Romania
2003
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Newsletter Seven
Date: Friday 22 Aug 2003.
This week work has progressed hugely at Jimbolia. We've been pouring lots of concrete for the foundations of the Boys' Home. The concrete mixer we're using takes roughly a full bag of cement per load, and about three buckets of water. It produces eight full wheelbarrows of concrete each load, which I find quite impressive, especially since it's my job to shift half of it in a slightly ancient wheelbarrow. |
 Making a start on the mountain in the early morning. |
 |
Our biggest day so far was Tuesday (19 August). With six of us working we used 53 bags of cement (that's 2.65 tonnes) plus a huge pile of mixed sand and stones (some the size of a fist). Also, bricks are thrown into the concrete simply to make up volume, I presume since the trenches are a bit wider than necessary. |
At the end of the day I dropped him off at his home to clean up, then he headed to the local Internet cafe (with his presumeably slightly wealthier cousin) where he spent the whole night playing network games. And that's where I found him on Wednesday morning after not finding him at his pickup point or his apartment. At his apartment I spoke to his mother, who only speaks Romanian. I found myself asking (myself) "Did she really just say that Cosmin was there the whole night?" He slept on the way to Jimbolia, then put in another full day chucking more bricks around and wiring reinforcing together for the cellar walls. 15 year old Cosmin is our sole volunteer Romanian worker at present, and had a day off today (not surprisingly he's a little tired) but he's going to have a surprise when he goes back to work. I managed to puncture the tyre of his wheelbarrow trying to do his brick job in his absence. D'oh! |
Young
Cosmin was a brick-chucking machine, moving an estimated 2 to 3
tonnes of bricks all by himself, and drawing blood at least four
times. He had plenty of source material to clamber over looking
for solid bricks.The next step (maybe tomorrow if we've got more sand/stones by then) is to pour the cellar walls.
In other news, we've finally got the Dacia running by towing it behind Steve's van. So it runs, but it still won't start by itself. A little more work needed, as well as reconnecting all the radiator hoses. In case you hadn't caught up with all that, a certain young man (no, not me this time) overheated it while driving back from Jimbolia to Timisoara. The head has been off three times now, the last time with an hour and a half or so of sanding to skim the bottom surface flat (mostly by me). It's really good to know it still runs.
I've got about a week left on my visa. I'll head to Budapest, Hungary to hopefully get a new one. Please pray that goes smoothly.
--
Ian.
8 )
http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/ianman/
Early one morning, a streetkid (who claims to be 14 years old but looks 10, maybe 11 at a push) had really glazed eyes and was strangely hyper (even more so than normal). He sounded very pleased with his latest accomplishment:
"I've had four beers and five coffees!"
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