Romania 2002

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Newsletter 3

Wednesday 25 December 2002

Christmas day in Romania has dawned bright and sunny and reasonably warm - above freezing. So much for a white Christmas. At least I got a white birthday a week and a half ago.

Most kids in this part of the world (whether in a Sunday school in a church or streetkids at the day centre) are given a nicely wrapped shoebox with a few presents inside. Deodorant and/or other toiletries, socks, underwear, crayons or similar, lollies/sweets. Gloves are included in the streetkids boxes. These shoeboxes are put together in places like England and shipped in by the hundred, and mostly distributed by local chuches.

Yesterday at the day centre the streetkids turned up in large numbers to do the normal learning about God, eat, but then they each received their shoebox. Excitement was working up to fever pitch as they waited for Mos Cráciun (Father Christmas, pron. something like Mosh Crerchoon). Somehow I got elected the job - red suit and all - at the very last minute. I don't know that I've ever had such a welcome as when I walked in to the room where the kids were waiting.

Romanian customs are sometimes the darndest things, and I was rather surprised by the teenage boy who decided to kiss old Mos on both his white furry cheeks. I'd never seen the kid before that day, and he didn't (apparently) do it to get a reaction from the other kids. I don't think anyone got that on film.

Last night we went to a church meeting in a village a little out from Timisoara. The church's various home groups had a competition with Bible knowledge, acting, etc included. The winner got a pig's head (cooked), then we had a shared meal and ate the rest of the pig.

So pigs are big here at Christmas. The neighbours were preparing for Christmas a few days ago by attacking a (dead) pig with a blow torch. Great to watch, and the snow falling round about added a touch of surreality.

Monday's activities included a bit of winter fun with a few of the girls from the girls' home. We towed them behind a van on a snowy, icey road while they rode on a sled. For added excitement the weather has changed and it has been raining all of today. Speeds of up to 30 or 40 km/hr, slushy snow (or hard ice) and the odd puddle all added up for exciting rides.

That was on the way back from visiting the family of one of the girls. From the amount of stuff we took (clothes, shoes, toys) the number of people being blessed by the girls' home seems to grow exponentially, it doesn't just stop with the girls themselves. That trip also had the unexpected result of discovering that two of the girls at the home are third cousins. Their grandmothers are (first) cousins.

Romania is the European country with the greatest extremes of temperature between summer and winter. It seems to be quite a mild winter so far, though. However, when we were having -14.4°C temperatures in the mountains the temperature in Timisoara got as low as -12°C, which led to two homeless people at the train station freezing to death. They apparently had pneumonia, which didn't help.

The greatest number of kids we've had at the day centre has been about 30 (excluding yesterday, Christmas Eve, when there were well over 50). I think this represents about a quarter of Timisoara's streetkid population, if they had all been true streetkids. However, a large number of the kids who turn up at the day centre are at-risk kids who live at home at night but on the street during the day. This might be because it's more fun [being on the streets] than going to school or because their parents send them out to beg (or lots of other reasons). They're normally a bit cleaner and better clothed than the true streetkids.

One particular kid who fits in this at-risk non-streetkid category is three years behind in school simply because he told his stepfather he went to school when he actually didn't. The old guy never bothered to check and the school didn't follow up on his truancy. (To add to the kid's problems, his birth father has died from alcoholism.) This delightful young chap has taken to trying to inflict as much pain on me as he can whenever he sees me, so I'm trying to come up with novel ways of distracting him from that hobby. For example, I've found he makes a good neckmuff in cold conditions. He doesn't try to hurt me from that position, which suggests that either he's too terrified to even consider it, or he just wants attention. In case you're wondering, he's now in his mid teens and I did get to know him on my last trip.

That's enough for now. Lots of ballooning news next time perhaps. Merry Christmas.

Ian in Timisoara.
8 )

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