Naomi Francey in Argentina

Well guys just got off the bus and after replying to quite a few facebook comments thought I would let you know the latest craic!

Well I´m currently in Buenos Aires and just at this VIP section that is all free when you come with this bus company, so have free internet access! woohoo! I left the beautiful Salta yesterday at 16.10, leaving behind my new familt and friends waving me off at the terminal. Thank you all for turning up! I left little Megan and Helen there too, but know I will be seeing them all soon! Megan only has two more weeks left and Helen 5. Where on earth has the past 9 months went to?? I´ll do a 9 month report for you all when I get home, while trying to find a job!

I had my leaving party in the church on friday night where everyone said so many lovely things about me, believe it or not! haha and on my last sunday morning went up the cable cars with Megan and Helen to see the beautiful Salta for the last time (this year anyway). I have left behind many new friends in Salta and have had an amazing time getting to know each of them, and will miss them all alot. But now I´m on my way home I´ve realised how much I have missed you all too, plus a kettle that boils in a minute and a sofa!! They just don´t seem to exist here at all.

I will see you all soon, I arrive into Dublin on tuesday night, so happy St Patricks day in advance! And pray for the rest fo my journey that everything will go according to plan and I will return safely.

Lots of Love

Naomi

Yes everyone it is my last week here in the beautiful Salta, its certainly hard to believe that this time 9 months ago I was getting ready to come to argentina and here I am yet again getting ready to leave. It certainly is mixed emotions. I have already said some final goodbyes its strange I just don´t feel like it has hit me yet that I´m leaving. I have just been doing some souvenir shopping in the sunshine , how I´m going to miss that. But I´ve also been buying plenty of llama clothes too to keep me warm for when I go home!

I leave Salta this sunday at 16.10 and get the bus to Buenos Aires. I will arrive in BA on monday morning and fly out on monday night, first to Madrid, then London and then Dublin. Hoepfully I won´t have many problems flying into Dublin on St Patrick´s Night, my plane will probably just be full of drunk irish! All will probably want to do is hit my bed with a duvet, oh how I have missed my duvet!

Prayer Points:

For my friends Abram and Luz that they may get a house soon that will be close to their children´s school.

For my travelling home, that I may reach home in one piece.

For David who is leaving Ireland this week, for his travels and his adjustment back into his culture.

For my last few days here that I can make the most of it and enjoy the time I have left.

And don´t worry everyone I´m really really looking forward to seeing you all when I get home!! Very excited!!! Mum get the rhubard meringue made because i´m dying for some!

See you all soon!

Love Naomi

xoxox

Well everyone!

Our chance to go to our first Argentinian wedding had arrived, and Titch I will kill you! They definately do NOT wear jeans and tshirts to weddings here!! Thankfully we did not take Titch´s fashion advice and did buy dresses for the wedding. The wedding was our Pastor´s eldest son, he is called Samuel and his now wife is called Vanina. We had been helping that week with the wedding preparations because instead of hiring people to do all the preparations everyone in the church helps out. Eventually the Saturday arrived and luckily there wasn´t heavy rain like the day before! This is Helen, Me and Megan all dolled up for  service, without tshirts and jeans in sight!:

We had arrived on time, it was quite random though when all th guests got seated and the band were all ready they started the service and the bride or groom hadn´t even arrived yet! Eventually Samuel arrived with his mother leading him up the aisle:

Bless him he looked so nervous! Here though they kinda have the reception, legal part before the day of the wedding, so he really didn´t need to worry, if she wasn´t going to turn up she wouldn´t have appeared the day before. Vanina ended up being two hours late however, Samuel was about an hour and a half late so it wasn´t too big a wait for him! Argentinians, everything starts late! Vanina arrived with her wee daddy, she looked gorgeous with a princessy type dress on:

The service was lovely, a lot of singing and even Samuel had written a song for Vanina and sang that for her infront of everyone. After they had a bite to eat in the church hall and then we all headed out to Mersed for the evening do. This is Helen and eye taking down our hard days work at the end of the service: 

The reception seemed to be a place that was like a basketball court, we got well fed and watered there and then entertained by the band! There were really good, this one guy from another church in Salta who kinda looked like Russell Brand had an amazing voice and did this solo, felt like I was at a rock concert not a wedding! This picture below is our Pastor´s whole Family from left to right we have Pablo, Samuel, Marte, Pastor Renato and Joel:

This is us all hanging out at the wedding, it had been a fantastic day indeed and the do wasn´t over till 3.30am or so:

This is Helen, Vanina, Megan and I getting some last photos with the bride. Helen was amazed with the sparkly shoes, had to restrain her from stealing them off the bride!

We had a great day and you can remember Samuel and Vanina in your prayers as they start their new life together in Corrientes!

You can´t complain now for my lack of blogging, thats 4 entries in one night! Sorry again, just found it hard to find time to write!

Hope you are all well!!

Love Naomi

xoxoxxo

So this is chapter, three, if you have just joined us the story of 09 begins with the blog entry I know, I know…..(see two below and work your way backwards)

So we have just left Cecilia in Salta and are on a bus to the province north of Salta called Jujuy. We were meeting out friend Exequiel in the capital and then going to get a taxi out to the camp together. So reached the capital but there was some kind of protest on with the taxi drivers, Megan decided to take a photo of these 10 people protesting and one man seen her and with his loudspeaker shouted one photo for one kiss! lol It was hilarious, luckily he didn´t come over for that kiss! Got to the camp eventually, we were two days late because we had been in Bolivia. The young people from our church were already there (by the way I should say you are still a young person here till you reach like 30).

It was in the middle of the mountians and it was absolutely gorgeous, we got ourselves settled in and the way this camp worked was you were put into a group and you had to stay with your group at all times, eat with your group, play with your group and talk to your group, it was all very groupest! Helen´s was the worst her leaders were group mentalists! Here is a few photos when we got to break free from our groups:

This is Analia from our church is Salta and with the help of Joel is giving me a back massage, hmmm she is little but I have to admit it wasn´t the most comfortable thing!

I was in Group 1 and in my group there was this crazy guy called Marcos who word this Cowboy hat whenever he could, he was hilarious though and loved the band Lifehouse so we had that in common! This photo is the one time Helen´s group was sitting beside us for dinner and thats Marcus to the right (obviously):

 And this is Marcus pretending the bench was a horse - Priceless: 

One other night each group had to do a drama thing, I was picked in my group to be the Model, thats what you get for being tall in a group of Argentinians! This is me as a Model, though I thought they dressed me up more like a prostitute instead!! And Megan was the Goth in her group doesn´t she fit the part brilliantly:

Megan didn´t really know what Goth´s did but this is her head banging:

 This is Helen playing the girlfriend in her groups drama:

 One other morning two groups arrived dressed as Babies! Here is our friend Exequiel dressed up as a baby! How cute indeed!

Unfortunately we had to leave the camp early because Megan had suspected Appendicitis, thankfully it didn´t end up being that, but she still is not back to full health, so if you could remember her in your prayers that would be great!

Love Naomi

Now we arrived in Salta that sunday night and had to quickly find clean clothes and pack for out next camp for young people. However Cecilia was heading to Ireland that Tuesday and wanted to have one more night together before she left. Even though we were lacking in energy, we pumped the coffee into us that all you wonderful people have posted out to us and headed into town! This photo is of us all and Cecilia ´s sister too, shes the girl in the red T-shirt, as you can see this is a very beautiful picture of us all:

Then here we have the two Rolingas together, on our last night together in Salta, because when Cecilia returns from Ireland I shall be home.

We all had a good night out even though we were tired. Please remember Cecilia in your prayers as she works with many different churches in Ireland and help her to find time to rest and relax aswell. I´m sure she will be in Primark getting all her 1 pound dresses too! Please pray for her safe travel aswell.

Love Naomi

Well everyone

Apologises because I am sooooo behind doing my blog, over 6 weeks! I have been so busy and a lot has been happening so instead of writing one giant blog I´m going to write it in Chapters so you don´t look oh my word how long it this?, its going to be boring so I won´t read it! So to avoid this happening I´m going to start with Bolivia!

In the second week in January the three of us plus Gisel from our Church heading to Santa Cruz, a major city in Bolivia. Once we arrived there we had to get another bus to the mountains, this 3 hour bus journey soon became a 6 hour bus journey to the mountains! Round and round the windey roads we went and arrived eventually at a place called Mont Blanco! It was a camp out in the middle of nowhere, it was beautiful. The camp was run by people from Europe and was the equivalent of Summer Madness in Belfast, but much better and for a wider age range aswell.  It was better organised than summer madness and we were kept on a tight enough rein. All of the seminars and worship were compulsary, but we enjoyed every minute of it! We got woken at 6.30 EVERY morning for gym by crazy Juan Carlos shouting through our window “vive Irlande, Vive Irlanda” as you can imagine we were very amused with this every morning! One morning Megan got up and chased him through the camp! I can still hear his whistle in my nightmares!

We were there for a whole week and were blessed with beautiful weather, the food was unbelievable! For breakfast we would have doughnuts, toast and egg and we even had scones one morning! Scones?? Nothing like that from the Richmond of course! and they were lacking raspberry jam, but still nice to have familar food! The speakers at the camp were from all over Miami, Switzerland, Germany and Mexico, of course all the seminars were in spanish, but I know enough to get the jist of what is going on! One day we did outreach to a local village and we were literally transported there like cattle! Although the below photo looks like something out of an Argentinian nightclub:

It is actually all of the people from the camp packed into a cattle hauler! It was great craic, oh how sometimes I love the lack of laws in these countries!! We were just doing a streetreach type thing in the village, picking up litter and doing stuff for the kids, it was a great time. I ended up talking to a local woman at her fruit stall and she gave me a bag of plums for free for the work that I was doing! Bless her wee Bolivian socks!

On the thursday of this week the afternoon was all games, and because Naomi is a LOT taller than the Bolivians she was chosen for ALL the games lol! The first one was volleyball, but not your normal volleyball, it involved the hugest ball I have ever seen:

It was great craic, there was another one that involved being put into a huge rubber ring then having to run and bend down and lift tennis balls. Then another one, a test of strength, meant that the four strongest from the team were harnest up and attached to a rope.

With four teams all pulling in the opposite direction, the aim of the game was to pull towards your corner and try and get as many sponge balls as possible and put them in a basket in the centre! Heres a photo of our team in action:

I was covered in bruises for a week after, but it was worth it! It was a great week and met some lovely people from Bolivia and Argentina! On the bus home however we did have quite an unfortunate wait of 8 HOURS at the Bolivian/Argentina Border, it took us 8 hours to move about 10 metres, but thats the third world for you! Eventually made it home after several more police checkpoints in Argentina, apparently its very strict because we were coming from Bolivia and there is a lot of drug smuggling. Man, were we glad to see Salta! But we weren´t there for long as were shipped off the next day to Jujuy a province North of Salta………

Its sunday 4th January hard to believe we are four days into January already! Its a lovely sunny day here and the shorts are out! We all had a good Christmas and New Year in Argentina. I can´t really remember what I had said in my last email about Christmas but well we started the festivities on the 24th night and all got dolled up and headed to Papi´s house for food! Now it wasn´t your average Christmas dinner, we had chicken, rice, pasta and potatoes and salad, no turkey

then we did a countdown at 12.00, then went out to the street to watch the fireworks. Now there is certainly no health and safety rules especially when you see 6 year olds letting off fireworks and they go flying into the sky with the old one flying down the street! This is a photo of me, Megan and Helen with very itchy tinsle around our necks:

Papi enjoying the festivities with a bit of dancing:

My Christmas present: (yeah I wish)

After Papis we went to the church and met with the young people:

As you can see Megan has passed on her tinsle to Joel: It really did itch but its Christmas so you have to do these things!

And look Granny your cake finally arrived and as they would say in Argentina - Muy Rico!:

 I haven´t downloaded my photos from new year! But hope that you all had a good one and didn´t drink too much beer and wine! For new year here the three of us were separated and I was at Amanda´s house the lady in my church and taught them all auld lang syne and made everyone get in a circle and I sang, roughly what I thought the words were!

Altogether I found that Christmas and New Year were quite similar and have came to the conclusion that we do Christmas a lot better there wasn´t a nice warm fire to be seen here When I phoned home on Christmas day dad was just sitting down to the fire and would no doubt be snoozing….

Well going to leave you now! Happy New Year, Feliz Año Nuevo! and hopefully will blog soon before I head to Bolivia on the 9th of January for a summer training camp!

Love Naomi

xxx

and Naomi was sitting in the cyber listening to Christmas music on her Ipod. Hmmm also wearing a vest top, she definately isn´t in Northern Ireland…..

I just wanted to wish you all a very Merry, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I´m sure today you are all doing last minute shopping and preparing the turkey, I´m afraid I won´t be getting any turkey this year, but steak instead! lol still have a little last minute shopping to do myself! Opps! Thank you to all who posted presents for Christmas they have all been greatly received and even Jonathans right on time today! Well timed Bro!

On Sunday I played the part of the wise man Baltazar in the nativity and of course Naomi had to be painted black, however all I had was regular paper paint so I certainly was as black as your boot! Megan was another King and Helen was Mary:

Yes, I know you can barely see my face, heres a closer look:

The Nativity was going great until Mary had to get on the back of the donkey, which had not been practiced in current costumes, this meant that Mary´s dress was too long and restriced her leg movements, and unfortunately failed to get onto the donkey and let to the whole church in laughter:

This is Helen in mid swing, captured fantastically by Cecilia! Great Camera work there! Everything else was going great until no body had told Naomi her robe was on back to front! Opps! This meant that while walking and bowing to baby Jesus everyone could see her black feet and ankles, white leg and ladybird skirt:

 Ah well it all looked great and they even used a real baby for Jesus! She, yes it was a she baby behaved fantasic! Wee cutie!

We went into the centre on monday night because a few people from our church were playing in a band and they did some Christmas Carols in spanish, it was nice because I love Christmas Carol services and really missed having them this year! Heres a few wee photos from in town: First Helen, me and Megan wearing festive hats!

This is one of my crazy friends Exequiel, he was the one who though the pumas would beat Ireland how long were you my friend!!

Joel is back from University so its great we can spend Christmas with him too:

Claudia, Vicky and I loving the Christmas Music:

And making a time for a Christmas Guinness in the Irish Bar:

Once again Merry Christmas to you all! I will miss you at this time of year, mum´s fantastic cooking, dad´s muld wine, Jonathan and James´ computer game playing each Christmas morning, spending a day with my Grannys. I will be thinking of you all, but don´t worry I´m happy, healthy and full of Christmas Cheer! God Bless, take care and have a good one!

Feliz Navidad!!!

Naomi

xoxoxxox

Hola, Hola, Hola!

First I need to thank my little star of a cousin Rebecca for writing that beautiful prayer for the Christingle Craol service, I really loved it, so thank you so much your a genius! Sitting in an internet cafe and drinking coffee from my new Starbucks Christmas portable coffee holder, thank you emma!! In this heat its reminding me that its Christmas! I just wanted to show you a random selection of photos of the past months, I have most of them on facebook however not all you have facebook and I don´t want to be facebookist towards you!

This is me at the Iguazu waterfalls the other week, this one is called the devil´s throat and it is absolutely amazing! WOOSH big hair moment!

The three sisters at a Danny´s end of school formal they gave us loads of freebies like these classy hats and glasses!

 Just love this photo from the end of the night with the three guys from our church:

 Last young people meeting of the year in church, here is from left to right, Nigel, Analia, Danny and Pitu! Waiting on the bbq!

Finally the food arrived, this is feeding time at the zoo!

This is little Sol who you have seen before, she gives great hugs, sorry Mark but your first place has been given away!

Helen, Megan, Me and Cecilia at Megan´s baptism on sunday night. The one with her in her robe wouldn´t upload, grrr much to her delight!

This is David who is now living in Lisburn working for Lisburn Cathedrale, this is his leaving bbq mmmm steak

Here is Helen and Megan who is sporting some very fashionable sunglasses (cough cough) with Salta in the background!

 Empanada making time! Typical food for Argentina, and yes they did taste as good as they look!

This is a view of the beautiful Salta, look theres my house…do you see it??

 Oh yes this is a lovely one, my last day in Comedor, while waiting for the bus all the kids came over the hill! Look at all their wee smiling faces, great times!

Thats just a wee selection of my million!!! Hope you enjoyed that! Hmm thunderstorm just about to come on and i´m in flip flops again!!! Why does this always happen! lol

Take care my dears!

Naomi

xoxoxxoxo

Where to begin….

Well last thursday a little Christmas miracle occurred in a little village in Northern Ireland called Gilford.  After reading my last blog entry, all the people in a little church called St. Pauls decided to donate some money to me for Christmas time. This money has been a real blessing to the children here in Salta. When I got the text from Dad I was so so excited and it was the best news in the world! As this week was my last week in the Comedor I had to shop fast. On Friday we went shopping and got a few gifts rounded up and then completed the shopping on Monday evening. Its amazing though because of the exchange rate we were able to buy so so much. Each of the gifts consisted of a sketch pad for drawing because they always love me drawing for them, a packet of colouring pencils, a bracelet and a santa hat! The lady we bought the stationary off gave us discount when we told her what it was for. Things couldn´t have been better. We also had taken a picture of each of the children and stuck them on card, like a school photo. All this in total only cost about 100 pounds ( sorry argentinian keyboards don´t have pound signs!) giving Christmas presents to around 40 children. Below is a picture of the gifts that we bought:

This is the wrapping process with Santa´s Little Helpers Megan and Helen, it felt like a real wee factory! We were even working till 1.30 in the morning, Santa would have been proud.

This is the final product, all beautifully wrapped (Megan was trained well in the chemist) and you can see the wee photos of my wee angels too!

I have so many photos of the children receiving the gifts and unwrapping the gift, too many to put up on the blog i´m afraid, how I wish you could see all their happy wee faces. So here are a few and I hope you will get the general idea

 This is me explaining to the kids about my church in Ireland:

This is Emmanuel, his smile says it all:

Here is Helen with Celeste:

And here is Helen and I with the morning group:

 And Sol and I, what a wee cutie!

 And one last one, I do have 100´s of the kids playing in the park in their Santa Hats!

It was so amazing to see how excited they were with all their gifts and the smiles on their faces, certainly were priceless.  I bought a special gift for one of the older girls. Her name is Adrianna and has a very special place in my heart, ever since I arrived she has always listened to me even when I couldn´t speak that much. When I arrived she had little star earrings and I bought her a new pair and a star ring aswell. This cost me in total 1 pound and when I gave her the gift on Tuesday she was so shocked and broke down crying in my arms, I just held her for the rest of the day, she wasn´t going to let me go. This is the reason I´m here and I can´t thank you enough for your generosity. You don´t know what a difference you have made, but believe me its huge!

Yesterday was my last day in the Comedor and what a day it was, whenever I arrived, the kids were like we have a card for you senorita. And they had made me Christmas cards the wee dotes. I also got presented with a beautiful wooden box and an envelope full of little letters from the kids. They are the best gift of all. I didn´t read them till I got home, for fear of dropping one! Also the mother of Ramon who does all the cooking in the comedor said seno we have a present for you. This is a woman with 9 children, who can barely provide for them and she got me a gift. I was so shocked and have never been so more overjoyed to receive a little tupperware pot in all my life. This is my God in these people. I can´t explain how much God touched me when I started reading their little letters one by one and when I reached the one from Adrianna the tears came. Her letter just proved how precious she is. I´ll translate a few of the letters in a future blog entry.

I just feel so attached to these children and have enjoyed every minute with them. They have such an amazing spirit, so full of joy and have so much love to gift. Like all children they can fight, shout and cry but they have such full hearts and I would just ask you to pray for them all.

Love Naomi

xoxo