance, As you can see from the photographs the buildings are beautifully painted and Jenn and I had a bash at a tango pose!

We managed to bag ourselves a mati cup and straw (this is a cup used to drink a local tea, which is shared among groups of friends) as a keepsake and headed for a drive around town to some of the tourist spots while we waited for it to be late enough to go for dinner...

I don’t know if we will manage to adapt to the argentine way of living. Dinner served at 8.30pm would be considered early! Our tummy’s are grumbling by 7pm! We managed to get to a restaurant fairly early, it was called follow the cow, but in Spanish and was an all you can eat BBQ place with the most amazing salad bar I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Jenn and I, not being big meat eaters, were baffled when we were asked which part of the cow we liked to eat... we were clueless! Apparently this is something which is very important in Argentina, we were unsure so left it up to Ruth and Sergio to decide for us. We tried something very similar to black pudding, although it was a lot more moist and soft but very delicious! We had a long drive around the grid system as neither of us could remember where our new home was! But eventually we found our way home and headed for some rest (or at least I did!) as we were due at the food bank early the following morning.
I woke up to discover Jenn had been up late organising transport for the day! Oops! Anyway I’m not much fun when I’m tired... The Food Bank takes food from companies which they won’t use, this can be because of imperfections in the packaging etc, but the food is perfect inside so the food bank take the food, and make packages up for places like the good Samaritan community centre and they can use it to feed the people in the area. We arrived at the industrial estate where the food bank warehouse is located and spent the best part of an hour searching for it, eventually we found our way and we were put to work opening boxes of food, checking for holes in the packaging and making sure it didn’t go out of date before October.

The first box we opened was full of open packets, it’s was so depressing to be throwing more food out, but a few boxes in it became visible how much food we were actually saving and it became very rewarding. After we filled the tables with food we made miscellaneous boxes of food which weighed 11kg and these were ready to be delivered. Once the tables were clear the process would begin again. We were working over lunchtime so Jenn and I had started to feel a little peckish... and were now surrounded by food! At one point we opened a box which was full of cheetos (similar to cheesy wotsits) which were due to go out of date the following day. We thought there was a chance we might get a bag, but unfortunately not... we agreed that it was probably delivered to a youth centre and that made us feel much better!
We arrived home in the afternoon absolutely shattered! And tonight was the night we were supposed to be reading our talk in Spanish at the meeting, I had promised myself a short nap before we practiced lots and attended the meeting; unfortunately it didn’t work out like that. We arrived at 4pm and received a phone call telling us to be at the church in an hour, so after a few rushed practices we headed. I think the talk went well, well at least I think the congregation understood us! I reckon we probably read like 5 year olds though, but at least we tried and now we are a bit more clued up on pronunciation!

Laura (now pronounced low-ra) <><