Blogs from Cluj, Transilvania, Romania, Europe - page 3

Today staerted out with news that a)there would be a prayer service held to commemorate the day when Jesus cleaned his face (or something like that). It wasn't a typical holiday for us back home so I wasn't to sure what the Priest was saying. and b) I would be interviewed by reporters for the local paper. Both very exciting ways to mix things up a bit and keep the body guessing. The kids were funny trying to be quiet through the service. Also, we had a few of the Prison Project kids PLUS more new kids. So it was fun with them. I did notice with the children from the prison program that their paintings had so many dark and vivd colors compared to the rest of the kids. Also, when the "normal" (for lack ... read more

Well another day another experience. Camp started out normal but I guess because week one wet so well, life decided to test me a bit. First, we get about 5 more kids. Then, I find out two of them have mental problems/disabilities, one of the kids isn't anywhwere close to as old as the others and the last two think they know everything. Oye. So I managed that and for a good 90 minutes I was the only one looking after 30 kids (two of which needed some extra attention) and the rest of which still aren't excellent at English. Normally this is when I would go into full-on panic mode but my flight or fight kicked in and I survived, and the best part is, so did the kids. We played some more games. As ... read more

I certainly got a taste of life today as I visited the 'villages' or the Romanian suburbs. I started the day out feeling determined to find that history museum from yesterday. I hopped a bus in the morning and started the search. After some time, I finally found what looked to be very familiar from the website. At last I had finally found the building that had plagued me for all of 24 hours. I also realized why I couldn't find the place the day before... on maps... Statue and Street abreviations are one letter off. So I read "St. Constantine whatever" as street insetad of statue. Ahh, so that solves that. I got into the museum and was shocked at the crazy things they had. I first walked into a room full of animal and ... read more

To start off, I'm just going to apologize in advance if the next few entries are a bit "blah".. i feel like I've been up forrrrever! Anywhoos, I got my first real taste of how the Romanians do the nightlife. After my nap I awoke in the nick of time to join the brother of one of the workers here to met his colleagues at a local hang-out spot. We met many of his friends and even his boss for drinks and pub-games. It was fun teaching the adults English as they taught me Romanian. Another fun point of the evening was reading the drink menu and seeing many of the same drinks we have, like a long island ice tea and kamakazi. They're even made the same way too. I ordered a local beer called ... read more

Those were my exact words today at lunch when I was talking to Ioana about weekend plans. My first week with the kids came to an end with lots of smiles and fun times. We started to play hangman or, "spanzuratoare" (try saying that 10 times fast). The kids had a great time with that and I learned that the same techniques to get kids to shut up in America work on kids in Romania. Give them a stuffed animal and whoever has the stuffed animal speaks, thats it. :) Then we went down to the grassy area and played ratsa ratsa gooska...again. I think they like that game, just a little bit. They played a few local games as Ioana and I helped introduce a new worker here to the building and whatnot. The kids ... read more