Learning about Romanian culture

Despite being tired from the weekend trip, September, Laura, and Lori were up a bit early and took a walk to the outdoor market. They had a fine time admiring all the vegetables for sale, and Laura and Lori each bought a jar of honey.

Back at the hotel we held our usual morning meeting with Dan. Lori’s afternoon assignment has changed from 4^th graders to 6^th graders from the “high school.” Today she had students in both groups describe what they did on the weekend. It was amazing how many reported they had spent Saturday doing homework. The next most popular activity was computer games. In addition to this discussion, they used letter stickers to make their name and then wrote 4-6 words for each letter of their name in both English and Romanian. The rest of the class time included Hangman and various Jingo games. After afternoon school Lori went with Dan to the “Chinese store” to buy window blinds for the hospital rooms where the precious children stay.

The hospital team members reported the children have seemed to settle into a schedule with the volunteers. The kids are surely being kids, showing jealousy when  someone else is getting attention and also moving fast and slipping away in just an instance of time. All expressed concern about Clio’s change of health status. And, one little lady now has her own necklace and she doesn’t have to feel sad in the afternoon when the volunteers leave. A special treat for the toddlers today was yogurt and bananas – food that may seem common to us, but something they don’t see often.

All joined together for lunch with Dan. We asked questions about the vegetables we had seen in the market that were unusual to us. We also learned about the building history in Bârlad. Much doesn’t look “old” here because of a devastating earthquake in 1975 followed by more destruction of buildings by the Communist administrators.  Mihaela joined us for evening meal at the hotel. We had a wide ranging conversation at dinner, too. A fine time had by all. Our weekend tour plus all of these wonderful meal-time discussions with Dan and Mihaela help us achieve another team goal: to learn more about Romanian culture and language.

Entry submitted by: Lori

Message of the Day – Corey: “Don’t be stressed, just be confident at what you do and that you did it. Understand that there is more than one road you take to your happiness.”  – Steve Breaston (University of Michigan football player and now at free agent status in the NFL)