Romania Week 6 - Back in Turges Mures

Hello everybody.
Sorry for the delayed email, as I had every intention of being sending one yesterday, and was evening the Internet cafe for over 3 hours, but caught up with personal emails and using 'Skype' so you can talk and see someone over the Internet with a web camera... please check it out and join, its free!

So here goes, it’s another long one....this week we have had quite the adventure! The first real creative project went down well with all patients (men included), which was to make sunflowers out of crate paper, glitter, glue and seeds, and place it on the wall which we have just painted a 'country scene' on. So you get the idea, you can make something and have it on the wall with your name on... all good, and no major disasters with glue sniffing or returning the patients to the wards looking like disco glitter balls.... well just about!

The real fun this week definitely came at the weekend.... Karen the new volunteer was desperate to leave the place in search of some civilisation, so she and Helen went off to Turges Mures (next town, with cinema and McDonald's....) I stayed in Tarnanveni after realising that I could no longer put off the one thing that I have feared the most since getting here.... getting my hair cut by a Romanian barber!!! Most of you I have been known to be quite precious about my hair... (hmmm), and so I was pretty scared of how to translate " number 2 back and sides, and thin it out on top" into some audible Romanian.... I found a place that looked like a barber shop, and watched someone getting their hair cut... seeing that man come out still looking vaguely similar to how he entered, I thought I'd try it... and several minutes of sweating whilst waiting my turn, the early 30's female barber called me up to 'the chair'... (I can sense all you anticipation...) well, thankfully she didn’t do a bad job, and did what I asked without making me look like a relative of Dracula...so after leaving the barbers I wandered into the Russian market looking for some cheap trainers (just 35 lei = 8.50 pounds.. bargain!) when I heard the sound of a football referee whistle.. After some persuading of a local gypsy girl to be let in the ground, I watched the local team play out a 1-1 draw for free!!! Also the weather had returned to the sunny forecast I had hoped for! So I eventually left for Turges Mures around 1545, and arrived just in time to get into the cinema with Helen and Karen for just 3 lei (75p) to watch 28 weeks later... god it was bloody... anyway, the funny part is that the film had just started and we got led into the back of the cinema through a big curtain, and if any of you have seen the film, you'll know the start is dark... and I swear we could not see a thing.. not a chair, not another person.. NOTHING! so we basically felt our way along the wall, with Helen in front, me following her voice, and Karen holding onto me like a lost child... we thought we could see some seats, and somehow managed to sit down, without sitting on anyone's lap..... I swear it was the darkest cinema I have ever been in...

After this I was taken to the hotel that the girls had booked into overnight... oh my god... it was just (20 quid) special weekend offer... but I swear it was luxury... the rooms were huge, and my room had a gigantic double bed, with pictures of half naked women on the wall! (honestly).... I'll share that picture with those of you who it is appropriate to do so.... I was just happy that: 1) the toilet flushed everything first time.. 2) you could put paper down the toilet... and 3) I could have a hot shower without getting a hunch back.... but this made returning to my 'lovely' home with a temperamental toilet flush, quite hard to do!!!

I won't bore you with the details of my night out with Karen in Turges Mures, but it basically involved a Chinese meal, a long search for some kind of club, and then sitting on big leather seats, watching three girls shaking their backsides, after deciding to stand right in front of where me and Karen were facing... but I can’t write another disco story...we eventually forced ourselves to leave the hotel the next morning, but I'll be there next week because I am going to a music festival there next Friday eve, before heading to Brasov (a proper city) to met another charity, who work in community mental health... of which I'm really excited to meet...I could write more, but think I need to leave it there, because I think the internet cafe are going to start charging me rent if I sit here much longer, and I need to get some shopping before 9...
Hope everyone is well...I will try and add some pictures to this email...
Regards from Romania
Dan