Argentine stories: Patricia Otero

"The majority are suffering... every day I hear protests"

As Argentina's financial crisis grinds on, ordinary people are suffering more and more. In the latest of a series of eye-witness accounts, BBC News Online spoke to Patricia Otero, who works for a large Western company in central Buenos Aires.

I'm not exactly a typical Argentine - for a start, I have a job.

I graduated from university a year and a half ago, and many of my friends have still not found work.

If you missed the bank, you could be in trouble

The majority of people are really suffering.

Our office is just a couple of blocks from the main city square, and almost every day I hear protests.

Now, this week, things have got worse; banks are supposed to be shut all week.

People who didn't manage to take enough money out last week could be in real trouble now.

This may not be as bad as it seems for everyone, though. In Argentina, we tend to live with our parents until we get married.

Normally, my salary would cover my living expenses.

But even people working for foreign companies have not had their salary adjusted to take account of the collapse of the peso.

No one is better off as a result of the devaluation - in fact, prices go up every day, so it is difficult to keep the same standard of living.

Downtown Buenos Aires is protest zone

And we can hardly ask for more money: we are lucky enough just to have jobs, and our employers are struggling to survive as it is.

What makes the whole thing harder to bear is that no one knows what is going to happen, or when this is going to end.

All the time, there are rumours.

Everyone is dissapointed on the politicians and judges we have as they all seem corrupt and not worried enough about the people´s well being.

There seems to be no sign of an end to this crisis, no long-term plan from the government at all.

Some of my friends are giving up and leaving the country, but it's not easy without a cast-iron job offer; one friend went to France and has had to come back because he couldn't find work.

There seems to be no end in sight.

But something has to change - it can't go on like this for much longer.

Have you been personally affected by current crisis? Tell us about your experiences.