Meet the Interns

Ryan Paul Kerby

Known simply as Kerby, he's a Te Aroha boy at heart (go the Valley!) but looks forward to returning to the new home in Somerset Heights, Htown. Would feel lost without rugby news, and NFL on PS2. Known for dishing out liberal amounts of abuse and throwing a mean lineout. Ambitions for the future include finding a (high income earning) wife and settling down as a personal trainer.

Alejandro Ahmed Selin

Otherwise know as Jandro, he hails from from Miami, Florida. Lived with Ryan and I from June until August. A lover of Honey Graham cereal (scandalously consuming whole boxes at a time), his superpower is playing pool...ambidextrously. Doesn't eat meat on Fridays and plans to re-conquer ancestral lands in Lebanon after completing a Math Major at Washington and Lee University, Lexington, Virginina.

Elliott Willliam O'Brien

Nicknames have failed to stick to the author of this blog, but the following are some attempts: little animal, adrian, bucketass, little oranges (long story). Since arriving in Argentina the hair growth has been largely unchecked resulting in the 'Che'-like aspect featured above (some refer to it as a 'dirty ginga beard'). Fighting from afar for NZ's political future, was instrumental in Labour's victory over National in the tighting fought election battle of 2005.

Uruguay
land of the plastic nosed elephant...

first (and only sunny) impressions of Uruguay

the tomb that houses the remains of Artigas, amazing atmopshere

Yeti busted...

lovely beaches - would be nice when dry, hot and inhabited

As promised there was a big hand

marmota...

this may seem like national pride; it's in fact disrespectful Argentine flag protocol

A fourth and fifth form school trip to Uruguay in June gave Ryan and I the perfect chance to see a bit the bordering country, at basically no expense. We stayed in the top hotel in the capital, Montevideo, had plenty of nice meals (and beer courtesy of Yeti), and saw plenty of interesting sites. There were only two drawbacks: supervising the students and trying to sleep in the same room as Yeti.

The trip started on a Wednesday night at Holy Trinity. The bus had trouble leaving, as most of Mar del Plata had come out to see us off. We then proceeded to drive 17 hours non-stop to Montevideo. To be honest, there was a fairly big stop at the border as they processed the 100-odd passports we had. We made it to the British School (not actually aligned with the United Kingdom in any other way than design and having subjects in English but whatever) at about 4.30pm the following day. The students had to play soccer, rugby and netball despite not having had lunch, or a shower and many having slept very little during the bus trip. Rather them than I - I managed to find a seat in the bottom of the bus and sleep almost the whole way. I had a quiet game of tennis at the school and scored myself a hot lunch beforehand.

That day was really the only fine one we had the whole time in Uruguay. It may be a country known for its sun and beaches that attract the world's rich and famous but obviously we didn't make the cut as I felt sand under my feet only once, and even then it was wet! The following day we did a city tour battling the heavy rain. We saw the football stadium that hosted the Soccer World Cup one year in the seventies, the monument to Artigas the national hero and the Cathedral. Lunch was at a local shopping centre - the students found a novelty shop and all hell broke loose... There was silly string, foam spray, exploding matches, hair dyes, whoopy cushions and all of it put immediately to use. We got our good mate Yeti some fake breasts as a bit of a laugh (see photo above). The airhorn we bought is still hanging around the house. You can imagine how much I loved Ryan waking me up with it when I was in the middle of battling bronchitis later that month.

The business side of the day came when we went to another school in Montevideo - this time the rain made swimming and indoor soccer the only possiblities but obviously this didn't draw many complaints. Ryan and I even got to have a kick around, and laze about in the TEACHERS ONLY spa. After a nice wee dinner we returned to the hotel. I was thinking maybe it would be an hour before the students would be all settled down, asleep in thier rooms. When 4am rolled around and I was still chasing kids around the hotel and dragging fourth formerd out of other people's rooms it was clear that I had grossly underestimated the resolve of the group to make trouble. Just when everything had returned to an acceptable state I got a second shock. The fifth form girls started rolling up the stairs (it is possible...) drunk from a little expedition to a local pub with the fifth form boys that all the teachers - except Yeti and I - had taken them to. They obviously went to sleep much quicker than the fourth formers so I made it to my room by 4.30am.

There was no consolation there however. Yeti broke his nose numerous times as a young rugby player and recently had an operation to repair it. He now has three plastic brackets inside his nasal passage that seem to amplify his snoring. It really is impressive, possibly even rivaling an elephant. I could honestly hear it half way across the hotel. Needless to say I didn't sleep that well for the three hours before we got up for breakfast. That day I earned my reputation for being a 'marmota' as I slept all the way to Punta del Este.

We visited another school called St Clares in Punta, run by an interesting Canadian guy. We watched the soccer, this time on half size indoor turfs. It looked like fun. The boys got trodden on by the uruguayos however, taking a few showy goals as consolation. I have a video of one of them but it would make the site too slow - let me know if you want to see it.

That night we took to the streets of Punta. It was incredibly quiet - so Yeti and Victor decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to take the male students to the pokies. It was rather funny to see the fourth and fifth formers having a crack at the roulette machines. Following that we spent 4 fairly slow hours supervising the party organised by St Clares for our students at a local football club. We returned to sleep the night in hostels. I didn't even bother with the showers as the hot water was non-existent - Yeti's screams were rather comical.

The following day we drove around Punta del Este in the bus...I guess we were supposed to be seeing the sites. The beaches are nice, there's a mad curvy bridge, and a big hand but it was obvious it's the kind of place that is defined by throngs of people. The summer houses put Mt Maunganui to shame, ridiculous in there size and facilities. The fog set in by 3pm and so we didn't get to do the second half of the tour. We had a nice parrilla, bought some lollies and embarked on another 17 hour bus trip (that I slept through) arriving back in Mar del Plata feeling dirty and with a little bit of a cold, but otherwise content, ready for lunch on Monday afternoon.