What am I doing in Argentina? It's a good question; one I get asked several times a week and one I ask myself several times a day.
Well I appear to be living here as I am paying monthly rent but I am not paying any bills so that disqualifies me from getting a bank account which in turn disqualifies me from getting a job. But wait, I have a job. It just so happens to be unpaid but does that lessen the fact that I am working?
The term 'gap year' makes me cringe and 'career break' even more so. My initial plan (which has fallen to the wayside a little) was to embark on some anthropological fieldwork in readiness for a Masters on my return to London but so far it is still in the theoretical stages so I can hardly claim this is a 'research trip'. And anyway how do I say that without sounding hopelessly pretentious?
But people want an answer, the locals I meet, the other gringos and especially Jonathan from Metrobank who is refusing to send me a new debit card after I have mislaid my original one on the grounds that they don't expect their customers to take 'extended trips abroad'. Apparently the fact that I don't have a return flight to the U.K is too ambiguous. Apparently my status is too limbo-esque (if that is not a word it should be). And apparently I will be closing my Metro bank account on my return to the U.K (ha that will learn 'em).
But for now the ambiguity suits me and I try not to think about it too much as I sit in my (rented) flat or do my (unpaid) job and stay put in BA a while longer.
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