Rotary Club of Great Missenden
The GSE Team in Argentina
13 May 2007

A sort of diary report from our man in Argentina, Gavin Plews

[This is in response to Guru's e-mail to Gavin....At the Welcome Rally in England, Eduardo showed everyone some video clip and photos taken during your first few days in Argentina. It was a nice touch...]

Many thanks Guru, It makes fascinating reading.........wish I was there. Oh! I am.

Last night's meal at a restaurant turned into quite a do when the band realised we were English, and the crooner really gave it what for, and all directed towards us. I even danced with my host........and it´s not every day that happens, I can tell you. (Mind you, she did have to ask me.....you can´t get gentlemen these days, not real ones)

Today´s been tough. My host Amalia drove me out to her estancia about an hour´s drive from here in the country (campo) where 2 of her sons run the farm of 1200 cattle on 1600 hectares (which, I´m told is very small for this part of the world). There were about the usual 25 of us, and they barbecued (asado = bbq) a lamb, plus about a tonne of other meat. So we got stuck in to the food, in the shade of a massive flower covered terrace, gazing out over a sun drenched landscape, with parrots chattering in the eucalyptus trees, and humming birds taking nectar from the covering flowers. We stuck with it for about 6 hours until all (well, some) of the food was eaten, taking the occasional break to talk to the ostriches, and the girls persuading the local horsemen to let them have a go (even Sheila, who had never been on a horse until we came across a lonely gauch about a week ago, and she persuaded him to get off, and let her on, swinging her lasoo freely (and mostly in the horse´s eyes)

Anyway, you can imagine how exhausted we were at the end of the day. They told me it was going to be tough, but I didn´t listen!

Best wishes to you all, and keep up the good work Guru.

Incidentally, please tell Josefina that we´ve given our presentation 4 times now, and they are either too polite to say they didn´t understand it, or it was ok.

Incidentally, at our first presentation, about which we were a little nervous (especially as one of the team arrived an hour late, having been taken to the wrong venue. She had the laptop as well, so for about an hour I didn´t know whether we could do the show) Anyway, I was asked to come on to the stage and introduce the team.......we weren´t expecting this, as we introduce ourselves in the presentation. So I called the team up and was then told that the man next to me was going to interpret for us. Well, I´m delighted to say that he had nothing to do, as we introduced ourselves, and later on gave a faultless(well almost) presentation.

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