Romania 2003

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Newsletter One

Date: Saturday 7 June 2003.

Getting to Romania took about 42 hours. For my luggage it took another 40 hours. It got delayed at Heathrow Airport for some strange reason. Somebody got confused with the change from Air NZ to British Airways [they had plenty of time]. My sleeping bag ended up with a security tag on it (the blue thing).

With money from various donations from Auckland Bible Church and its attenders we bought a concrete mixer on Tuesday. It's going to get "solid" use for at least the next two years at the boys' home in Jimbolia (and probably well beyond that) so we got a large one.

I've been busy updating the boys' home website (www.boyshome.ro). In the photo below the building at the left is what remains of the house after a massive deconstruction of the back two thirds of it. The building on the right belongs to the neighbours (but is for sale for 10,000 euros and would be really nice to have, BTW). The small building at the back of the property used to be a cow shed (and certainly smells like one), and there's a large field on the other side of it for various vegetables etc. The strawberries are in season right now. :-)

The last couple of days (Thurday, Friday) I've spent helping dig the cellar. Before I arrived the guys were told it needed to be another 50cm deeper and we were almost finished that on Thursday morning when we were told it needed to be ANOTHER 40cm deeper. (We're guessing next week we'll be told it needs to be yet another 30cm deeper.) However, we got down about 35cm and hit the water table. Either that or a leak from an old septic tank...

It's pretty hot (36°C in the shade) and I've drunk about four litres each day.

Just for kicks we ran out of petrol getting there on Friday morning. The petrol gauge in the Dacia doesn't work. (The Dacia is the national car of Romania - remember the Lada jokes? The more recent ones are much better but this one is from 1989, just before the revolution. It's still newer than my own car and apparently is normally very reliable.) A cellphone call solved our immediate problem but because we had nothing better to do while waiting we started pushing it. We got a few hundred metres along the road by the time the petrol turned up in the standard two litre softdrink bottle.

Many of the people I know are out of town on a streetkids' camp, so on Wednesday I jumped at the chance to go visit. We needed to deliver someone to the camp (along with 60 more loaves of bread plus meat and vegetables) so I joined the party for the several hour drive to the camp site, collecting supplies en route. Most bread here is unsliced and isn't normally plastic wrapped.

Sadly, when we got to the camp site almost everyone was away on a hike to some nearby caves. (American volunteers never go "tramping" to caves.) We stayed only about half an hour before having to head home again so I didn't get to see everyone. I drove on the return journey - just over three hours direct, not stopping to get bread etc like we did on the way there, which seems a long way for such a short visit. (Yes, it was another diesel van for those who heard about my winter camp experience last December)

Potholes in the roads are bad enough but the way roadworks aren't signposted is a bit worrying. When the potholes get bad enough they pull up the road surface leaving a 10cm deep, several metre long hole, anything from half a metre wide up to the full road width. They often leave them like that for several months before fixing them (so I guess if you happen to drive the road regularly you can remember where they are).

God bless.

--

Ian.
8 )
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/ianman/

"I'm a banana. Do you want to eat me?"
- Laura, a 6 year old Romanian girl (in English), with an Equador banana sticker on each cheek.

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