Do wa diddy diddy dum diddy do or was it do diddy do?

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The day started with a plan for a half day of work at the site as we had afternoon plans for touring. We went in with enthusiasm to hit it hard and fast and get as much done as we could. We divided quickly into flooring (most of us) and painting. We soon were reminded that we are dependent upon the Romania counterparts and today the electric company showed up to set up the 4 unit apartment complex. We peeked in the power box and for the 4 unit complex and saw 8 circuits of 220 power. With the U.S. at 110 power, it isn’t an apples to apples comparison, but most U.S. single family homes have 15-20 circuits. We finished what we could and headed back to our place to eat lunch and shower up.

We then headed off to the salt mines – not to work, but to tour! We took the bus down the 9^th story, hundreds of meters below the surface. The space was amazing – about the size of 10 gymnasiums with hallways between them containing kids toys, soccer, volleyball and basketball courts, a fountain, food court, gift shop and history center. They are currently still mining the 10^th and 11^th floors of the mine. As we traveled beneath the earth, many of the team members were nervous about the complete darkness and winding curves until……

…we went up a mountain to visit an Orthodox Monastery – as we travelled up the mountain of hairpin curves and 10%!g(MISSING)rade in a loaded down stick shift van, part of the team had their eyes closed, part were white knuckling while others laughed and took pictures. We checked with our driver for the week, Niko, that he had sufficient brakes for the drive down or half of the team was going to walk it!

We finished the evening with our cultural experience. We had a local Romanian troop of high school student perform traditional dances in traditional dress. It was beautiful and inspiring as most of us got the opportunity to dance with the troop in a traditional form. They also had traditional songs performance with the refrain sounding like ‘Do wa diddy diddy dum diddy do’; however, but upon video review (unlike the Packer game) we found it to be ‘Do diddy do’, but they still scored in our hearts!

We then got a chance to share our culture and decided to tell them of Thanksgiving. It’s a holiday they traditionally do not have and we were able to talk about what we are thankful for with most of us showing pictures of family. We told them of its history with the Pilgrims to the modern day football and parades. We finished with the traditional art project of copying your hand and creating a turkey with 5 things you are thankful for….so wrote in English, some in Romanian, some in both. In the end, they left with financial support for their troop, turkey pictures for their fridge, some Thrivent footballs, and Thrivent bandanas.

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Comments

[anonymous]

We love and miss you Noreem

[Courtney]

The missing Noreen comment was made by me. :)

[Joyce]

Your blog
Your team sounds like a hard working group. I could feel the aching muscles just from reading your detailed blog. What a great experience for everyone involved. Have a safe trip home; I hope you're all well and healthy.