Ian, our Senior Programme Executive, who is in charge of Marketing for Projects Abroad around the globe sent in a post about his recent trip to Argentina:

Hola. Como estas?

I am starting to remember my Spanish just about after four years of not using it. It has been great to visit Cordoba and the projects.

We have teaching, care and medical projects. Within a day of being here I had been made the godfather of a new school which is being built to replace the basic village school we have volunteers working in at the moment. The staff is so welcoming and keen to have volunteers help out. You can make a real difference. Without volunteers they have no one to teach English.

I met the mother superior at Hogar San Francisco orphanage which has had lots of volunteers. She proceeded to get out all her photos of volunteers and tell me about everyone that had helped out. They have created a vegetable patch for each of the children. The literal and figurative fruits of their labour are starting to appear with flowers as well as tomatoes coming to the fore.

At the hospital the main supervisor told me about the volunteers he has had - One even ended up attending a congress of doctors from around the world. Others have presented reports on AIDS around the world. There are some real opportunities to see how an Argentinean hospital works.

One of the first things I realised when I arrived is that it is difficult to starve in Argentina! The steaks are huge and they taste great. I was amused the other day when a lady who saw half a chicken on my plate asked why I wasn’t having meat! There are also lots of Italian influences with pizza, spaghetti and ravioli. Our vegetarians have lots of options although lots of Argentineans are a bit bemused at why people don’t want to eat their steak!

We have a real mix of volunteers with Belgian, Dutch, American and Germans all speaking a mix of English and Spanish. Unquillo where we are based is about an hour from the centre of Cordoba and is surrounded by countryside. It is a bustling town with lots of Argentinean tourists at the moment.

Cordoba is a great place to go travelling from with the Iguazu Falls in the north, Buenos Aires in the south and Mendoza in the west. Everyone that has been to Patagonia says it is well worth the journey.

Henning, a current volunteer, who has been in Argentina for five months, has worked out that if his travels in Argentina were all put together in one line it would take him from his home in Germany to Beijing. That is a lot of bus rides!

We have some exciting developments - moving to a new office in the next couple of weeks as well as Laura joining the team from our Mexican office. We have a couple of new projects that we shall hopefully introduce in the next few months. More on that later.

Ciao, Ian.