Romania 2003

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Newsletter Five

Date: Tuesday 12 August 2003.

We've done the camp - it finished last Wednesday (at least for the kids - more on that in my next newsletter).

The campsite was about four hours away from Timisoara (not counting rest breaks etc), and about 50 minutes or so up a river from the tourist town of Baile Herculane. The town is famous in Romania for its natural thermal water, but where our camp site was we didn't have much in the way of hot water. On the positive side, a 100 metre hose Adi Foto and I ran up a contributary stream provided plenty of very cold and refreshing water on tap, with good pressure at the bottom end. I don't think most of our campers knew Adi crawled with it through a small culvert under the road so the many logging trucks wouldn't wreck the hose.

Access to the site was by an exciting "Well, I lifted it at least 20cm!" track. Getting back up the track again was exciting too, especially if it was wet and a logging truck was coming along the main road. As usual, I was working on the outhouse when the kids arrived. We would have had it finished this time, but the hole I dug the previous day ended just half a metre down with a big rock that I couldn't dig around or remove - not for lack of trying! So I had to dig a second hole and we were trying to get the building into place when the kids got there.

The campsite's central feature was a traditional Romanian haystack (which we did NOT sacrifice on the final day). A big cliff to the east meant no direct sun on the field until 10:50am - a 45 degree angle! Sadly it also meant our view of the stars was a bit limited.

The first day we walked to an 1105m peak near Baile Herculane, which apparently has an altitude itself of just 160m. Coming down over 900m was a bit rough and it stuffed up my right knee (already a bit dodgy because of the van driving). The kids (and adults) all react differently to the great outdoors. The one in the pic was fine, and always out in front, but some of the kids seem to get a sort of agoraphobia being so far away from the city. They manage OK if they have a hand to hold while being dragged up the hills, but all in all they coped with all the hiking impressively well - much better than a typical bunch of NZ (and I'm told Scottish) kids would have. And yes, some of the Romanian adults were also heard to mutter that they wished they were back in the city. Our outdoors guide Dan certainly picked some good walks. Or at least challenging, if not "good" as such. (Incidently, while I was trying to dig my first bog hole he whipped up a ropes course. "Dan the Amazing Mountain Man!")

On Sunday morning I was beginning to formulate plans for a decent sized catapult, and collected a bag of large stones from the stream. When I dumped them by the camp fire the Scottish folk naturally asked what they were for so I replied "A life lesson."

That got their attention, so I tipped the stones out and explained (picking up a different stone for each point) that we're a bit like stones. Some of us are big and dense, some of us are small and dense. (I think one of the Romanian women didn't appreciate that one.) Some of us are evenly pastey-coloured, while others are dark and mottled. The Bible describes Jesus being the vine, and unless we're attached to the vine we can't do anything. In this case the bag represented Jesus, and with that the stones could work together to power a catapult.

What was really interesting is that a little after I finished explaining all that, Steve arrived with some large wooden bowls as souvenirs for the Scots (for everyone to sign/scribble on). He explained that they were mixing bowls because God wanted us to all work together.

Makes me think God may be trying to tell us something. :-)

My catapult never quite got to the stage of flinging a streetkid across the campsite, but my model catapult did fling small stones a scale 60 metres. (The sling is a used water balloon and the alternative throwing arm is tied with grass. All the twigs are notched to hold together better.)

Milk is sold here in one litre plastic bags. The first time I opened one (on my first visit here two years ago) I accidently emptied half of it into the cutlery draw. Lesson learned - don't hold milk bags by the bottom while cutting them open. Anyway, some of the kids are OK with showing their brand of milk bag, some aren't, and turn them inside out. Actually they probably just don't like the old milk smell with their drugs. From this evening... (For those at Ak Bible Church, note the bottle inserted into the pants.)

Personally I prefer this shot of the kid on the right, which I took on the last day of the camp (obviously after the sun had risen over the cliff):

--

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

"Virgil, GATA!"
- one of the most common things said on camp, normally with a strong Scottish accent.

("Gata!" means "Enough!")

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