Dan the OT in Romania

Week 8.5 - Goodbye Romania Via Brasov & Bucharest

2009-10-27T02:05:00.000-07:00

Hello Everybody!

Well I just wanted to share the final few days of my time in Romania, as it was both eventful and so typical of my experiences there. The rest of my trip home, will be for me to have to myself, though I can assure those of you that I will be seeing soon enough, there are one or two stories I will be wanting to share with you over a pint in the pub!

So after eventually leaving my Romanian home town of Tarnaveni, an entire day late, I took the bus to Brasov, a beautiful mountain town/city in Transylvania. I was there for professional reasons as much as anything, visiting a really resourceful & creative mental health organisation by the name of SCUT. My first task was finding somewhere to stay, and with the weather being pretty cold and very wet, I took the word of a pleasantly smiling woman at the bus station and headed to the 'new' hostel she was working for. On arriving at the last bus stop, and piling out into the rain, I saw the big red gate with number 41 painted on the side. The building was indeed new, new in the sense that it wasn't completely finished (see picture below).

The new PVC windows still had their stickers on, and the roof looked decidedly suspicious! But still, I was wet and cold and had learned not to be put off by first impressions here in Romania. I rang the bell, and two minutes later a cleaning lady was talking at me in rapid Romanian, but she was not opening the gate! I was really wet now, and just as I was due to leave, the owner (Gabriel) opened the gate and ushered me inside. He told me to 'just hang on' for two minutes, then proceeded to discuss something with the cleaning lady in front of me for 10 minutes! When he finally got round to 'checking me in' he simply showed me some pictures of the town, took no details from me at all, just the money for the room 35 lei = 7 pounds, and showed me up to a rather empty ten bedded room. The showers and bathrooms were very clean ( no wonder when no one was staying there), and my room looked good enough. Gabriel was friendly enough, he was very happy that I tried to speak Romanian,and faithfully promised to correct any mistakes I made when speaking... When finally left alone to survey the room I realised that there was no curtain on the window, leaving me fully exposed to the passengers at the bus stop, and giving a romantic glare from the street light directly outside the window! Perhaps most disturbing was that there appeared to be no door to the room, in fact on closer inspection, there were no doors on any of the rooms! Still Gabriel did seem friendly enough! During my stay Gabriel proved my initial suspicions totally wrong and seemed to feel he could behave like an uncle to me. He would ruffle my hair when I would speak Romanian to him (something I really don't like), he would give me free Romanian palinka, and he even wiped the sugar off my face after I'd been eating a local breaded delicacy, and didn't realise I still had sugar everywhere. His most generous gesture of all was to drive me and what I thought to be the only other guest ( a French guy, I'd been out with a few times for a beer or two), all the way to Bucharest from Brasov (over 3 hours through the mountains). So if you are going to visit Brasov, and don't mind staying somewhere without doors or curtains, I would recommend this hostel 'Guesthouse Gabriel' to anyone, who doesn't mind being open to excessive friendliness, and sleeping in a part built hostel!

The rest of my time in Brasov was pretty much spent walking around town, sightseeing and eating. I met two Chinese girls in a Chinese restaurant, who were working in London, so I joined them as we were the only diners in the entire place, I also tried going to the grandiose looking National Theatre, but failed to realise that the ridiculously cheap price was because the performance was an amateur group (I think they were amateur) and was in a studio situated in the back entrance of the theatre's rear car park!!! The one thing I really wanted to do most was go up the mountain in Brasov by cable car, but the weather was totally against me. I thought 'sod it' and went up to see the following views!

Ok to Bucharest, as I mentioned my trip to Bucharest from Brasov was courtesy of my wonderful hostel owner who drove for over three hours for a small donation to his petrol costs! I then unfortunately spent the next 2 hours, getting the wrong bus, (though I was misinformed by another passenger in my defence), and ending up almost an hour's walk from the city centre. After stopping some helpful strangers I boarded a packed tram, almost knocking 3 old ladies down in one easy spin, and getting the underground, (which was surprisingly easy to use) until I found the main train station. I was hoping to go off searching for a modern hostel, but gave in and called 'Villa 11'. It's in the lonely planet guidebook as a 'friendly family run hostel'. Hmm.. it was certainly family run, with the 16 year old son sent out on his bike to pick me up at the station. It was a very short walk and he was chatty enough, and I was soon at the hostel, which seemed to be filled with older more alternative travellers, and there seemed to be a large percentage of more older Americans. I was taken to a lovely little room for three, with it's own toilet and shower and introduced to my roommate, a 70+ year old French man, with a remarkably long beard.. he wouldn't have looked out of place in a homeless shelter.. I know that sounds bad, but I'm trying to describe the scene that met me. He seemed pleasant enough telling me that him and his wife had been here many years before and he was now clearly alone, I didn't have the heart to ask if she'd passed away. I didn't see much of him after that first meeting, he seemed to come in at quite a late hour and sleep in until long after I had got up, had breakfast and a shower and left for the day. I wonder.....

So to the highlights of Bucharest, well there is one thing above all others that stands out, - Nicolae Ceaucescu's presidential palace. Through out the day this palace imposes itself as the must see monument in this city. Given that I have been living for 9 months in total in a small town where horse and carts are seen daily, people grow vegetables to sell at market, not out of fun, but from necessity, seeing the grandiose building which was only began to be constructed in 1983 shows everything that was wrong with Ceaucescu's decision making processes. He created (well partially created, it still remains 90% complete) one of the most impressive buildings of all time. This time with no exaggeration I tell you that with prisoners, student's and 'volunteers' the presidential palace has one grand room after another, never over complicated with too many paintings or ornaments, this building astounds you with it's vastness, high ceilings, woven carpets, thousands of chandeliers, and it's simplicity! It's a modern marvel, but in a country with so many crippling financial and economical troubles, the fact that this building even exists leaves you feeling quite sick that you are enjoying the spectacle of grandness! The fact that the government is still working on completing the place suggests that Romanian politicians are still somewhat out of touch with their people.

Bucharest was affectionately known as the 'little Paris', some stunning parks, it's smaller scaled down version of the 'Arc de Triomphe', and long stretched out boulevard's you could indeed be mistaken for feeling quite Parisian. However, there are parts of the city that feel as equally stolen from the rest of the world. Several times I felt as though I was in another city, London, Paris strangely enough Saigon (Ho Chi Minh city). never really found Bucharest's own character, but did find lots of little winding streets, historic buildings and bustling crowds. The fashion seemed to comprise solely of two looks for women, tight jeans with high boots, or a more causal trainer wearing crowd, still with tight fitting jeans. Men's fashion seemed to be the typical central European look.

MY final excursion in Bucharest was an attempt to go on the spur of the moment to watch the famous Romanian football team, Steau Bucharest, (who are doing pretty badly right now). I took a crazy long taxi ride, but in doing so found the as yet undiscovered 'honest taxi driver'. I have heard nothing but scathing reports of taxi drivers here charging excessive amounts of money, but this guy whizzed me about the back streets like the dukes of hazard, and got me nearby the stadium. I was met by a sea of armed police, who initially refused me entry to the surrounding streets. Managing to get by them I was gutted to be told you could not purchase tickets on the day, so I had to walk along way home! But still, this was as close as I got to the stadium!As Dan Spitaru (a really bad Romanian singer- known to all volunteers) would say. 'Noapte Buna Bucharest, Noapte buna' It means good night Bucharest, good night!
Thanks for reading the blog!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Week 7 - The Long Road Home!

2009-10-18T01:34:00.000-07:00

Well folks, this is the last blog from my time here in Tarnaveni, Transylvania. I was due to get the 0830 bus to Brasov this morning, but that as never really going to happen after planning my leaving party for last night. So here I sit after a fun night out with my adopted family, (the Hadnagys), and my co volunteers, writing this blog with both excitement and sadness. First I must show you some pictures from last night, at Crama 'pub' and the infamous 'Infinity' disco!

It's been an eventful week as always, with trips to the TV company, to pay bills, soaking rain, snow in October, and reunions with old friends, so please sit comfortably, this could take a while, but I do need to get the 1400 bus, and it is now 11:47 so maybe it won't be so long!

Monday night started the process of getting TV hooked up here, my good friend Giany and his sister and her boyfriend were kind enough to take me to the nearby city to buy a TV from a big mall. This process in itself was quite bizarre, as before I could even get my hands on anything I was required to give my name to staff for their computer (services here don't seem capable of doing anything unless you give them some personal details (remember I needed a passport o buy a hoover last time I was here!). So after giving my name I was able to actually pick a TV, then I had to get it checked, to ensure it worked, so the TV was packed and unpacked, before I was then able to go and pay for it. I headed for the desk, where several documents were waiting for me, with my incorrectly spelt name on them. Several of these documents were stamped after I paid the cash, then I was ushered to desk number two. At desk number two (just 5 metres away from desk 1 ) I handed in one of the documents, where it was again stamped and taken, before I was given a new warranty document. But wait... the process was not yet complete, with my new document, I was ushered to desk 3! (just 2 metres - opposite from desk 2). This was the security desk, where I handed in my remaining documents, got another stamp of approval and was finally allowed to leave! On leaving the store with my 'degree certificate' in the field of Electrical purchasing, we bought much needed Ice cream! On Monday lunch time I again enlisted the help of my Romanian friend to not only guide me through the now tropical monsoon that flooded the town, and soaked me from head to toe, but also to go into the TV station to get the TV signal switched back on at the house. This process was fortunately far more simple, and after a quick exchange of cash, and a visit the same evening from the TV man, we had a working TV! See me and Giany in his famous Romanian DACIA car below...

Tuesday night was taken up with another visit to Targu-Mures, but this time it was to meet with my former college fro the hospital Lia. I had randomly bumped into her at the wine festival last weekend, and enjoyed a pleasant two hours with her before dashing back to catch the last bus home. I mention this because on leaving the pub it was bloody cold, but more shockingly it was snowing! Snowing in October, is unusual I am told for here... The next day I proceeded to watch lots of TV news footage of cars sliding all over the singular Romanian roads, also caught out by this freaky weather event! (There is only one motorway in the whole country and it's not that big!)

The rest of the week has been spent with friends catching up and I was given a very touching gift form my friend's son, - a scarf of Dinamo Bucharest football club, the year they won the league championship (1990 I think). So thank you Vlad for this gift! I hope you enjoy the Liverpool shirt I have left for you! And yes Carl, I know about the freak goal that sent Liverpool to another defeat at Sunderland! Catosrophie as they would say here!.. I just read about it!

I won't go on about last night leaving party, but I must mention my Friday night. I went with my adopted sister's Sari & Judith to a Hungarian class 'prom'. It was not anything like any prom/ball I have been to. It was situated in a building/tent on the outskirts of town, in the freezing cold! The night consisted of some kind of talent show, kids doing sketches of teachers, and a very funny mock class of gypsies. There was a fair bit of impressive gypsy dancing too! In between all this there were maybe 10 couples who had to do various tasks, answering random questions, sing a song, dance whilst holding a candle, and not letting the candle go out. After these varying embarrassing tasks, embarrassing to me at least, they duly elected a king and queen.. they got the king selection right, but were way off choosing a rather inconspicuous girl to be queen... Still, after a brief emptying of the hall, we returned to the now converted tent, to the disco... and danced the night away. However no one had quite expected the cold weather, so the disco initially consisted of a line of people, most wearing coats and scarfs (me included), in an almost straight line in the centre of the tent, standing and shivering under the heaters! I guess you could call it line dancing! The tent, soon hotted up as did the dancing! See pictures below!

So my round up of the past 7 weeks. Top three places visited.... 1)oh it has to be the weekend in Turda because of the randomness of the entire trip, 2) the wacky salt mines of Praid with bouncy castles and table tennis tables, and 3) The Sighisoara film festival.

Top three random moments must include: 1) the visit to evangelical church service in Turda... 2) being stranded in Mica (small village) at sunset after getting off the bus to go to the toilet, and 3) going to the class 9 or 11 talent show / prom this week... just brilliantly random!

I really am saddened to be leaving today, I hope you all have enjoyed the tales from Transylvania and I'll add a couple more entries on this of my 2 week + journey home. Thanks to everyone here for making this experience all it has been!

oh and I guess I should show some things we have been doing at the hospital with the patients! (see below!)

Regards from Romania
Dan

Week 6 - The Pursuit of Happiness...

2009-10-11T09:02:00.000-07:00

... was not only the name of a book I read here in Transylvania the first time I was here, but is a theme that has been churning over in my head recently. I also read a book called the 'Geography of Bliss' which also had an interesting theme... finding the world's 'happiest' places, food for thought!

As this blog is certainly not a book review, I'll return to more relevant matters, though I will give just one more review... It's the review of the idiot sat in front of me right now! He is clearly using either skype or some similar programme to talk with a friend, using a web camera and microphone. I have had to endure over 30 minutes of him 'attempting' to sing, dance (whilst sitting down), and show various picutres of women on his phone, to the person at the other end of the line, through the web camera. Now I know I am quite English in my thinking, but surely, unless this is his one and only ever 'X-Factor' audition, and therefore his only chance for a better life, via the net, then there really is no excuse for such behaviour in public!

The thought of starting a journey home, through the cities of Brasov and Bucharest, Warsaw, Berlin, Hamburg and London is exciting without question, though the idea is tinged with sadness as this journey signals my departure from Tarnaveni, and the hospital. Seven more days just does not seem enough time for me to do all the things I want to do, and I have found myself starting to find fault with the Romanian way of life. For example I have spent long periods of time enjoying the lack of planning and free thinking of the people here, though I have begun to get frustrated with the fact that should I want to make a specific plan, especially with time running out, things don't happen or no one will stick to arrangements. This is not a new sensation for me, I have often found myself considering the perceived negative aspects of life shortly before I am due to leave, I think it may well be a kind of defence mechanism to ensure I feel ready to depart. Excuse the very reflective tone of this week's blog, but this is every bit a part of this kind of travelling than the funny events that randomly happen each week.

The theme of the week has been change. Change in the volunteer team and therefore the house, change with hospital management, and changes within the mebers of the Hadnagy family, as Csilla and Joseph, have swapped with Judith and Szilard & Judith (with baby). The change in the volunteer team is certainly a positive one, as Me and Ali have been joined by Victoria. Victoria is full of life, and settled easily into life here after just a few days. We headed off to Cluj on Wednesday to meet Victoria off the plane, and were soon on a 2.5 hour bus journey home. Victoria has been recovering from a cold but this didn't phase here from having a go at speaking with the patients and learning basic words from day one. The dynamics within the team have definately changed too, as you'd expect, and during a fun weekend trip to Targu-Mures, (and the annual wine festival), topics of conversation included, word-association games, love, illness, & personal quirks! Quite the ice breakers! I was also fortunate enough to meet a former colleague (Lia) from the hospital at the wine festival who I will be catching up with on Tuesday night. Pictures from the trip to Targu-Mures and the wine festival are below.

The changes in the Hadnagy family led to another trip to the local disco 'Infinity', with Judith and Sari last night, which ended a late night, late for me anyway ending at 0300! I look forward to having a beer with Szilard and Judith, who were so welcoming to me last time by inviting me to their wedding after knowing them for just two rounds of beer!

Just one more note for the week, and no it's not to comment upon why Rio Ferdinand should not be wearing an England shirt. I received a text today from a friend in Vietnam, asking if I was free to chat. I headed off to the internet cafe and 20 mintues later I was beginning an hour long conversation with my good friend Phuong on skype. I love technology which lets me have a face to face converation with someone so many thousands of miles away. Just the idea that the world is small enough to let any two people, (who are sat at computuers) to communicate and laugh as though they were sat next to each other in a pub, is just fantastic! Ok, so it sounds like I may be going a little crazy mentioning something that may seem so mundane to you, but for just one moment the thought that I was sat in a tiny town in Transylvania, having a conversation with a friend in a bustling Vietnamese city, reminded me how weird and unexpected life can be sometimes!

Oh and for those of you wondering what the picture at the start of this week's blog, it's a rich gypsy house just outside of Turda!

Ok, thanks for reading, and drop me an email, remember, life is short and the world is small!

Regards from Romania

Dan

Week 5 - Life's simple pleasures, Old friends, & When the Circus came to town!

2009-10-05T09:07:00.000-07:00

Hello Everybody,

(for some unknown reason my spell-check does not work on this computer! Apologies for errors now!)

Well there is no other reason for the delayed blog report, other than I have been enjoying the simple pleasures in life this week, and it's been every bit as pleasurable as my recent roaming adventures. I decided that after several weekend trips I needed to stay in here in Tarnaveni this weekend and enjoy life's simple pleasures. On my weekend agenda, was shopping, house cleaning, and looming in the back-ground the possibility of going to a visiting Circus, aptly named Circus Barcelona - more of that later. I have often talked of the amazingly friendly, people here in Romania, and certainly my neighbours sit top of that category. Take this week as an example, Tuesday night I headed out to watch one of Liverpool's 2-0 losses, (which is a very traumatising experience for me), with my good friend Giany. This was muchly appreciated as Giany is not such a big football fan. Wednesday night I went to my neighbour Sari's home, where I spent a couple of hours talking with her and her mum, getting something to drink and relaxing in a lovely homely setting. Thursday night, I headed to another neighbour's house just to pop in and say hello! After helping one of the kids (Noami, 14) with her English homework I stayed to watch the football on tv with Deli and her boyfriend Emanuel. Now on both these occasions I had simply turned up and walked in the door without planning the visits! To many of you reading this, this might be a normal occurance for you, but I really cannot remember the last time I randomly turned up at a friend's house without any warning, and just walked in the door.. O k I live in Manchester (UK) so people ALWAYS LOCK their doors! But hey it's a fantastic feeling of community here!

Now many of you might know by now that I like taking pictures of sunsets, and I don't just mean sunsets on nice beaches, but just everyday sunsets, so here are some recent Transylvanian sunsets that I want to share with you!

Ok so by the time Saturday rolled around I was ready for a serious session of cleaning! After cleaning up more mouse poo from the shelves two weeks ago, than I want to even try and describe, I set about the kicthen and bathroom, in preparation for the new volunteer's arrival on Wednesday. All cleaning was completed pretty quickly, though our mop seems to have been 'stolen' - we can't find it anyway! I set off to town to find a mop, and ran into my friend Alex and her son David... (pictured), David is six or five, and he mentioned the circus, so I thought 'oh perfect' Taking David would be the perfect excuse to go there, without looking like a seriously suspicious 30 year old, surrounded by crowds of young children! Especially as when you don't really speak the language you can seem to inadvertantly try and make conversation with hand gestures.. I though this would not be the best thing to be doing on my own in a Circus. The circus, named 'Circus Barcelona', had absoultely no resemblence to my memory of Barcelona. Firstly, no one spoke Spanish, secondly, I don't remember seeing any snakes or camels there, and thirdly the people who were on 'exhibition ' around Barcelona, were tanned, toned and pretty good looking, - something I can not apply to the company of 5 circus performers. Their rather 'average appearance' did not stop them from wearing revealing clothing, (revealing more wobbly flesh than anything else), and they were certainly lacking any 'gusto/showmanship' in their performance. Indeed I think it was fair to say that not one 'performer' actually performed with any form of charisma. You could have just imagined these acts being performed in their bedrooms, infront of a small mirror, (with the exception of the camel and snakes!) Still, there was certainly an element of entertainment about the show, with seriously large snakes and a small crocodile being taken around the audience of very small children, and one thirty year old! (where was the health and safety officer I hear you scream!). The snakes and crocodile part of the show was 'performed' by a kid of about 15, dressed, and introduced as Indianna Jones, though clearly the circus 'researcher' seemed to have forgotten that Indianna Jones hated, no had a phobia of snakes... here he carried them around as you can see in the picture below...A rather large oversight I thought! The other acts, included an acrobat, who stood on ever increasing amounts of rounded household objects (no expense spared) to perform balancing acts. The lady who had sold me popcorn, was soon transformed to the exotic dancer... carrying scorpians arouns in her hand, and the girl selling raffle tickets was almost naked whilst hoola hooping several hoops around her rounded figure. She wasn't so bad, but I thought her ample belly was unfairly aiding the hoops staying up in the air! More circus pictures below.

After the circus I headed into town to watch the Bolton vs Tottenham game. Midway through the game I received a text from one of my neighbours here in Romania, who was now living in Geramny. The text said, ok, we'll be home in two hours, you want to meet for a drink? In true Romanian style, almost FOUR hours later we were out drinking until close to five in the morning! The culprits were Csilla & Joseph, plus friends. See below.

My Sunday was effectivley a non starter, as I was too tired, and feeling rather sick. This was before Liverpool's second defeat of the week, which made me feel worse. I had just eaten, when another text message arrived inviting me for lunch at the neighbours. Ok so despite having just eaten a plateful of pasta at home, I couldn't refuse such an invitation, as Mama Hadnagy's food is never to be passed up. I joined the family dinner with a total of 7 diners for the first sitting, and another seven for the second sitting! They even gave me Enlgish Breakfast tea afterwards! Simple pleasures! - That's all I have to say.

Ok so just one more paragrapgh. I was going to write a little more about my expereince at the hospital last week, as it's been pretty tough for me and Ali. There has been an increasing number of agitated, and quite frankly, seriously ill patients on the wards. It's the closest I have come during this stay to being smacked by a very poorly and angry, old man, who has been getting steadily more agitated. Me and Ali (co -volunteer) have witnessed violence between patients, agressive behaviour towards ourselves, and had to deal more emotionally charged behaviour of patients relating to their various illnesses. All this definately can take it out of you which does take it toll. We frequently have to deny patient's requests for money, help to go home from the hospital, and access to objects that are simply not permitted for the patients. I think the last few weeks of working in this environment have definately started to effect me more recently, perhaps because I am leaving in two weeks, and inevitably now think about the things that can't be achieved here, instead of what can be achieved. Still, working in this enviroment continues to demonstrate that even the smallest changes in people's lives can be of great benefit, simply having a safe, secure and supportive environment enables the patient's to escape from the institutional life for a short time each week.

Oh just one more final thing I promise. I wrote an email last time from Romania about the search for decent public toilets in bars. Here is the toilet that greeted me in a local bar here (an old man's pub).. so you can see what I mean!
Regards from Romania

Dan

Week 4 - Buses, Music & Dirty Dishes!

2009-09-28T09:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Everybody,

Phew what a week / weekend, and the fact I'm only writing this blog entry tonight instead of yesterday indicates what a week its's been. I'm even going to overlook Liverpool's 6-1 Victory at the weekend (that one's for you Carl!), and get straight to the story of the week.

But first to a brief round up of hospital events. No bottoms were on view this week, and no unfortunate incontience issues, thankfully! There was however an unexpected visit from some kind of 'Centre for legal Justice' - who's job it is to review the human rights of pepole in institutions such as the hospital here. It was a very interesting visit, and the man and woman that came to speak with me and my colleague was very informative about what was happening across Romania, as the Goverment is being required to bring it's policies in line with Eurpopean law. It's a big job, but great to know that there are national bodies and laws, that are not only in place, but are being follwed up and the results and recommendations acted upon. To more practical matters, one of the patients had managed to steal two music flutes from our room, a few weeks ago, I suggested that perhaps the patient was simply wanting to get some early practice in for a Christmas concert... the staff didn't really agree! All in all, we are excited about the next volunteer coming out in 9 days time! Oh and for those of you asking about the kittens, they are still with us, and constantly cry for food and try and get in the house...

So now to the weekend adventures. After a much, much needed pizza and beer on Friday night me and Ali were sat in a nice little pub (Crama) having a beer, when there suddenly appeared a face pressed up against the window, the face was smiling and seemed to be swaying! One look towards each other confirmed our thoughts. It was a recently relased patient (a young girl with what I suspect to be moderate learning difficulties). She was stood at the window chatting away to us, in the middle of the town Friday night. Not quite knowing what to do, we spoke briefly with her suggesting she went home, but she refused to go home and simply stood for the remainder of the time we were there smiling, staring and swaying. We really felt uneasy and tried again to suggest she went home, but to no avail. We ad been joined by my good friend Giany, who took us to a 'Non-Stop' 24 hour bar in the hilsl above the town... some 2 beers and 3 sets of live Romanian music sets later, we decided we should return home, not at least because of the state of dress of the waitress, who was a pretty girl, but showing a bit too much of herself (top-half), in the kind of way, that when she appears everyone at the table just stops talking in some discomfort!

To Saturday, and I was excited about the adventure to Turda.. Yeah I said Turda, the place with the salt mines and the unfortunate name. I was not expecteing (but should have been by now) the fact that the bus just didn't turn up.. I mean the only bus there didn't turn up! I wasn't alone, and a friendly 28 year old Geography teacher was also waiting for her bus, to a different destination, which hadn't turned up either! (Now I know what you're thinking: wow you must have good Romanian to know what she did for a job...well, she spoke perfect English, had visited Manchester and had even lived in Liverpool for a short while!) Anyway, after a few moments of panic, I did the only thing possible... get myself to a place of sanity! Targu-mures was the closest such place, and to my surprise there was a bus just 35 mins later from there to Turda. I had beat my transport curse.. or so I thought!

I arrived in Turda one hour early than was indicated on the bus schedule... and called my friends Dan & Ramona... (the couple I had spoke with for a few minutes at Luton airport on the flight to Romania...). Dan picked me up and took me to his home, where Romona had prepared some food (very tasty soup with mamaliga). We had a quick chat and were soon setting off to some unknown destination (unknown to me), and arrived at what I believe is called the 'keys' -(that's the translation I think). See picture below.

There were so many beautiful hills around this town that I had never noticed, and it's not really in the guidebooks! (who needs a lonely planet guide eh!). After a quick introduction to a couple of their friends, me Dan & Ramona set off for a walk through this beautiful valley, see more pictures below.....

After the walk, Dan's friend had a BBQ going and were soon supplied with bread, tomato and mici (pronounced mitch). I think I got the Romanian spelling wrong! The entertainment didn't stop there, Dan's friend (who's name I forgot to write down), got a slide trombone, and horn out of his car and started an inmpromptu brass concert as the sun set.... Dan & Romona, took me home for more chatting and made me feel so at home I thought about moving in! (they were both ill with a 'gripa' - cold - but had insisted on me still coming to visit). After a good nights sleep, some much appreciated internet time, we decided we'd go to the salt mines of Turda, as there has been lots of construction going on since I was last there... The construction was still there, in all it's glory, and unfortuantely they are turning a wonderful natural cavern into a playground with hardly any space... they did have a 'treatment' space - as is common for salt mines to improve respiratory systems such as the lungs! But this treatment space looked like something out of 1970's space film.. get a load of this... (in the middle of a salt mine!) We returned to Dan & Ramona's place to have ice cream, pudding, soup, rice and sauce... I swear I was twice the size I was before I had arrived after eating so much - I love Romanian hospitality!). Though the size of my stomach was nothing in comparison to the size of the pile of dishes in the sink! I thought I better make my excuses to leave and catch the ONLY bus back home, before Ramona made me do the washing up! Dan took my to the bus stop, but was soon picking me back up again an hour or so later as the bus had eiether never arrvied or drove past without so much of a sign in the window! I returned to their flat insisting to Ramona that had returned due to guilt of not doing the washing up and that I could not go home without doing the washing up. I don't think she believed me! So I was once again in a place with no means for getting back home! My hosts came to my rescue and said they'd drive me all the way back home... 90 mins away! But first I was invited to go to the Evangelical church with them for the Sunday service. I was intrigued at the idea of going to see a Romania church service, and I have to say I really enjoyed the experience. Of course finding myself in a Romanian Evangelical Church service in Turda, is perhaps near the top of the list of unexpected life events, but one I was glad to be having. The people were wonderfully nice and friendly, I must admit sitting for two hours trying to listen to what the preacher was saying in Romanian was tiring, but I think I managed the hymn singing pretty well at the very least! So the service ended around 8pm, and I thought ok time to go home.. but no, the hospitality did not stop even there. We went for pizza with the friend from the previous day, who happened to have conducted a brass band that had been playing during the church service! Topics over dinner ranged from religion to football, we even discussed the injustice of extra time at Old Trafford just a week before!

I arrived home in such good spirits after having spent a weekend with these people that I had known for the duration of a flight from England to Romania. They had greeted and treated me like an old friend, as had their friends, and the generousity and kindness displayed by Dan & Ramona was quite overwhelming. It's these kind of experiences that have helped me reflect upon and change my own belief system about human kindness. I don't mean to sound all deep and meaningful, but it's really how I feel after such expereinces. So a huge thank you go out to Dan & Ramona... (Ramona - I have to admit what I said about the dishes wasn't true, but I'd be happy to do your dishes as a thank you anytime!)

Regards from Romania

Dan

Week 3 - 4 Kittens, 3 Rabbits and 2 Volunteers!

2009-09-20T09:08:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, and phew yet another emotionally exhausting week, for a multitude of reasons! This week's blog title, (inspired by the internationally acclaimed Romanian film of 2 years ago - 4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days) pretty much says it all. I'm beginning to feel like a modern day Noah, as animals seems to be arriving more than 'two by two'. I'm wishing I was more like Dr Doolittle, as I need to get the animals to behave a little better (mosquito's included).

I can't really go much further without mentioning the great sporting injustice that occurred today in Manchester. I sat in a Romanian bar watching Micheal Owen score the winning goal for Manchester Utd against their city rivals Manchester City, in the 96th minute. Now bearing in mind that football games last 90 minutes, and generally they last 95 minutes at Old Trafford if Man Utd are not winning, today's events just show what you can do with lots of money in the right pocket... great game for the neutral, sorry for the City fans.

Ok, so to this week's Transylvanian tale. After getting used to two rabbits in the back yard, which became three last week... which is going to perhaps leading to whole different kind of 'bunny-boiling', we were joined in our static ark by a little kitten, which had seemed to have wandered into the garden. It was a little playful thing, but we left it out to find it's own way as we left for work. On returning home after work on Monday evening, one (kitten) became two (in a reversal of the spice girls classic song...), and two kittens were soon to become four as we had a whole litter in the back yard, we still have them (and no sis - I'm not bringing them back for you!). They have caused no end of bother as they roam around our garden and have had me running around after them- making improvised houses for them to avoid the first rain we've had in 3 weeks. Here's a few snaps of them for you cat lovers....

Back at the hospital the weeks seem to get more and more demanding as having just two volunteers and small groups of patients takes its toll. Having to concentrate when listening to patients speaking quickly in a foreign language for several hours a day, is tough enough, but trying to engage in creative, meaningful and purposeful activity simultaneously is a serious challenge. We had our first real 'creative' activity, - a kind of Autumn collage using leaves , conkers etc. It seemed to go reasonably well, and so we remain hopeful people will continue to surprise themselves with the kind of contemporary pieces that have been produced so far. Now many fairly surreal things happen to me each week, so surreal at time that I often question if I am myself having hallucinations or am just acclimatising to this 'unusual' environment. I'm going to talk about bums and toilet issues now, so be warned. One particular patient does occasionally need some assistance toileting so we sometimes let him pee in a bowl outside the club room, as the alternative is a hurried dash upstairs, and he doesn't move quickly enough. So when on Friday he gesticulated to us that he needed the toilet, we hurriedly got him outside of the room, and when presented with the bowl he placed it down, and before you could say 'woooooohhh!!' - (which was kinda of the noise I heard from my colleague, the patient was sat squatted over a bowl we used for lots of other things, and well the rest you can imagine. After being discouraged to stop taking his clothes off we were able to get him back to the ward where he could be seen to more privately. The 'bottom' theme' seemed to be a feature of the week as somewhat inexplicably as I was walking past one of the nurse's offices, I just happened to look into the room, as I often do to say hello, and there was a bare-faced bottom staring back at me... and this time the bottom in question did not belong to a patient... I could not quite bring myself to ask why a 'non-patient' bottom was being aired around open doors, and quite honestly, I'd rather not know! The third bottom related adventure takes me to this weekend's day tip out to Sighisoara...

Sighisoara is famous for being the birthplace of 'Vlad the Impailer' - the man who the Dracula legend is based on. Sighisoaroa is very much a true Romanian town, with the in-built 'eye holes' looking down at you from almost every roof. Here are some photo's of Sighisoara - well worth visiting if you're in the area! There was by complete coincidence a film festival on in Sighisoara this weekend, so after several visits to the 'main centre' to try and find some form of programme, (as all the posters tell you everything but the starting time and venue... (a common Romania occurrence), we met a member of staff who not only invited us in for free - ok it was free festival - but she also gave us two free t-shirts too!!! (see pictures below). We choose the 4pm offering called 'Elevator' - translation - 'Elevator'. Don't be fooled this was as it says on the tin, a small old auditorium with a little projector whizzed into action, as 30 or so arty students and us, settled down to watch the film. Well perhaps 'settled' is the wrong word as the film started with so much noise I was almost looking for a bowl to crap in myself! Ok so that's a slight exaggeration, but it was bloody noisy and all I could here were the words 'ajutor... ajutor'. This means help, and oh boy the occupants of the 'elevator' were in need of help, as the film consisted of just two students who were trapped in a broken lift in an abandoned warehouse! The film was quite alright really, but of course there was more toileting action in this film, that seemed central to the story, though I never really understood why! Seeing people pee and poo in a lift was not really at the top of my 'must see' list, after my week at the hospital. The two characters went through all levels of panic, before eventually dying in 'Elevator'... a cheery end to the day in Sighisoara I'm sure you'll agree, but hey, the train ride home offered rather more light hearted entertainment - i.e me singing along to my Ipod for the rest of the passengers - also free of charge I may add! Though on reflection, I don't think the Romanian train passengers were quite ready for a hearty rendition of 'Wicked' the musical... free or not!

Still, it's been a fun week, and as I head to my midway point I'm more than happy to be back here in a world where the weird becomes normal, and my normality is seen as weird!

Regards from Romania

Dan

Week 2 - Romanian blankity blank... "me and my (blank) are going out tomorrow night".

2009-09-13T08:14:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone! Just when I imagined I might not have a tale to tell this week, I took to the road, albeit the local road to Targu-Mures, and sure enough I got my tale. Oh and the answer to the blank by the way is 'cake'. Of course I didn't take a cake out for an evening, but that's what I managed to say to a mate of mine as I mixed up the words for 'cake' and 'friend'. Her son did give me a funny look. I have had a few perplexing looks during the last couple of weeks when trying to remember my Romanian. Despite feeling as though the language has come flooding back to me, I am still making some quite amusing mistakes. Just yesterday when talking with a hotel receptionist, I asked how much a room would be for one 'sister' rather than one 'night' - the words sounds kind of similar, but the member of staff either thought I was just giving ridiculously pointless information or I was booking on behalf of some new found religious order! - I didn't take the room!

The saying 'a picture tells a thousand words' seems fitting this week, so I'm going to put a few photos in, to give you some idea of my environment, for those of who remember my 'near death' experience last time, walking over the bridge with panels missing, look out for evidence in this weeks pictures!

At the hospital life has been pretty tough with some of the patients being particularly ill this week, and it's been a wee while since I have seen some raw elements of psychosis, so me and Ali (co-volunteer) have been coping best we can, supported by the staff! As usual I can't go into details of my work for confidentiality reasons, but you can just imagine walking around a courtyard full of perhaps 100 women, some 'toileting' randomly in front of you (due to illness - there is access to toilets), one woman screaming and hitting herself, and some women just wanting to grab hold of you (inappropriately at times). Some patients being unable to speak simply sit and stare at you.

Now some photos for the health and safety buffs amongst you.. my special favourite is the metal ladder leading up to the electric cables... and the 'the bridge' picture is here too...

So to my eventful trip to Targu- Mures. There seem to bee many spellings of this town, so if today's spelling differs from past blog entries, I apologise! It's the nearest 'city' with a cinema, McDonald's and some lively street cafes. I just wanted to go have a nosey round and to be completely honest, I was searching for a bar that might just let me see some English Premiership football! I got lucky with the bar, and the owner gave me a full family history, clearly I was the only customer in there for the majority of my stay there! This is a picturesque city as some pictures will show you, and the statue of the babies drinking from the wolf, is synonymous around these parts!

But to the point of my story, after having found some reasonable public toilets earlier in the day for 1.5 lei ( 30 pence), a tough feat I assure you, I thought I'd manage the hour long bus ride home. Unfortunately I had not accounted for the pot holed country road through the hills, so after just 15 minutes of the journey I knew I was in trouble! Could I last another 45 minutes of this bouncing bus journey through the Romanian countryside? Ten minutes later I knew the answer to that question.... I had to get off, but could I find a strategically good place to get off in the wilderness? My bladder made that decision for me, and so exactly half way through the hour long journey I descended from the bus just outside the town of Mica (clearly not named after the currently known pop star himself). After some quite wonderful bladder relief (There's nothing quite like it after such a wait is there?) I turned to face the following scenes....

So with the sun setting and the local grave yard looming next to me I was left with only one option - Hitch! Ok, so I don't mind admitting I was getting slightly nervous after the 20th car passed, and the hillside was now covered in shadows, but luck was once again on my side, as a black car stopped, and a friendly youngish couple, opened their car door and took me almost all the way home. We chatted away, with no mention of socialising with cakes, or booking a room for nuns, and they dropped me of yards from home, refusing payment - I think they had felt quite entertained as I tried to explain just what I had been doing in the middle of nowhere! Ok thanks to you guys, I hope you get to read this one day!

Ok, that's enough for his week! I did meet up with my good friend Giany and his sister and son last night two, which also ended in an eventful car journey at 0200, but that's a story for another time. The friendly couple I met at Luton airport on thew way over here, also called me and asked when I was going to visit them in Cluj! That should be another tale altogether!

Regards from Romania

Dan

Week 1 (again) - Meet the team & salt mine silliness!

2009-09-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Hello everybody, thanks for the comments so far, and for the supportive comments about my acceptance to present at the World Occupational Therapy Conference in Chile, it's appreciated and I just wanted to say serious thanks to many colleagues for their support! Ok, to this week's adventures....

I really wanted to focus on the return to working inside this psychiatric institution here in Romania, but first I have to share my experiences of going to the salt mines of Praid yesterday. Oh first I must mention big thank you to Marika and Victoria who finished working with us this week. Wednesday was Marika's 29th birthday and we had a fun veggie BBQ in the garden with several drinks, (see pictures below - me, Marika, Ali & Victoria)!

So Friday night took me to the main disco in town named 'Infinity' with my neighbour Sari. There almost everyone was dressed in white, to sparkle under the UV light, though other interesting outfits included what looked like a pyjama suit, and a girl wearing only a bikini, the white clothes simply shone over the black stuff she actually had on! It reminded me of one of those films where people in white hoods chanted and swayed through some seemingly pointless ritual, in the deep south of America. At this point I realised the need to leave and stop drinking!!!

So onto Saturday, and Vic and I got a 2.5 hour train to the town of Praid, made famous for it's salt mines. I had previously visited the alt mines of the unfortunately named town of 'Turda', though "Turda" it certainly was not! I had also been to Praid once before, though on my last visit with my good friend Hyun-Jin, the hills were covered in snow, and the mine was closed, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself on a in gorgeous sunshine, ice-cream in hand and waiting for the bus with a happy go lucky crowd. We headed down, down, down into the depths of a never ending tunnel. Once inside we soon found ourselves in a huge underground cavern, and as my eyes adjusted to the light I had to blink several times to believe what appeared in front of me. Now just remember I have just walked into a deep underground salt mine/cavern, and I now find myself looking at rows of tables around the edge of the walls, all with peg hooks filled with coats, all the tabled filled with people, grans, kids, parents. I think I can see what looks like a series of wooden made swings (some two-seated), oh and wait there seems to big a bouncy castle, oh and climbing frame in the distance. Further exploration reveals a church, and coffee shop, all made of wood, all in the salt mine!

Perhaps the most disorientating sight was the number of people that were playing badminton, (without a net) and the ever increasing number of table tennis tables, with people playing, that were appearing around each corner. My initial though was that I really has stumbled into the secret training camp for the Romanian Olympic Committee, but no, the real explanation for these quite bizarre sights was much simpler. The air in the salt mines is believed to help with health and especially breathing conditions, so large numbers of people come down here for the day, and do some kind of sporting activity to help their respiratory system. I swear I even saw a computer being used down there.. surely they couldn't get a wireless connection??? I think there may be something in it, as the air down there felt as though it had a certain freshness to it... and hey, could half the population of Transylvania that seemed to be present, be wrong?

Ok, back to matters at work. I knew going back to the hospital would not be easy, seeing patients who may have deteriorated, or simply working within a team of volunteers who did things differently to my colleagues two years ago. The staff gave me a warm welcome, and bits of Romanian language returned to me more quickly than I thought they would. Conditions have improved for patients, with improvements evident in the building structure, toilet facilities and better access to outside spaces. Many of the difficulties for staff still remained, regarding small staff to patient ratio. Seeing one particular lady walk independently, after some assistance from us 2 years ago was a warming sight indeed. I was quickly reminded of the difficulties faced by staff and patients though as I was informed about patients who had died since my departure. The sight of one particular patient who was now bed bound due to problems with her legs, saddened me greatly as this patient had constantly entertained me each week by insisting I wear one of her knitted hats. Patients with mild - severe learning difficulties, no doubt worsened by institutionalisation remained in the hospital, and many familiar faces greeted me as the week went on. The club room itself has had many a makeover with brilliant paintings from both volunteers and patients on the walls. A makeshift table tennis table is now there, and singing and dancing remain popular activities.

A young kid called Dorina (pictured), who some of you may remember from my last visit is now seven and remains a frequent visitor to the hospital grounds.

So that's about it for this week folks! Hope all is well where ever you are in the world! Speak soon!

Regards from Romaina

Dan

Back on the road again - just!

2009-08-30T09:42:00.001-07:00

Hello everyone, welcome back to the next installment of my travellers tales, from the crypt that is Transylvania!

After one of the more tiring journeys I have made (via Manchester, Luton airport, Cluj (Romania), Tirges Mures and finally Tarnaveni), I find myself back in the 'old' internet cafe routine of Sunday evenings. Many things to say already so here goes...

The film 'Planes, trains and automobiles' is something I feel like I just starred in, as my plan to sleep in Luton airport failed spectacularly, as it's a dire little place with very few seats. So after seeing more people in sleeping bags, sprawled across the floor, than you'd find in a London homeless shelter, I conceded defeat and 'slept' for two hours on top of my rucksack, on the floor at Luton airport, before being woken up be equally tired tourists arriving at 0430. After a seriously overpriced bacon sandwich and brew, (almost five pounds!) I checked in, where I met a lovely Romanian couple who helped me remember some basic Romanian words (my first thought was they probably thought I was going to beg them for money I looked so bad!). They were not only nice to chat with, but they went as far as giving me a lift to the bus station in Cluj, after the flight touched down... I began to remember why I loved Romania so much. As I'd got there early rather than wait for the direct bus in 30 degree heat, I saw a bus labelled Tirges Mures, ( a nearby city) so I boarded the bus on instinct, and after paying just 15 lei (3-4 pounds for a 3 hr+ bus journey, I sat with an old Romanian man with a false arm... No kidding! Clearly he's been on this bus before, and probably lost his arm on it, because just ten minutes in and we had crashed into a car which pulled up suddenly in front of us. The usual scene occurred with the drivers gesticulating with their arms, and all the male passengers having a good chat about who's fault it was. No health and safety required here, so after 20 minutes of what looked one giant game of charades (you know... film, TV book...) we were back on our way with a dented bus, and no sign of the police! Bus journeys in Romania are always eventful as there appears no limit to the number of people who try and get on, irrespective of the number of seats! So during the next 3 hours I was subjected to having several hot and sweaty crotches and arses thrust in my face from the standing passengers.... a 'warm' welcome indeed...

I was greeted by my fellow volunteer Victoria on the way form the bus station in my new 'old' home, or should that be old 'new' home??? Anyway I was greeted by Vic and she led me back to my house where the other two volunteers Marika & Ali (pictures below) were sat in the garden soaking up the sunshine.

There was no time for unpacking before heading out for pizza, chat and my favourite beer (Chuc), before finally getting some much needed sleep! Unfortunately the gardener had other ideas, as he woke my up building a new hutch for some rabbits that were apparently in the garden! A lazy Saturday ensued which included a few cheery hello's with neighbours and shop assistants who had become good friends from my previous visit. A quick afternoon nap was followed by a lovely home made tea from Victoria, and then we headed out in to town! Well we had some cherry tasting 'fire water' like drink called Unicum - honestly! We followed this with a local beer at a nearby cafe, where a funny Romanian guy had a 'party in the park' t-shirt on from Leeds - how random?! Another drink nearby eventually led us to Mac Mac disco, which best described a place on the outskirts of town where the local 'kids' and oh I do mean kids, go to dance the night away and all seem to wear white as they think the ultra violet light is going show them in a good light... hmm.. tips for you kids.. it doesn't! It's always an entertaining night and sure enough the lure of three foreign women in this kiddy disco soon had us chatting with a friendly bunch of guys and girls. My suspicion as to the actual age of the people we were dancing with became increasingly alarming as I asked one girl how old she was, and she replied 16... oh dear... somewhat more disturbing was the revelation that her mother worked at the hospital (where I will be working) so I quickly moved away to avoid potentially ugly first day scenes at work - of me being chased out of the hospital grounds by a staff member with a big stick. As myself, Ali, Marika and Vic had had enough beer, and had certainly had enough of being made to feel like old men outside the school gates with bags of sweets, we took a taxi home, and I finally got some much needed rest sleeping through til almost one pm!!! Today has been far more relaxed and included some table tennis at a neighbour's house and some time on the Internet, and searching for football scores. For the footy fans, I see that Old Trafford 'rules' prevailed again to ensure bribery wins after all, and Liverpool finally won a game!

Hope everyone at the Leeds festival had fun, thanks for reading!

Dan

Romania Week 29 - And for the last time... ( & 11 men in black)

2009-01-10T14:05:00.000-08:00

'and for the last time...'
Hope you are all sitting comfortably: this may take a while...This is it, due to my departure next Saturday afternoon this will be the last report from Romania, as this incredible adventure draws to a close... I have some farewell nights to organise this week and to ensure the new guys are ready to take over from next week, which I have no doubts they will be.

Before I give a summary of my time here I want to share yet another new experience I had here this week. On Thursday our friend and Interpreter (Lia) invited us to an underground bar for 'rock' night, where we were told they had rock music and it was the only night of it's sort in town... oh how true this was! After going for a sneaky bite to eat and beer with my Neighbour Deli, I went on to meet one of the new volunteers (Christian) in the bar.... here was the scene as I saw it... eleven guys, (+ Christian) sat around a small table, no one else in the place, the eleven guys all wearing black t-shirts, most with long hair... between the ages of 16-45, watching a DVD of various heavy metal / rock groups.. no live music, just civilised conversation about the rock groups they liked.. and a few guys occasionally playing 'air' guitar to their favourite songs.... not quite the rockin' scene I was expecting! They weren't even drunk.... rock on!

So I really don't know where to begin recapping the last 7 months, it has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and has included, meeting the best neighbours I have ever had, being a photographer at a Hungarian wedding, going to freaky discos, navigating an ever changing, enterprising and bizarre transport system which lets you go anywhere, but doesn't allow you come back, seeing old Romanian rockers in concert, ritual pig killing (and eating pigs ears, & pickled water-melon), working in a Victorian style psychiatric unit with very real madness, a Christmas nativity play on the wards, having pigs & chickens as my alarm clock every morning, teaching English to local kids, living through a snow filled winter & spending Christmas and new year with my wonderful friends and neighbours, doing very Romanian/ Hungarian things.. and much much more....

It would be near impossible to mention specific people, who have made this time so amazing, so I won't try to do this, because this email would take all day, the warmth of the people, young and old, is the thing that will stay with me forever, and this includes the patients at the hospital who have been, and may remain there for the rest of their lives... their ability to accept their situation and show such warmth to us, despite the lack of basic humanitarian conditions is incredible.

I have found Romania (mainly Transylvania) to be a land of outstanding natural beauty, untouched and unspoilt by the corruption of western influences, a place where people believe 'the western way of life' is better than their own, and yet my own feeling is that Romania is far more free now, then the UK and places like it, ever could be, the pressures from the mass media and society is not yet all about material wealth and happiness, but it's creeping in slowly, so the gap in culture and morality is growing ever wider between the older generations here and the young people. Traces of the communist way of life remain very evident here, with stacks of big apartment blocks around the cities and towns, a corrupt government mainly comprised of former communist party members, and a country side who ownership rights may never be fully understood after the land was seized by the former regime, all for the good of the country, and these reminders may well remain for some time, yet the importance of family values, and the survival skills (to build your own house, grow your own food, fix your own car), at least will remain for the time being... Romania is already being exploited by businesses like Nokia, who have moved here because they can pay the people less wages here, so to all of you that have thought about coming to see this amazing country, I would say now is the time to come here.. it's a real taste of eastern European culture...

My top three features of life here have to be:1) Public transport: riding on trains with the doors open, arriving in places to find there is no return bus until the next day, sitting on a beer crate for three hours in a maxi-taxi (mini-bus), fighting old women to get on the bus, and, when all else fails... hitch hiking....2) The ongoing search for decent toilet facilities: finding a toilet period, finding a toilet with a light that works, finding a toilet with a working flushing mechanism, finding a toilet with paper, and my personal favourite, going to the toilet and seeing just a hole in the floor, perhaps with elaborate surrounding tiles!3) Food: the meat in truly out of this world! beware though, as any part of a pig is edible, including the pigs ear (raw), pickled food including watermelon, pickled salad in winter due to seasonal food supply, samarles (meat & rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) and all cakes contain rum!

My top three places to visit are:1) Brasov... an amazing place any time of year by the mountains, with stunning views, a cosmopolitan feel to it, and excellent pancakes! with Germanic influenced buildings.2) Sigishoura... birth place of 'Vlad the Impailer' (rumoured to be where Dracula legend stemmed from), far more Romanian influenced town, with centre piece of town being the citadel and city on the hill, also beautiful anytime of year!3) Bran Castle...(past Brasov) often used at the 'face' of Dracula's dwellings, it's wonderful mountain surroundings, and well preserved interior give you a pretty good insight to some of the Romanian royal historyOf course other places such as Sibiu, Tirges Mures,& Cluj offer other great insights and perspectives into the history of Transylvania, but these are just my particular favourites.

I can't possibly end this email with out talking just a little about my home for the past seven months 'TARNAVENI'. This small town based in a valley, surrounded by hills, has offered me a brilliant insight into real life in Transylvania, with one road villages, a mix of the Hungarian, Romanian, and Roma (gypsy) cultures, and two very entertaining discos! It is here I have learned about local cultures, and the bizarre things that happen here including: getting sweets or matches, instead of the correct change in shops, needing your passport to buy a hoover, driving around horse & carts, sleeping with the sounds of howling dogs all around, and learning that the concept of 'non-stop' services usually means they finish about 11pm! God bless Romania and Tarnaveni!
So that's it folks... six days and counting and I'll be home, but I will be back here one day, so thank you Romania, and thanks to you all if you have been reading these messages.

Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 28 - Just a little bit longer...

2009-01-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
There is good news and bad news... the good news... this is email will be relatively short... the bad news. It won’t be my last one! Due to my second colleague having to go home a touch early (yesterday), I will be staying on until March 1st to help the new volunteers settle in! They arrived yesterday and we have had a busy old weekend getting around town and returning the hire car, which we used to pick them up....
This has been along week with no out of the ordinary activities taking place, just routine socialising, and lots of working, so I won't bore you all too much about that. Life in Romania has returned to winter with -6 temperatures, but clear blue skies, so sunglasses are still required! The horse and cart parade continues to remove the rubble form the old bus station, after it was knocked down, and winter salads are still made solely of tomatoes.... the also pork remains delicious!

English classes continue with the kids on the street and my table tennis career (at my Hungarian neighbour's home) is still thriving as I remain unbeaten.... but Naomi (12) is giving me a real good run for my money! I have never seen a girl her age have such skills in all sports!!!
I am hoping to have a rather big leaving party at the local disco... as I can't possibly leave without dancing to (yet another) Chris Rea tune! My Romanian driving skills have also improved as I now have been able to render the brake completely unnecessary.... and the biggest 'on road' danger still is passing a horse & cart! Life rumbles on, and with a few extra minutes of sunlight each night, I make actually leave work in some form of light! Bring on the new volunteers reactions to the hospital conditions....

...and yeah, just in case those sadistic Man UTD fans are wondering if I followed the football this weekend, I'll just say this....I know Liverpool embarrassed themselves this weekend against Barnsley, and I'm big enough to say well done on beating arsenal 4-0, fair enough, and.... I hope you get stuffed in the next round

Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 27 - A Return to the hills...

2009-01-10T13:56:00.000-08:00

Hello all,
Well after almost three months of snow, Romania once again surprises us by sending three weeks of sunshine, and what feels like an early summer, to an English man at least!
I have walked to the internet cafe in a short sleeve t-shirt... I have to admit the local Romanian's are not quite sharing my idea of basking in the sun, and remain in coats, but still with the snow gone, it's great to have warm days back, even if the nights remain cold.
Yesterday me and Karen returned to Janneke’s farm up in the hills, in the Village of Oarba de Mures. It is a very very small village, so small that there is no such things as garbage collection, and people simply have to burn their garbage at the edge of the village... all houses are supplied with water by the use of wells, (not by the government) and life is just all about the village, most locals who don’t have a car only leave the village once a week to go to market, what a life! The ride to the village was near impossible in a normal car due to the fact there are only dirt tracks leading there, and most of them were too muddy to pass. Crossing the river was perhaps the most surreal experience as we drove onto a 'pontoon' which is basically a platform just big enough for one car... and a man appeared from somewhere to winch us across the river on this tiny platform... before charging us 50 pence before letting us off the other side! We had a 4x4 tour of some of the farm, before walking to meet the 13 horses and try and help my colleague to 'round them up'... before settling down in the two-roomed house, with some local sweet bread, made by one of the neighbours. My colleague also proudly showed us her 'pet' mouse, which she found hibernating in a pair of her shoes. She has since moved the mouse to a nice little straw home, and is trying to decide when to wake it up... as it may have not ate enough food before winter to last much longer. The funny part is that the mouse is still hibernating, so her and her husband have to be as quiet as possible, even thought they don't know if the mouse is still alive... that's life in the country!
I was again rewarded for this week's English lesson with the kids across the road, by being fed afterwards. I was very cautious of being given more pickled water melon juice, but was instead given some park of a pig, a part that I could not, and neither wanted to identify... it's been a real experience eating the Romanian way here!
The club room was again fumigated, after further cockroaches were found, and we haven't had any more since, but the whole hospital building has them, so no wonder they come to our room, because it's the warmest and in the basement, next to a garbage store!

There hasn't really been anything else out of the ordinary this week, apart from having to scrub the house to get rid of mould in the bathroom. I have also removed more cobwebs from the bedroom and bathroom, than I have seen used in any number of spider related horror films!! It was disgusting, and I have become good friends now with one of the several spiders residing around our toilet!

The old bus station building has been knocked down this week, and almost every 'gypsy' from the area has been coming to the building site with a horse and cart, to take the concrete away.. apparently this is because they can sell iron, within the concrete, but what a sight it is to see all the horse and carts shipping off the remains of the building.. no safety fences or restricted access, there are gypsy children just stood amongst the rubble.... it's sights like these that I will inevitably miss when I leave... where nothing is wasted, and people are just concerned with getting on with life. I love that any repair or construction work on the street goes on without so much as a safety barrier, large holes are left uncovered over night, and if you were to fall in a hole, the idea of trying to blame someone, just does not exist!

Regards from Romania!
Dan

Romania Week 26 - A visit to Dracula's Castle & An escape to Hungary!

2009-01-10T13:53:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Well initially this was to be the last week of my placement.. Week 26... but lucky for me I have an additional two weeks left! So on to the events of last week!I can only really focus on the highlights of this week which were an unscheduled visit to Bran and the infamous 'Dracula Castle' and my weekend trip to Budapest, Hungary.

Myself and my fellow volunteer Karen, welcomed the news that our room in the hospital was to be fumigated, after increasing numbers of encounters with cockroaches! It sounds far worse than it was... anyway, we decided with time running out, we should really go for it, and test the Romanian public transport system one last time... so after a very short deliberation we opted to go 'further than ever before' in just one day, and headed for Bran.. The journey was as follows: a taxi from our house (Tarnaveni) to Medias (20mins). A train from Medias to Brasov (3 hours) a bus from Brasov train station to bus station (15 minutes) and then a bus from Brasov bus station to Bran (50 minutes) and the same to get home!!! Despite six months of telling just how impossible it was to go anywhere on public transport, without fear of losing your life, beer crates for seats, or cancellations for fun, this journey was seamless, with no more than a 10 minute wait between connections....God bless Romania!!! So to Bran, famous to those who don't know Romania, as the castle that is notoriously used as a picture of Dracula's castle, because of it's hillside location, in the beginnings of the mountains in Transylvania, despite having no connection with 'Vlad the Impailer'... It was actually used by Queen Mary (who I believe was actually Scottish, and King Ferdinand) as a real home, and there are plenty of pictures around the place to prove it! The snow around the castle was several feet thick in places, and we made the most of it by running through several snow mounds, and the skies were blue offering some amazing clear views of the castle and the surrounding hills... yet another 'must see' place to mark on the map!!!

My second trip this week was far more planned, as I went to Budapest, after several recommendations from people, and I was fortunate enough to have a local guide (Csilla, the sister of Becky, and daughter of my Hungarian neighbours). I was definitely happy to have a guide as the Hungarian language is near impossible to understand, as it is so different to Romanian and Latin based languages... Budapest, is actually two cities divided across the river Danube, on one side you have the city of 'Buda', and the other 'Pest', very practical! My favourite memories of this weekend have to be walking around the city, seeing the palace lit up at night towering over the river. The food is equally as good as in Romania (though I'm sure not as nice as my neighbours home cooked food!!!) and there are any number of museums, historic buildings and places to visit! I personally just enjoyed spending time walking around the city and meeting friends of Csilla. Be warned though travellers, you must buy tickets for transport before you get on buses / trams... or at least know which are likely to have inspectors on! Views from the Citadel are very impressive despite the 5000 steps up there (a slight exaggeration!), and a visit to a fairly large island on the river is also worth a visit, as there is plenty of places to sit and soak up the sunshine, or for the more energetic, jog around a designated pathway! Budapest is very much a working city from my impression, and like any big European city there are many interesting faces on the subway.... many people did seem weary and tired looking though and I get the impression people work long hours though and that maybe accounts for a lack of vibrancy I felt here... maybe the city at night offers a different perspective?

On to a more Romanian tale to end on, after returning to Turges Mures from Budapest, I refused to pay for a taxi home, so I walked for half an hour into the hills (the road to Tarnaveni), but watched in horror as not one, but two buses passed me by.... (there is not normally two buses going by in an hour!!!) so I decided I must take the Romanian approach and hitch a ride... so after trying to stop every car that passed (which was not many) I managed to get a lift to a village called Mica, which at least took me over the hills and halfway home, but as the sun was beginning to disappear and even horse and carts were becoming sparse, I was starting to think I may need to do something drastic like lie across the road, to get someone to stop, But after a short conversation with some Hungarian villagers (speaking in my garbled Romanian) they persuaded me to keep trying, and shortly afterwards I got my second lift all the way home.. the hitching cost me 4 lei (90 pence) and the bus normally costs 5.5 lei - bargain or what?!!!!!

Despite the travelling I was feeling lively enough to teach my English class to the kids across the street, so I headed over there, and my reward was yet another feeding by the mother, who fed me home made vegetable spread, with some part of a pig, that I really didn't want to know what it was.. but it definitely had a pig taste! There was no 'pickled water' this time, which I was relieved about, after almost throwing up last time I drank it, not knowing what it was of course.. many things are pickled over here in winter, and the water was left over after a water melon had been pickled... this is so true!!!

Anyway, enough for now... this time in two weeks I’ll be home... so let’s hope the final two weeks will be as educational as ever!!!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania week 25 - "Not on a Friday"

2009-01-10T13:51:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!
Wow it's been a very tough week, and I have to admit the first few thoughts of coming home have been creeping into my thoughts.The sad news I have to report is that one of my fellow volunteers (Helen) has had to return home rather quickly for personal reasons, which has had me and Karen experience a range of emotions from worry to madness, in no particular order! I won't dwell on this issue because Transylvania never stops surprising us, whatever else is happening....

So to the weekly news: I have had various parts of my person grabbed by many of the female patients during this 6 month stay, and this week was no exception... as much to the amusement of the nurse on duty, as when leaving the women's ward, a female patient ran up to me, bear hugged me from behind, before grabbing my breast... this is not an unusual experience for me here, as another patient greets you in this way each time you see her...... ah well nice to have a bit of intimacy I can hear some of you think... but joking aside things can be a little rough at times on the ward, and last week I was on the end of some aggressive behaviour from a female patient and it was not a pleasant experience as she barricaded herself against the door to prevent me from leaving the ward.. Luckily the other patients are very quick to help you out in kind of problem situation!

To this week's email 'title'... I just wanted to share this gem of a story with you. My colleague Karen is wanting to take a train through Europe to get home rather than fly. And despite the complications of this journey, every part of the journey can be booked on line. but oh no, not the Romanian part,... so she had to go to Turges Mures to make a booking in person, only thing was when she got there she was informed that she was two days to early, and you are not allowed to book a train journey more than a month in advance.... hmm... so after waiting the two extra days, she made a call to the train company who spent almost 30 minutes saying how it was no problem to book the train now... so when she stated she would come and make the booking the response was " oh I'm sorry, you can't make that booking today, not on a Friday" and with no further explanation the phone call ended!!!

I had a quite surreal experience yesterday when going to Turges Mures Zoo, with my good friends Sari & Judith (in picture below), as after climbing a rather steep hill, and a good 6k walk, we arrived at the entrance at 15:30 to be told the zoo closed at 16:00!!! so we rushed round the place like one of the red-ass monkeys we saw in the monkey house.... the zoo has a bear, lions, tigers, monkeys, deer, lama, pumas, birds of prey etc... but the conditions were not good for the animals, and they had very limited space... the kiosk at the entrance had a sign saying you must pay for taking photographs, but no way of checking if you had paid or not.... bizarre!!! Seeing an entire zoo in 30 minutes, even a small one, was a challenge, and we missed seeing the lions close up, but the views over the city were almost worth the climb up the hill anyway!

The English lessons for my neighbourhood kids continue tomorrow, so any suggestions my teaching colleagues would be appreciated.... and other events this week include my 4-day trip to Budapest from Friday-Monday! I am ready for that four day trip!

So that's it for now... I am too hungry to continue without food!!!
Regards from Transylvania!
Dan

Romania Week 24 - The beginning of the end? & Mark's visit!

2009-01-10T13:48:00.001-08:00

Well hello all,
and what a busy week it's been here...This week has had many highlights, (what week hasn't been eventful here?). But I'd like to focus on events at the hospital and the visit of my friend Mark, who I've known for many years since our time working at the Opera House in Manchester!
So as the more astute of you will realise from the weekly email count.... week 24 is very close to the end of the 6 month placement, and the issue of ending our relationships is very prominent in our minds. And whilst I feel I have made some 'friends for life' here, there are those relationships with the patients that must be ended and cannot continue after the placement ends. However, having forged some very good working relationships with staff and patients, we have inevitably formed emotional attachments to certain patients, as they have to us... to highlight some of the difficulties that have arisen as a result of this, I will share with you an experience I had this week. During a fairly regular group session with some female patients, I was talking to one particular female patient, who asked for paper and pen to write something... so I obliged and she began to ask for my name and address in England. I had to try and explain (in my best Romanian) that I could not give these details as is the rules of the charity I work for... the women continued to ask for just my name and area that I lived in, saying if she ever got out of the hospital, and made it to England she wanted to be able to find me.... she then began to write a few sentences on some paper before the session ended, and insisted I read the letter... my Dutch colleague was able to translate that this women had basically wanted me to marry her, preferably before I leave, or in summer, and this would allow her to leave the hospital. Now, of course, some of the patients do have a mental health problem, but not all... and I now begin to understand how some patients express a belief that past volunteers who will 'come back to marry them', because I believe that some of the patients see us as an opportunity to escape these horrible conditions. Patients have talked about offering money and houses to previous volunteers as enticements to marry, and of course after spending months with people, and with the very open and friendly nature of the patients, it becomes very difficult to maintain that 'professional' boundary when patients are wanting to have a non-professional relationship... I think this may be the start of this process, as the idea of us leaving, is becoming a serious reality for many of the patients. I just that saying goodbye will be a mainly positive experience. Only the next few weeks will tell....
Now on to more social endeavours! My friend Mark, who as I have said, I knew from working at the Manchester Opera House for many years came for a crazy 2/3 day visit. He arrived Thursday Morning in Cluj, and left Saturday afternoon... we crammed in a drive from Cuj to Tarnavnei (2 hours), with a stop at some amazing salt mines in a place called TURDA... honestly that was the name of the town... the mines were deep into the surrounding hills and the main chamber must have been almost 200feet high, with an Indiana Jones wooden walk way around the top... and like an Indiana Jones film, there was a small, but long twisting tunnel before reaching an echo chamber... and then the very dodgy wooden staircase.. its great to see, but it would never be opened to the public in England, without serious fencing for health and safety reasons.... but despite the truly brilliant sights it offered, (and free salt from the walls!), the most distinguishing sight was in the small cave like chamber at the very end of the original tunnel... and on entering the chamber I joked with Mark that there appeared to be a table tennis (ping-pong) table in the cave space... only when I rounded the corner did I actually see two people playing table tennis in this small cavern... I have to admit that these images did not match... seeing a small cavern in a salt mine 200feet underground, with two middle age people playing table tennis.. I began to think that this was the secret training location of the Romanian national table tennis team! I then remembered that i have never seen any Romanian National table tennis players, and figured that they probably got lost down in the mines whilst training... I wonder?????
The rest of the time with mark, was spent in Tugers Mures (Thursday night) eating and drinking, then Friday afternoon in the snowy hills around Tarnaveni, before finishing off with a huge meat platter and drinks at Crama… All this before hitting the now infamous INFINITY disco, where we were treated to such musical greats as Abba 'man after midnight' and 'red red wine' mixed in with European and some UK dance tunes.... Credit must go to Mark for driving over here, especially coming straight off the plane... he passed with flying colours!!!

Last night was a quiet night, after visiting my neighbours, I watched the final part of Lord of the Rings, and tonight we are going to be treated to the beginning of the African Cup of Nations (football championships)... I love TV here!! I also watched the Rodger Federrer tennis game yesterday, he won 10-8 in the fifth set... what a game!!! Ok, I rambling now so I'll sign off!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 23 - Lord of the Rings comes to Romania

2009-01-10T13:44:00.000-08:00

Hello Everybody...
I trust all of you have now resumed normal life after the festive season! This week's tale of life here is very much about the small things in life, that seem to be more evident in my life here, than back in the UK. There were no great train journeys, strange customs, or even any trips out of Tarnaveni, but this week has continued to open my eyes to the great Romanian way of life, that I have become so accustomed to, and the surprises, that always seem to be just around the corner...

Returning to work has been tough after the Christmas break, followed by the visit of my friend, but it has been great to see the patients again who are warm in their welcome, each time we see them. Visiting one of the women's wards for a weekly ward round is becoming increasingly difficult for me, as they many of them are becoming very 'hands on', whilst many of the patients that went home for Xmas have returned, mostly better for the time away...

In 'la strada' (the street) life continues to be very pleasant, and this week me & Helen began our first English class for the orphan children from across the road… they were all pretty good at the basics, and before we even began the lesson, we were invited to sit and eat with the kids..(I thought this might happen.. so I made sure I didn’t have tea first...) we have planned to do these lessons every Monday evening, and I would love the opportunity to bring these kids over to England for a visit with their foster mom. One thing we have learned is that the term 'orphan' here does not necessarily mean the kids don't have parents, some of the kids do have parents here, but the reasons why they were placed in the orphanage are unknown to me and private to the kids too. But one thing I do know is that in a couple of years these kids will have to leave the house they are living in, if they are unable to work, and have nowhere else to go, and work is not always possible here. There is no state system in place here remember. And despite this, these kids just get on with life, enjoy the time together, never complain of not having the latest clothes or possessions, and always want to help you to do anything...
Tuesday & Wednesday night was football night, as we got no English premiership football on TV here, but we do get the FA cup and Carling Cup games, so the girls allow me the TV rights to watch the games! The other highlights of the week have been seeing he lord of the rings films, (one playing each weekend for three weeks running), and seeing some breath-taking scenery around the hills of this town. I got up early (well 0900) on Saturday to with my neighbour Jacky to walk her two dogs... (one of which I'll try and add a photo of to the is email). We just drove for no more than ten minutes to the surrounding hills and took a walk over the snow covered tops, walking through fresh fallen snow that glistened like it was covered in diamonds. Once at the peak of the hill, you could see for miles, and with no one else in sight, it felt so liberating. On following the dogs through a small piece of woodland we emerged through the sun-soaked trees to see a range of hills (small mountains) towards Medias. As with the valley here it is often covered by a morning mist, and this was the case here, you could see what appeared to be mountain / four or five ranges of hill tops, peaking through sheets of mist, and with clear blue skies adding a stunning back drop! I am trying to be descriptive here because I did not have my camera and I don’t think any photo could do this scene justice! All this has been just a ten minute drive away. It’s amazing what you see when you look what is right in front of you!
I could write more about my second visit to Mac Mac disco..,. which felt like an under 16 disco when I arrived... or about another Friday night in Crama restaurant with Lia & Giani, but I won't because I guess this weeks abiding memories for me have to be the country side view... so I'll leave you with them, and urge any of you who want an experience with everything.... come to Romania! Until Next week!

(The pictures this week are of some of the creative activities we have undertaken in club)Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 22 - Romanian New Year & Driving in Romania

2009-01-10T13:40:00.000-08:00

I think I sent a blank email right??? (Sharon thanks for letting me know!!)here is week 22 again....

So hello and 'La Multi Ani' (Happy new year!) to everybody! Here in a snow covered and very cold Romania, life has been continuing as 'normal'... well almost... and to be honest, I think most of you may have realised that the concept of being 'normal' does not really exist here!
Last Saturday (29th) my friend (Hyun-Jin) arrived at Cluj from England (see above). (For those of you thinking 'Hyun-Jin' is not an English sounding name, you would be right! She is from South Korea. I know her from my time working at the Royal Northern College of Music.) So after staying in Cluj for one night, in -8 temperatures, warmed slightly by the wonderful array of Christmas lights, and a really gorgeous walk through the freshly snow covered botanical gardens, we took a 3 hour, bumpy, trip in a minibus back to my home town, Tarnaveni. What a welcome to Romania!

The following day was 'new years eve', and we spent it walking around Tarnaveni, before calling in at my lovely neighbour’s house, to say hello. Whilst walking in Tarnaveni, Hyun-Jin was subjected to some very funny looks from the locals who some of whom had clearly have never seen a person from Asia before, let alone from Korea. It was like being with a celebrity. Having said that, they could just as well have been enjoying watching her trying to walk in her boots without slipping... (It was very icy!) So whilst chatting with my neighbours, we were invited to stay for dinner with the family, which we were very happy to except, and so spent new year, eating traditional Romanian/ Hungarian food, chatting about life, religion and politics, followed by going out to watch fireworks at midnight, and then moving on to another neighbours house for some more drinks and fun.

The following day we spent visiting more neighbours, (my Dutch colleague and her husband & dogs!) and the house for the orphan kids, where we sat with cakes and tea, talking with the foster parents about various things. At one point the dad, left the room, and returned two minutes later wearing a cowboy out fit. I swear this is true, he had a proper cowboy hat and waistcoat... I wasn’t really sure why he had put them on, and to be honest. I was scared to ask, so pretended like it was just normal to dress up mid-way through a cup of tea! We left the house but not before arranging some English lessons for the kids. I start my second volunteer post, (as Professor Dan, English teacher) tomorrow, and have agreed to do one weekly English session for the kids every Monday evening for an hour...

Wednesday we took a trip to Turges Mures, where after a lovely cup of white hot chocolate, at hotel Concordia, we had a walk through the Xmas lights of Turges Mures, which are equally as impressive as Cluj. We headed up to the citadel, where they have outdoor ice skating, to meet my friends Lia & Giani. After a few drinks with a friend of Lia, who owns a small theatre within the citadel, and some crazy photographs with axes, and masks, we all went to my now favourite place to eat in Turges Mures, before getting the 2230 bus home.

Thursday to Saturday we hired a car, and without boring you all with long winded descriptions of the places we visited, I'll give you a description in brief. We visited Praid (to see the famous salt mines) it was closed... oh Romania!!!! We visited Sigishoura (Birth place of Vlad the Impaler), which looked even more spectacular covered in snow... Sibiu (last year's capital of culture) which was cold, though to be fair I did forget my coat!!! Oops... and headed back to Turges Mures one evening with my colleague Helen, which I mention because on the way back we encountered the infamous 'Transylvanian fog'. We had heard of this fog, as it was the reason they changed the airline arrival city from Turges Mures to Cluj, and oh boy, I understand why... I could not see past the bonnet of the car. It was just so dense, and it made static lights ahead look like oncoming cars / trucks... and that was just in the city, once hit the country roads I could barely make out the road itself.... how we managed to drive back home over the hills only god himself knows!

Friday was spent in Sibiu, as I said, with Friday evening being left for now traditional beer and food night in 'Crama', here in Tarnaveni, where we (Me, Helen, Hyun-Jin, Lia & Giani) ate well, mostly because the temperature had now dropped to -17 at night, and when you breathe deeply at night your nose hairs freeze... nice eh?! We stopped at Giani's on the way back for a little computer karaoke... (Me & Helen singing, or should I say murdering, 'gangsters paradise')! And after some home made 'Palinka' special Romanian drink (80%) we fond a cab to take us home!!!

Hyun-Jin left yesterday from Cluj, where we met my other colleague Karen, who had two friends leaving on the same flight. Driving in Romania has actually been a really fun experience, I mean people over take on bends and drive crazy, and the main road (and I mean one of the only ones in the country) has only one lane each way mostly, but its pretty good. Whilst over-taking trucks can be a near death experience, and the biggest hazards else where are passing horse & carts, and avoiding pot holes the size of moon craters the cities are actually easy to drive through, and its easy to park!!!!

Returning the car today was an experience, mainly because I got it from Turges Mures airport, and when I got there today, there was nobody there, and I mean NOBODY! I walked around the very small airport past the x-ray machines, around passport control' and the food and drink cabinets, as I was only person in the building!!! So much for security, it was so lax I was looking for the key rack to take one of the planes out for a quick flight! The guy turned up eventually after I had called him, apologising saying he had just forgot I was coming today ( I love the honesty), and after checking all was in order, he then drove me to back to Turges Mures so I could get the bus home!!! (And not because he had been late)!

So its been a great week here, not just having a visitor, but having time to really enjoy seeing Transylvania... I urge you all if you get chance, come and see Romania, come and see Transylvania... to quote Mr Spock (Star trek) 'it's life, but not as we know it'!

Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 21 - A Christmas Special

2009-01-10T13:35:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, and hope you have all had an excellent Christmas, this email is a good few days early simply because it would take me a week, to write in detail, all the fantastic experiences I have had in the past few days... I think the only way I can give you taster of Christmas here is to write diary style from December 24-27, so here goes...

(December 24 Monday) After writing my last weekly email (on what I thought was Xmas eve), from my friend's place, I sat down with him (Giani) and his son, and brother to have a bite to eat, before lazily making way home. Once home I called Shari (my Hungarian neighbour) who informed me that she would drop by shortly for me to come round to her house for Xmas... this is where my confusion kicked in, and I realised that like most of Europe Xmas is celebrated on the 24th, not 25th like in England... so... I rushed to the house of the orphan kids, to give them some presents I had bought them, the kids were out, but the foster mom was in. and she insisted I stay for something to eat. I tried to explain, in vain, that I was in a rush ( a concept not understood in Romania, unless you are driving!) and so I eventually left the house with a tray full of samarle (meat wrapped in cabbage leaves, a Xmas speciality!) and a plate full of home made biscuits!!!

So I then had a quick shower, & shave (as I now have a beard), and I made my way to the Hadnagy household, but first I had to stop by the second Hadnagy house to give Deli, a present from us volunteers... and of course on entering the house I was surrounded by the family, and asked to sing a ‘colinde’ (Xmas carol) this is true... you cannot go into someone's house without singing first... no exception to this rule!!! so after a quick rendition of silent night, I was urged to sit and have a drink, and again given a full plate of food, which was lovely (chicken, potatoes, veg etc....) I was now eating my third meal that day, and I hadn't even reached my destination, where I due to eat again!!!

Agh!!! So I finally made it to the house of Becky, Shari, Judith etc... (These names should now be very familiar to you all by now...) and of course before I was allowed to enter, I had to sing my second version of silent night... (Why could I not remember the words to anything else??) the house was full of the family and children, and it felt so nice, I experienced a fantastic 'Hungarian' style Xmas, where the sons sang Hungarian songs, the dad asked questions to the children about the story of Xmas, and the presents took almost an hour to hand out as there were so many people!! after more food and drink we, sang carols via mobile phones to the family members who could not make it home, and then the fun really started.... almost the entire family got wrapped up warm, and went singing carols to friends an neighbours... we went to 9 different houses( I think) where the following programme occurred. We would stand outside the chosen house (being careful to avoid any big dogs!) sing the Hungarian carol (of which I think I know by heart now), there would be a short exchange of words in Hungarian, then everyone would be invited into a room of the house where we would be given, wine, cookies or special bread.... so you can only imagine the state of us after leaving the 9th house at 0330!!!! Lots of people were out in the streets doing the same thing!!! It was amazing how people welcomed you into their house all night, no matter how many people there were!

(December 25th Tuesday) so to my own Xmas day, I woke up to a quiet house, such a contrast to the previous 24 hours... and opened my presents from the girls (as they were away in Budapest), made a lovely cup of tea, and ate some of the samarles that my neighbour had given me. I then went to visit the kids over the road, to see if they liked their presents, they were out at church, except one, who I sat with and had a good chat about his Xmas in Romanian for a good 30 minutes. The rest of the kids came home, and piled in to the room to sing me a Romanian carol to say thanks for the present. The mother again insisted I stay for lunch which I could not refuse, and so I sat down with the foster parents and their grown-up own kids who were living in other parts of Romania, for soup, more samalis and then more home made cookies and bread!!!

After this lovely meal, I was soon back at the Hungarian house seeing how everybody was recovering from the previous night's singing! We sat around relaxing watching some TV, playing some games (chess etc) and as seems to be a recurring pattern, ate dinner.. and yeah guess what we ate... that's right samarle.. I mean mamma Hadnagy makes them so well, I just couldn't help but eat more!!! And just as I thought I had turned into one big piece of meat, wrapped in cabbage leaves... the boys suggested we go play football... (Alleluia!!!) I have waited almost 5 months to play football, so 8-10 of us played football indoors, and it felt so good!!! not just to run off all the food!!! I slept well that night!!!!

(December 26th Wednesday) I woke up feeling like 60 years old, with every single movement feeling like I was lifting 15 stone.. I may have been a little unfit!!!! So I eventually made breakfast (no samarle) and began to watch some much needed TV!!! That was until Csilla, Szillard (brother & sister of Judith, Sari, Becky) and Judith (Szillard's wife) called round and invited me out for a beer in the town... as Csilla was due to leave for Budapest that day. So ,off for some drinks, as we were later joined by Daniel. (yet another brother!) After drinks we returned to their house, before driving Csilla to Turges Mures to catch her bus home. On returning form Turges Mures we ate together, this time some corn based food (I cant remember the name) with spaghetti and a sauce.. hmmm hmm.... so good!!! This was followed by several games of chess with Judith where we ended at 3-3. After this I returned home for some much needed rest!!!! My stomach couldn't take any more!!!

(December 27th Thursday) I woke up feeling even worse today!!! Ow!!! So after a nice English style cooked breakfast I took a stroll into town, to pick up some shopping, and to use the internet, before returning home for further rest. I got a call to invite me to another game of football, why not I thought? So I proudly put on my short sleeve Liverpool shirt and shorts. (yeah shorts) only to be informed that we would be playing OUTISDE in the snow!!!! oh how crazy are people here... well I don’t have any other sporty gear, so I played in shorts on Astroturf, covered in snow, and for those of you that read 'week 19 if I were a Romanian footballer' well I lived that experience for an hour.... but it was surprisingly warm one you got running... just about!!! I began to feel my fingers again after the first 15 minutes....

And now its December 28th already, the time has passed so quickly, and I am heading to Cluj tomorrow for the arrival of my friend, so no doubt I will be reporting on another week of transport mishaps, and all kinds of unexpected tales... for those of you that have expressed concerns for the pigs here, some still remain alive, because I can hear them squealing in the morning, no doubt wondering what happened to their friends...

Regards from Romania! (and happy new year!!!)
Dan

Romania Week 20 - The Alternative Christmas Nativity

2009-01-10T03:49:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Well it's Xmas eve, and I have just completed cleaning the house in preparation for the carol singers who are expected later today, as tradition dictates I must let them in and feed them.... hmm...and now the girls have both left for Budapest yesterday, I have freedom in the house!!! I hope to be singing carols with the orphan kids from across the street, and then heading to one of my neighbours for some drinks... but as with everything here, plans are 'subject to change' at any time!!!

There is only one topic I will talk in depth about today and that must be the success of the nativity play in the hospital, but first I must give you a brief run down of my week here, as its been too nice not to mention... so hope you are all sitting comfortably..... the snow remains here and so everything looks wonderfully white and great for taking pictures, but practically the entire town is like an ice-skating rink, but once you get used to skating around (without blades) its not so bad. This weekend has been a great build up to Xmas, as Friday night was spent with both the Hadnagy (Hungarian) family in the pub, and with my work colleagues and freinds, we ate a ridiculously huge mixed grill, (I haven’t ate that much since that night in Maloolaba, Australia, where we showed that 'all you can eat place' that we could indeed eat ourselves into unconsciousness). The meal came with several salads for the vegetarians, (that’s Karen, Helen & Karen's fella Tam) and after polishing more food off, in one night than I have ate all week, we all headed to Infinity disco, to work it off on the dance floor... and I have to say it was yet another fun night of bizarre music and even more bizarre dancing from the locals (not out group I assure you!)

Saturday was spent with Helen, Karen, Tam, and our two Dutch colleagues (Jack & Janneke) shopping in the malls of Turges Mures, walking around the beautifully decorated town, eating another lovely meal, and having a sneaky ice-cream in the final mall, like all American teenagers seem to do it the movies!!!And yesterday was another fun day for me, heading back to Turges Mures to buy myself a nice warm coat, and fashionable too, before treating myself to a McDonalds. I then headed home to catch some of my neighbourhood kids playing in a town concert at the 'Castle de Cultura' (cultural house). It was like a young orchestra playing some brass music, & Christmas carols, and they were broadcasting it on the local radio station and on the web.... they were all great and it made for a very Christmas feel to the day...

So to the main event.... Friday's 3 nativity plays in the hospital... in the morning we had the men's performance, with two last minute drop out's but one last minute replacement, so the roles of the wise men were filled by Karen and Janneke. As expected the singing of carols by the watching audience lacked any real enthusiasm, in such an environment as a man's locked psychiatric ward, apart from a handful of men who clearly knew every word of every verse of every song, and shared this knowledge loudly, if somewhat out of tune... Our male 'star' was fantastic singing solo, and Joseph kept to his role of finding a place to stay for Mary and the donkey (yours truly), but proceeded to take total care of baby Jesus, leaving Mary fairly redundant... in the stable... The audience numbers did dwindle as the play went on, but I'll put that down to poor concentration of the audience, and not the performance of our cast...the first afternoon performance was on the upper locked women's ward, where we had no drop-outs, and in fact had a last minute addition to the cast, much to our delight... again the role of the star was performed wonderfully, by a women who has a wonderful singing voice, and pretty much silenced the entire audience whilst singing, and our female Mary, was yanking my donkey tail like it was whip, and she ready to win the grand national (a famous horse race) if she could push me faster, much to the amusement of the audience... the singing on the women's ward's was plentiful and at the end of both female performances additional songs were sung by members of the audience and by cast members in Hungarian too....all the cast reported enjoying the experience and we really hope similar things will continue in the future...
A very pleased volunteer team (me, Lia, Janneke, Jacquline, Helen)
Merry Xmas to you all Regards from Romania...
Dan

Romania Week 19 - If I was a Romanian Footballer...

2009-01-10T03:46:00.000-08:00

Hey everybody! I can not even begin to try and offer such bizarre events as last week’s pig's ear offering, or random man found in ditch, but I can offer you some more realistic everyday issues faced by the Romanian people at this time of year.... so here goes....

I'm writing this email from an internet cafe in Turges Mures...(nearest big town from where I live, but you should know this by now!), after I have just been Xmas shopping in a new shopping mall, and then treated myself to a McDonalds chicken sandwich meal. I'm not really living like a Romanian today... but hey! so to the 'subject' statement.. 'If I was a Romanian footballer'. Well in Mcdonalds they have a TV screen and it was showing a league 1 game.... but the conditions were so bad, as the pitch looked like a local tractor had mowed it 10 minutes before the game, and I could not tell which teams were playing in which colours (due to mud/snow covering the players) until the clean substitutes came on. I was also highly amused to see the players running across mounds of snow to retrieve the ball for a throw in... So if I were a Romanian footballer... I'd change jobs pronto!
To more homely matters.... Friday night saw the second snow fall of the year, and the first real heavy fall with at least six inches of snow covering everything!!! This inspired me to go to the market and buy a Xmas tree which I did, and carried it all the way home... in the snow.... I felt very proud of myself that I had fulfilled me role as man of the house and provided for the girls... (don't ever let them know I said this, they'd both take offence...) my only problem was that I didn’t buy a pot to put the tree in, so it has remained outside the house, but looked brilliant this morning covered in fresh snow... I also think there is a Xmas tree economy trade here, as at least three completely random people stopped me on my way home to ask me if how much the tree costs.... I mean I think some people wait to the last minute to reduce the cost of the tree... it just seemed odd to me why these strangers would stop me only to ask how much I paid for the tree... very random... like many other things here! I have now adapted pretty well to the cold, and for those of you that have experienced me suffer in cold climates (namely: Marina, Kev Stacey etc) I owe you all a big thank you taught me how to stay warm when outside!!!
At the hospital it’s been a tough week, mainly because I have been there without fellow volunteers, as Helen has remained very poorly (don't worry she's better now) and Karen has been away with her boyfriend driving around random places.... so I've been very fortunate to have the help of my fellow Dutch volunteers and our interpreter has been great too, to ensure we have not had to close the club... we have made our painted wall look like a Xmas scene by turning the scene form a grassy field ,to a snow covered grassy field, so patients have been able to paint Xmas trees, snowflakes and snow men.... it’s been a great week for creative work...

...and as many of you have asked about the patient nativity update here it is... the first proper rehearsals went well with patients singing the carols and walking through their roles and words... the women were especially good, the men however, have a tendency to forget the script, and begin improvising what they think should be said... whether it is related to the Xmas story or not.. So there's more work to be done there... also the women performers have begun to make demands of what the conditions of staging and costumes must be like, or else refusing to perform. We have not quite hit the level of demands of say Madonna or Britney Spears, and no one has yet asked for their own trailer, filled with champagne, but this is a twist I did not see coming... actors eh!!! (No offence Colin, Jen, Gemma, Hannah... etc...) you'd think we were on ‘Broadway’ or in the west end!

Socially it’s been a good few days, me and Helen joined Lia and Giani for some drinks Friday night, and yesterday whilst popping round to the neighbours I was invited to join them for dinner, oh it was so nice to have a full proper meal with others... we had French potatoes with liver and cabbage.... nice.... I assure you!!! The last night I was out for a beer with Becky's brother, who's wedding I went to, and his wife Judith, and another brother and sister, a nice way to end the day So a pleasant, if not busy week has passed and for those of you who are interested I got my date to come back home.. February 19th... but I'm trying not think about coming home just yet, as I have 8-9 weeks left here, and let’s hope they are as fun and eventful as the past 19 have been...
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 18 - Pig’s ears, men in ditches, nativity plays & flying coffee!

2009-01-10T03:42:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Well I am sure you will all join me in my sadness for Liverpool's unbeaten record going at Reading this past week... (expect the Man Utd fans I'm sure), let’s hope Saturday's game against Manchester united will make us all feel better (except for those same Man Utd fans!)

So on to more Romanian matters, as I have often stated, life here can catch you out at a moments notice, here I was having another relatively quiet week then came the weekend!!!
Pig's ears: Well Friday was just the beginning, on the way to work I noticed some activity in one of the neighbour's gardens... I could see several men standing over what I assumed was an attempt to grow the world's largest yellow vegetable. I persuaded Karen and Helen to join me in going to have a closer look... this big huge yellow thing was a dead pig. A huge dead (yellow pig!) and please remember both Helen and Karen are vegetarians... the pig was placed on some large wooden pallet, and looked to be being cooked form underneath (hence the yellow colour...) two of the neighbour's children were stood next to the pig eating its tail.... honestly!! The men invited us in to the garden to photograph their handy work... and looked pleased for the photo opportunity! after Karen and Helen began to think enough was enough, we began continued our journey to work... but as we were leaving one of the men came running over to us, and very proudly presented a smallish yellow triangle to me... he seemed very pleased with himself, and stood smiling at me gesturing to his mouth.....we stood looking at this yellow triangle, and quickly came to realise it was the pig's ear!!!! Oh my lord, the man was now watching me, insisting I eat it.... (I later was informed this is the greatest honour you can be given.. ) I must admit I was very close to shouting, "I'm a celebrity, get me out of here" (sorry TV joke for those of you who don't know the programme).. I slowly took a bite, and smiled widely to prevent any swallowing action... the man returned to his amateur butchery whilst I went round the corner and almost choked to death! I appreciated the honour, but it was not nice on the pallet...I spent the next 15 minutes walking to work, placing the ear on Helen's hat... to lighten the mood, much to Helen's protest, I gave the ear to a patient who was far more appreciative for this delicacy!

Nativity plays (the update)- we have selected the main cast of our Xmas production... and have decided to scrap the part of the shepherd's due to technical difficulties... one of the patients was disappointed in his appointed role of the 'star', and insisted on playing the role of Jesus, despite our protests that this would make a very difficult birth scene for Mary... still, a weekly rehearsal session is underway... of sorts!!!

Men in Ditches- after a very eventful day yesterday in Turges Mures with Sari & Judith (Hungarian neighbours of mine), which included visiting two shopping malls (very new thing here!), having white hot chocolate in a posh hotel, and going to the cinema, of which Judith and Sari had never been before (the things we take for granted eh!), we ventured home on the 1030pm bus.... Actually let me just mention the cinema, I let the girls choose the film as it was their first time and there were only two choices... they chose a foreign film... so I ended up watching what seemed like a great film, trying to read Romanian subtitles, whilst listening to the actors speaking French... quite the experience for me, but I did get the gist.... ha ha...So the way home... at about 1130pm we were walking home and saw a man in a ditch, it's pretty cold here at night and he seemed unconscious... but we decided we must try and wake him... he roused slightly, and was middle aged and had some blood coming from his nose... he was speaking rubbish, mixed with some English words and mostly Hungarian (lucky for me I had the girls with me).... he seemed really drunk but I could not smell any alcohol on him... we called the police who basically told us to take him to the hospital!!! yeah right......this is a typical response here... the guy couldn’t even walk... anyway, we called the police back, and they eventually turned up, but didn’t even go and look at the poor guy, who could have been dying for all they knew... next thing an ambulance arrives and they just pick him up and frog-march him to the ambulance.. (no patient care here!!!) Crazy stuff.... (below is some creative work the patients have done within the hospital club room)

...and finally flying coffee!!! I have had a tough day at work today, Karen is away with her boyfriend, Helen is sick so it was just me and my Dutch colleague today... with a particularly difficult group of four 1:1 patients this morning... one was new to the group, and oh my god, almost caused a riot... the new patient just caused an existing patient to begin screaming like a banshee and the two of them began grabbing each other aggressively.... after having to try and separate them, by physically man-handling them, one of them decided she would throw a cup of coffee randomly in protest, unfortunately for me.. I was standing in that particular random spot... and was covered from head to toe in coffee, (no harm done), I at least did manage to save our 'volunteer advent calendar' from taking most of the hit... some consolation at least!!!

So all in all, life has been very interesting here the last few days.... and I am looking forward to going home after this email, and having a nice beer... and hope that Helen doesn’t give me her D&V... (For those of you that know what this abbreviation means)
Regards from Romania!!!
Dan

Romania week 17 - National Romania Day & A Winter Wonderland!

2009-01-10T03:39:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody!
It's short and sweet this week....I really didn't know what I was going to write this week, until we had a major snow fall on Friday, and then the celebrations for the National Day of Romania yesterday, (December 1st). This week has been less than busy due to me being a little sick with Romanian 'flu', they only have one word for 'flu' / 'a cold' here, and it means flu (grippa) so I'm not exaggerating!!! I'm fine now though, so please no lemsips through the post!
So, Friday's snowfall led to great excitement from all three of us volunteers, (but perhaps not the patients, who can be cold enough in the hospital). At finishing work at 6pm, the usual total darkness was illuminated by several inches of wonderful thick, white snow... and after taking great delight in walking through the huge piles of shovelled snow on the pavements we got home. After calling several of my neighbours, to try and organise a mass snow ball fight, us three volunteers, our friend & neighbour Deli, and some of the foster kids from the orphanage engaged in a fun half hour game of 'let's throw all our snowballs at Dan!', I'm not quite sure how this came about, but hey it was fun! I think these kids had been practicing!!!!

Saturday (December 1st) was national Romania Day, and on Saturday morning I went with Deli, to the local supermarket car park...and not to do any shopping! (let me explain)... ...some of her brothers / sisters, Ben, Timi, Naomi & Ildiko were playing in a band, and were joined by a kids choir from a school. They performed a half hour concert, including the Romanian national anthem... to celebrate the day.

I subsequently learned that with a very mixed population of Hungarian & Romanian people, these events are not exactly widely celebrated... there were several large Romanian flags being sporadically hung outside houses in the town. After these supermarket festivities, and later that day, I again got involved with the fore-mentioned kid musicians, in 'Round 2' of snowball fighting... again i must admit defeat due to overwhelming numbers of opposition, but me and the kids Dad put up excellent resistance for a while!!! I must also report a further food parcel from one of the neighbours, of fantastic cakes and desserts, which have been devoured without delay! (Who needs chocolate advent calendars?!)

I have been enlisted in helping Sari (my neighbour) with her English Test preparations, which I'm glad to be helping out with, especially as her mom also sends food round to our house! hmm.. hmm... I love Romania!!!

Here this week on December 5th or 6th, they actually have socks full of presents for the children, as well as Christmas day... so I'm hoping to hang some socks on the front of our house to see if anyone will give us anything... I'll let you know how that goes!!!! Hope everyone is well.
Regards from Romania!
Dan

Romania Week 16 - Networking Romanian Style

2009-01-10T03:36:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,
I trust all is well with everybody, (apart from the humiliation of the English football, in failing to qualify for the European Championships... I assure you it was taken particularly hard in our house... I think the neighbours thought we were killing a pig early, from the amount of squealing coming from the living room, but never mind...

To more pleasant matters.... Monday of this week, I left my sister and her boyfriend to navigate their way from Turges Mures, to Cluj, (by train) ad I'm proud to say they managed no problem. I on the other hand got the 0515 maxi-taxi (mini bus) to Brasov, and I am pleased to say I got a seat, and was saved from three hours on a moving beer crate, as on the previous journey. The journey was pleasant enough, and as we came into Brasov, I was greeted with several inches of snow... I must recommend Brasov to anyone that comes to Transylvania... and you are guaranteed snow in winter!!!

I was met by Luiza, at the train station and taken to the community mental health project which I was due to be presenting at. I met the rest of the staff, and some clients, who also sat through my presentation... (it was translated in Romanian, though most of the people spoke some English). The presentation itself was on my experiences of Occupational Therapy in my career so far, and some additional discussion was held on 'narrative therapy'... (I won't go on any more about this, unless any of you really want me to???... no, I didn’t think so!) The day centre itself was well resourced and any different creative type activities were available to clients, along with professional contacts from psychologists, nursing students, unofficial Occupational Therapists, and social workers. It's a real fantastic set-up, with lots of social inclusion projects....in true customary style I was taken for lunch after the presentation, which was not only paid for, but some warm desserts were bought for me, and wrapped to take on my journey home...and oh was I thankful! The last train journey I took from Brasov took 8 hours to Turges Mures!!! (Just a 3 hour bus ride away!). I was fortunate to find a 1615 train that would get me to Medias (close to home) in just over three hours. I arrived at the train with just 5 minutes to spare to see almost all the seats were full, so I hopped up the standard 3 feet to the carriage platform, and sat for the first hour on a small radiator, by the carriage toilet!!! Nice! But the radiator was keeping my food warm. Now trains here are very interesting places to be... the doors to the carriage are big heavy slide door (not automatic!) and basically most of them are left open, even when the train is moving... due to the cold weather and snow, the doors were closed, but later when opened I kept expecting someone to fall out of the doors along the way.... after getting off the train I was fortunate to randomly see a bus that took me home after a 40 minute ride....

Other events this week have included the fateful England football game on Wednesday night, made worse by the fact Romania have qualified top of their group, and last night we had a kind of farewell drink for my friend who assures me that she is indeed leaving today, which was conducted in one of the few local bars, underground and full of smoke as everywhere is here!

At the hospital we have embarked on what I can only hope will be a Xmas event to be remembered for years to come. As in previous emails, we have talked about some of the patients past skills and jobs, including, music professors, championship chess players, opera singers....and the love of the people here to sing and dance, we decided to try and arrange a performance of the Xmas nativity story. of course this has no end of barriers, namely that to perform on the locked wards, with very ill people could be risky, and how we go about selecting which patients perform in this 'play' could be tough! And perhaps the biggest issue, as no male can go to the female ward & vice versa... how we get a man to play a female role, in what is a very homophobic society, is a challenge we must overcome... I think my fellow volunteers, who have cast me (in my absence I must add!) as the donkey which is going to carry Mary & Joseph, thought this may add a comedy element to the performance! I'll let you know how it goes! We are still trying to clarify if the story is much different here from that which we all now...we have also had the patients make a giant advent calendar, which has pictures of the past volunteers on, as we are unable to give out chocolate on mass!
That’s about it from me, as I'm glad to report have been having a much more relaxing few days, but there is a prospect of a game of football in 2 hours, which I have been waiting four months for, so hopefully, that will provide some fun to today!
Regards from Romania!
Dan

Romania Week 15 - An English Invasion

2009-01-10T03:34:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
well as the title suggests I feel like the number of English people around me has more than tripled, giving me a shock return to English culture and ideas... to explain...

Tuesday, two visitors from the charity's committee arrived to meet with the hospital director to discuss the future of the charity & hospital... Thursday, my sister and her boyfriend, and three of Karen's work colleagues arrived, to visit... so we have been busy to say the least....

The highlight of this particular week had to be Friday night, when 19 of us went out for dinner... us 3 volunteers...my guests, Karen's guests, our interpreter, her boyfriend, and his sister, four of our neighbours (Hungarian) and our two Dutch helpers with their husbands as well... it was a multicultural evening to say the least, and problematic for the restaurant as we only expected about 10 people really.... languages spoken included: English, Dutch, German, Hungarian & Romanian! Several of us ended up in the only real nightclub (Infinity) afterwards, which made for more interesting dancing experiences. I'll say no more to protect the people involved!!!

My week has been an interesting one mainly because i have been to another city (Cluj) the second largest city in Romania as I'm told... I went here to meet my sister and Gavin (her boyfriend)... it felt very strange being in a big city again, where the traffic was constantly busy, and there was not a single horse and cart in sight! I also missed hearing the chickens and pigs that I have become so used to! On the plus side, we did manage to find plenty of cool bars to drink in, even if we paid city prices.... (am I turning into a country boy??? agh! no offence Kev!)Cluj is an interesting place in terms of history, but as it requires yet another mammoth 3 hour bus journey there, I felt I was in more need of a rest, but did manage to wander around... the 3 hour return journey had my sister standing for two hour of it, but I did warn her to sit down quickly, advice she unwisely chose to ignore!!! No wonder they slept in until after midday the next day. Then again the double sized 'small' gins probably contributed to this too... (Mum & dad don’t worry!!!)We are currently here in Turges Mures having a relaxed day, after being in 3 different places in 3 days, and I have my presentation tomorrow, which again requires me sitting in a maxi-taxi for three hours starting at 0515.... Let’s hope I have more than a beer crate to sit on this time!I won't write much more this time because to be honest, the week has been like a mini holiday for me, so I have been trying to avoid the usual bizarreness of this place, and remember what my life used to be like!

Of course on one final note... thanks to Israel for beating Russia last night (football), and let’s hope England get at least the draw they need on Wednesday against Croatia... I feel a football party evening coming on ...
Regards from Transylvania!
Dan

Romania Week 14 - Social Activities in Romania

2009-01-10T03:30:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Well this week has been a very sociable one, hence the reason this email comes on a Monday, and not the usual Sunday... I just didn’t have time or the energy to write this yesterday...
There are many small events I could discuss this week, but due to a shortage of time this week, I must be less detailed than usual. My sister is due on Thursday, The charity chairperson is coming tomorrow, and I have agreed to do a presentation about my job and experiences as an Occupational Therapist in England & Romania, for a community mental health project I visited in Brasov...this hour long presentation is on Monday!!!!!! So much for a relaxing life here eh?

Monday - I went to a 28th Birthday party of Ana Maria. Ana is the sister of my interpreter's boyfriend, (hope that makes sense). It was a fun night with some interesting food, including fish, with onion and garlic... hmmm it was surprisingly ok!
Tuesday - I was again persuaded (actually that’s not quite a fair representation of the truth) I quite happily went out with Becky (my Hungarian neighbour, and good friend) and Karen (my co-volunteer) for the odd beverage and had fun discussing the rights and wrongs of life, love and relationships.... interestingly I had more differences of opinion with Karen, than with Becky on these subjects! (Then again, Karen is from Wigan!!! I'm just joking! I like Wigan, honestly!)

Wednesday - after having a quick emailing session I returned home fairly late, and went around to the house of Becky's cousin, (Debora) who I have obviously also met, to say goodbye, as she was jetting off to work in Norway (hello Deborah, if you are getting this email). I continue to be amazed at the ability and bravery of the people here who just will go abroad in search of a better life... I could easily tell you of several people I have met here, who have done just this....

Thursday - lots of emailing!!!!

Friday - more socialising & drinking with our friend and interpreter, Lia (and boyfriend Giani)...

Saturday - (hope you are sitting down, this is a long one!) I went to Turges Mures because I was going out clubbing with Becky and her friends from Turges Mures. My usual hotel was full, so I ended up staying at the Hotel Transylvania (that's really what it was called!) I tell you, I think it was built around the same time as Dracula, by looking at the decor... all I need say about this hotel is that they were very proud to tell me they had one 'modernised room' (I'm not making this up), of course this room was extra money.... I settled for a standard single room, which was small, but comfortable, and overlooked the main square, for just 95 lei...20 pounds. The bathroom was the best bit, not only did it have an old fashioned 'pull up' toilet flush, there were lines of tape across the sink, toilet and shower basin on the floor... if the tape had been yellow I swear it would have convinced me that it was in place to protect a crime scene!!!! That's what it looked like to me! That evening me and Becky ended up at the national theatre where an international 'alternative' film and book festival was on. We were waiting for Becky's friend to finish work there. Whilst waiting we heard a pretty good sounding jazz band, and I sneaked in to watch a Hungarian made film (I think) with English sub titles... it was called 'opium' and ironically was about a doctor with an opium addiction, going to work in an 1800's psychiatric hospital... what an irony! We eventually left for the club about 0145.... and left the club at about 0445.... on way form the club we were all engulfed in the first real snow of winter here,.... it was fantastic!!! we eventually ended up at some guys work place, (which seemed so surreal as it was some sort of dog shelter.... my life gets weirder here by the day!).. I eventually returned to my hotel after 0630.. and was up less than 4 hours later!!!
Sunday - Me Karen & Helen were treated to a tour of a real working Romanian farm, owned by one of our colleagues from the hospital... and with the previous night's snow covering the land in the hills like a blanket, the views were incredible... our colleague has horses, and about 6 dogs!!!! who accompanied us on our walk in the hills. A neighbour of hers had also prepared food for us, gorgeous soup... and her husband made me plenty of pork to eat, which I need to warm up after our winter walk! Despite knowing this woman for over 3 months now, we discovered that she was actually a famous TV news and radio personality in the North of Holland!!!
I think I'll leave it there as I can't put off preparing for this presentation any longer! Anyway, hope everyone is well, and keep in touch!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 13 - The Day of the Dead & a visit to the 'European capital of culture 07' Sibiu

2009-01-10T03:26:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
well we're having a dreary wet day here in Transylvania, and there is talk in the hills of the first snow coming in two weeks... But here in little Tarnaveni, we have had an eventful week, with the introduction of Halloween traditions to our neighbours, and the following day (November 1st) being the so called ' Day of the Dead'. Despite the horrific ideas that may be passing through your minds, this day is a day where people go to the graves of passed loved ones, and rather than just visit the grave, they actually spend significant amounts of time by the graveside, remembering their relatives. This is a very special day here, and people travel long distances to be with the family at the grave sites. Here in Tarnaveni, as in many of the villages around this area, the cemetery is on the hillside, and during the evening, which is the common time for people to visit the graves, the entire cemetery is lit up. Here most people appeared to be using red waxed candles, which gave the hillside a very visible red glow from the river path. I had been told of this event, but that evening walking along the river, seeing the cemetery lit up, and hearing that many families were there at the graves, some eating sandwiches and sitting together around the stones, gave the night a chilled feel. And as the mind plays tricks on us I thought that even the dogs seemed to be howling louder than usual. (This is not not specific to Romania, my researcher in Poland informs me this occurs there too.) I almost met my own demise that night as I passed over the railway bridge, one of the panels had fallen down into the river and in true style here there were no notices to say 'watch out'! I was fortunate enough to not have stepped into the now empty space, as a 20 metre drop awaited me... this is a common sight here, with road work season in full swing... many holes appear randomly all over the pavement, road, and paths, with no barriers or signs of warning. The idea here seems to be, if you fall down a hole, it’s your fault, which actually I prefer to the 'law suit of responsibility' that now seems to have infected every action we take in a day in the UK.

The second major event this week was yesterday's trip to the 2007 European Capital of Culture - Sibiu. Lying here in Transylvania we thought it was a must to visit, and so myself, and Karen (Helen's parents were visiting this weekend) got the 0645 bus, which did exist this week... it arrived over 40 minutes early... (Say nothing) but on arriving at Sibiu bus station we thought we would confirm (what the internet had told us to be) the one return bus that day at 1830. The woman was somewhat untypically unfriendly, and on the occasion she did left her head up to acknowledge us, she mumbled that there was no return bus that day to Tarnaveni (home). I thought here we go again! We decided instead to get a bus back to the nearby Turges Mures, which when we arrived back at the bus station later that day, we were told that bus did not exist either!!! So yet again, a 'day trip', even to the European capital of culture, led to transport chaos! We eventually got a train 3 hours later, to a place called Medias, where we could get a taxi home from!

Anyway, SIBIU: it's another beautiful little town, with a Germanic influence in its architecture, many different coloured buildings surround the town square, and with several old citadel towers to climb up, panoramic views are a plenty. The city had been the former Saxon capital of Transylvania, and had the tell tale ring of city walls, (helping to keep out the Turkish invaders 3 times in its history) throughout its centre. There were a few museums including the museum or developed homeopathy, with was really developed around these parts... Cafe's and bars are not over running the place, and it has a hefty student population.. there is a free rock concert in the square next week, headlined by the Scorpions! I'm half tempted to go back! Whilst Liverpool (next year’s capitol of culture) may have a problem living up to Sibiu's rich history, it will certainly have a bloody bus out of town!!!!
Other events this week, included a Halloween party (see above) for a few of the kids on the street, and myself, and Hungarian sister Becky, Judith & Shari, along with Peter (Hungarian friend) enjoyed FREE drinks at a local bar, because of Becky and peter's cross dressing costumes, and our scary masks!!! (Free drinks!) I have also been sampling a little too much of the local drink (Palinka)... but my head finally recovers a little with each passing day!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 12 - Public Toilets

2009-01-10T03:23:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
Well just one hour before coming here today, I was wondering what I was going to write.. we have had major frustration at the hospital, a day trip to Turges Mures for winter clothes shopping, and a hitch hiking experience.

So leaving them aside for just one minute, I want to talk about toilets! I know some of the more prudish readers may not want to read on, but this is part of everyday life here in Tarnaveni, and something I think you will find more amusing than distasteful. I know I have mentioned the lack of flushing toilets in our own home, but this adds to our hope of all hopes that each time we go out, we can find a working toilet to use, thus preventing the need to use our own temperamental, weak flushing, no toilet-paper allowed, monstrosity! To this end, I must mention the toilet I used at a cafe/bar just around the corner from where I am sitting at this moment.I mention it because each time we now go somewhere new, there is inevitably an ensuing conversation about the cleanliness, lighting, paper type, and flushing ability of the aforementioned appliance! Today's 'visit' consisted of walking out of the back of the cafe/ bar, weaving through a yard (which was so filled with crates of bottles, rubbish, and stones of varying sizes, it was more like negotiating the old krypton factor assault course, sorry for the English reference to my non English readers). Whilst walking through this yard, two older town residents were clearly looking through the 'yards contents' though there seemed to be no way out of the yard and I had not seen them come through the bar... when I finally reached a separate small building I was faced with a small space containing two sinks and some paper towels. Two further doors stood directly in front of me (one for women, one for men, thank god for conventionality!) the men's area had two urinals, and a door leading to a standard toilet, whilst the women's area was just one cubicle (with a working light). I unfortunately needed the cubicle, which in the men's area had a light, that was not working, and no light switch insight anyway! I'm pleased to report the paper, the flush and cleanliness in this case were sufficient, if not the lighting! I just got to thinking that the idea that Romania will have to comply with such laws as the disability discrimination act's section on public access is just not even plausible!
To other events.... whilst I must be careful of confidentiality, I must talk of our frustration this week in relation to the hospital... we have basically been pressured into having patients come down to the 'club' every two weeks, rather than weekly, in order to reduce the number of patients in each session, the thinking behind this idea, is to reduce the risk of patients absconding (running away) whilst in our care... the irony is, we have better staffing ratios than the hospital staff, and patients have escaped more from the ward and not once from our attention.. I must state this is my personal opinion here, both to defend the staff and charity, I believe the problem here is two-fold.. firstly, the system here aims to keep as many people happy within a controlled environment, and therefore the weakest people are not heard and their needs ignored... this is driven from the politics of the country, and relates to lack of resources and funding.. which is in turn driven from the ever increasing need for Romanian government institutions to be seen to conform with more developed European rules, and standards of living/ care... the second problem is a result of the first... patient care is not delivered her with the needs of the individual in the centre, in fact the needs of the individual actually come second to the needs of the institution / society.... which some of you may recognise as being a left over affect of such a communist rule... these issues will invariably take so much time to work out, but Romania, like many other states is rushing (and being pulled) into developing a more European standard, before it is even close to being ready to deliver these changes... testing times are ahead...
To my final tale of the week, on Tuesday evening my good Hungarian friend Rebeka invited me for drinks with her friend before she was due to leave for Switzerland the following day.. problem was, she was in Turges Mures, (1 hour away by bus) I could not get the 1830 bus as I didn’t finish work until 1800, she suggested I hitch-hiked... well it was the night of the Steau vs Seville (football) match, so I headed off to the town outskirts, where several dozens of cars passed me by without so much as a glance... I then saw one of the infamous maxi-taxi's which had stopped just 200 yards away... I ran like 'Forrest Gump to a box o' chocolates' but just as I reached the damn thing, it pulled away!!! But hey despite knowing I had to leave Turges Mures on the 2230 bus to get back, and it was now 1915, I thought I'd give it another go... a little van pulled over just 10 minutes later, with three cherpy looking older guys in, they offered me and a female hitcher a lift, and chatted away for the entire trip... not to me though, as they quickly realised I could not understand some of their banter... anyway, the guy even refused my offer of money of which I made him take eventually, and I walked off happy in the knowledge that a beer and two pretty Hungarian women were waiting for my arrival!!! (ha ha) the upshot is I’d definitely hitch again here, as it is common practice and so much better than the overcrowded bus!!!!

So with just one week away from my official half way point, I'm happy to report (dodgy toilets aside) life continues to surprise me every day, here in Romania.
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 11 - Local Hospitality & English Rugby

2009-01-10T03:19:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody....
well yeah despite last night's loss to South Africa in the rugby world cup final, I am pleased to say the night itself was a great one as we turned our street into a rugby carnival for the neighbours... more to come on this...

I have been touched this week by further incidences of friendly neighbours and local people, who are willing to be hospitable within minutes of meeting me, or offer me things irrespective of how poor or busy they are at the times I have been talking with them, let me explain...

I'll start with Sunday night, after leaving the internet cafe I met a friend of mine Ana Maria (sister of our interpreter's brother) for a d rink in the main bar 'Infinity'. Her good friend Angela joined us shortly after I arrived, and after a swift couple of beers and some superficial chat, not only had I learned several things about her, ( some of which I could happily live without knowing) she invited us to her flat around the corner to watch TV, and chat some more... to make me feel at home, she had walked, on what was a freezing night, to a shop to buy some 'suc' (juice) as she had no drink in the house... just a small gesture, but appreciated none the less...

Tuesday:- whilst on way home from work, I stopped to speak to three of the kids on the street, as I often do, I was talking about the upcoming rugby final, and asking them to invite their parents to our rugby party on the coming Saturday... whilst talking, a guy about 28 or so pulled up in a van, and was going to enter the house I was stood outside, he introduced himself and had excellent English... he was from a charity that visited this house, as it was one of only 2 houses in Tarnaveni, which housed kids that were previously in orphanages... it was a bit of a revelation as I hadn’t thought about the number of kids I had seen in the house before. The foster 'mum' then came out of the house and introduced herself, I invited her to our party, but she explained she was busy on Saturday... however, she insisted on me coming inside the house there and then, to look around, and showed me the kids rooms, lots of photographs of past and present kids, and then insisted I sit with the kids whilst the guy from the charity showed them a film on his laptop... offering me crisps and juice...

Wednesday:- after watching a very disappointing England vs Russia football match, there was a knock on my door, and there stood four of the Hungarian sisters, asking me to join them for drinks for one of their birthdays. How could I possibly refuse such an invitation.... but again just being invited for drinks for a birthday of someone I didn't know so well was great...

Saturday:- well this is where the week ended with a great night, ( despite the result...) we decided to have the rugby party and invite neighbours, so with the help of the patients, who happily painted English flags all week.... we put the flags up around the house, and I made two signs (one in English, one in Romanian) saying 'rugby world cup, Saturday, live at the English house"!!! See attached pictures. Actually yesterday afternoon, I tied the Romanian sign around my neck, and knocked on a few doors in the street inviting the neighbours in broken English/Romanian to come to our house... I only got ushered out of one house, because they were a bit unsure why this guy had a big sign round his neck and was speaking in some weird language.... however, most of the neighbours found this highly entertaining, and some even turned up!!!! We had beer, juice and usual party food, and had guests from 12 years to 55+ including some people we knew and some we just met last night.... it was really interesting talking to everyone that came, as we had all ages and both Hungarian and Romanian nationalities and it was nice to kind of give a bit of hospitality back to our lovely neighbours... even if they think I am slightly mad now..... still, I have seen some neighbours today and they offered their condolences for England's defeat... (most of them don’t even like rugby!!!)

Anyway, I'll say goodbye for now, and hope to hear from you all soon.
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 10 - Romanian Public Transport at it's finest!

2009-01-10T03:16:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody...
again I must mention last night’s rugby, as now England are in the final, we are considering having a world cup final party at our house and inviting our neighbours to experience a truly British experience,... just a shame you can't get good fish and chips around here!!! I'll keep you posted!

I think I'll be really lucky if I can top last week's report on the Hungarian Wedding, and so this week's tale returns to more everyday matters in Romania...You may remember our torturous trip to Brasov which included and 8 hour train journey home (for a 3 hour bus ride) and the outward journey where I sat on a beer crate on the floor of a mini-bus for 3 hours!

This weekend we (me, Karen, Helen and her two friends Lou, & Lizzy) visited SIGHISOARA. Sighisoara is famous for being the birthplace of 'Vlad the Impailer' who the Dracula 'legend' is reputed to be based upon. My knowledge of Vlad is limited but he basically got the name after being kidnapped as a child and held prisoner in Turkey, where during years of violent fighting he picked up such behaviours as displaying the heads of his enemies, by impaling them on sticks outside his castle... he returned to Transylvania and continued these practices. There is no direct link of him to Dracula (which makes sense as the Dracula legend was made up anyway!), just legend of such horrifying behaviours... hence the link....

Anyway, enough of a history lesson and please feel free to correct any of that story that might be a little incorrect. So this weekend.... we got up at some crazy time in the morning to get the only bus at 0730. But as we arrived at the bus station that we were told was the 'old' bus station, a local man was saying that the bus was not coming today, in fact the bus was not coming for two weeks!!!! There was no notice to say this, or say why! We have learned that tourism is not a concept that is thought about, so whereas the locals know, non-locals get to know nothing!!! But wait, there was nurse from the hospital nearby, who told us we could get a train... (Oh no!!) In 30 minutess which would take us some of the way, then we could pick up a different bus.... so after getting on perhaps the slowest train ever in my life... (I think three local horse and carts passed us twice!!!) We got off the train as directed, in the middle of nowhere... there was no sign indicating a bus stop, so we stopped in a lay-by where people seemed to be hitch-hiking... or selling vast amounts of onions... this is true, there were almost 9 huge onion stalls within 200 yards... bizarre! After close to an hour, we began thinking about hitching (mum / dad don’t worry.. its common practice here).... we were saved by the now infamous maxi-taxi which took us to or destination.

Sighisoara itself is a small town, with most attractions based within its citadel walls, on the hillside. It was busy and of course has far too many 'Dracula' tourist sites, but we did find plenty places of interest, and the great thing is everything is within easy walking distance. The 'hidden' wooden staircase is perhaps the most impressive feature, along with great views for the tower in the citadel.

My return journey was slightly better, but did include an hour wait for the maxi-taxi, which again crammed 20= people onto a 16-seater minibus, and with no queuing system in operation, anywhere in Romania, you need to be its survival of the fittest... fortunately I was no going to let the last minute arrivals deny me my ride home, so with elbows sharpened and at the ready I fought my way to near the front of the queue... be warned though, old ladies with bags of onions will do whatever it takes to push past!!!

At the hospital it’s been a quiet week... I think the more comfortable I become with the language, the better I can distinguish between, rambling irrational talk of patients, and genuine bursts of real emotions, which has meant that I have begun to feel more empathy for people's situations. We also took one guy who is deaf and dumb, in the car of my Dutch colleague, just in the hospital grounds. He was so excited since he began to cry at this tiny drive around. This was really emotional for us all to see, and to add some context to this story, I must explain that he is affectionally known as 'Mutu' (as in mute...) because he is deaf and dumb, and was orphaned form being born. He spent all his life in an orphanage, before being moved to the psychiatric hospital, purely because there is nowhere else to go. Everything that we take for granted is alien to him. He only knows his world.. is has been argued that maybe ignorance is bliss in this case? He has been taken on a few day trips in the past, but these are not currently allowed.

Other weekly highlights have included, more drinks with at the Hungarian family home Monday evening, and going to another neighbour's barbeque (Wednesday), which was great for me, but not good for vegetarian colleagues... having said that, we all had a good night and met more neighbours... so the networking continues!!!

Bye for now! (or ‘pah’! as they say here!)
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 9 - A Hungarian Wedding

2009-01-10T03:12:00.000-08:00

Hello all, I'm sure you are equally excited after England beat Australia in the rugby world cup, I only just found out this result!!! Fantastic!

Anyway, thank you all for some really positive comments about last week’s email, which I hope painted a more realistic picture of life in a Psychiatric hospital. This week's email can be about nothing else than yesterday's Hungarian wedding that I was lucky enough to attend...

...without boring you all with the details, I will just say this, I met the groom (who's family live in our street) just less than six days before the wedding, but with the truly warm and open nature of people here, I was duly invited to the wedding, and treated like one of the family.. read on......

Actually I will give a quick bit of background... I met Sari, (16) who is one of the parents 11 (yeah 11! ) children whilst taking to some kids on the street about a month ago... (See picture of the family above) I then met one of Sari's sisters, (Rebekah 22) two weeks ago, at the internet cafe. After meeting a third sister (Judith,19) with the fore mentioned sisters for a beer, they arranged for me to meet their brother (the groom), last Sunday eve, so I met him (Szilard, 21) and his bride to be (Judith), who is Austrian, for a beer. He then invited me to the wedding, but asked me to be the photographer!!!.... This is absolutely true, and whilst I think I do take a nice picture, I am no expert photographer, which I pointed out in vain. He stated that as his sister had seen some of my pictures, and thought they looked nice, because I saw things differently, he thought it would be good if I would take pictures of things I found interesting... so I agreed. Why not eh? I then met mum and dad, and brother of the bride on Tuesday after being invited to go to their house and watch the champions league football... I ended up being sat with their dad in the couch watching Steau vs Arsneal... very surreal!!! Wednesday night, I ended up going for drinks with all brothers and sisters I have just mentioned, plus yet another older brother (Daniel)......

So the wedding.... I will try and surmise best I can here... it was set in a countryside restaurant about 3ks from this village... after tying balloons on the cars I got a lift with the groom, and 3 sisters in the lead car of the procession which beeped its horn (as is tradition here) all the way to the wedding.... the bride being Austrian meant that the wedding was translated into a second language, unfortunately for me that language was German... however, my understanding of German is poor, but far better than my Hungarian!!!! the service was short, and felt informal, without being church based, and this led to people being sat randomly on two sides of a large room... it was so informal in fact, that as the service started I found myself sat between the bride’s parents, so I quickly excused myself to sit next to yet another sister (Andrea) who I had not yet met... after the translated service, guests congratulated the couple, and champagne was passed around... (I must add here that all guests were present for the entire day... including 3-4 courses of food, and free drinks all day!!!!) I led the photograph taking... though many people had their own camera's, picture the scene... trying to organise 50+ Hungarian / German speaking people (in broken English) to move closer, or put their arms in certain positions... it must have looked bloody hysterical, and I'm sure some the guests wondered just who the hell I was...then there was the food... 1st course-, folded meat including salami, with stuffed tomatoes, peppers, cheese, and salad. 2nd course-, a noodle based soup with carrot. 3rd course - main meat dish with leg of chicken, beef, potatoes, vegetables. 4th course, cake!!!! But the best was yet to come... at about 23:00 there was a FULL ROASTED PIG, being cooked in full view of all guests, which was served outside with bits of bread and mustard!!!! It was truly amazing!!!!! (sorry to the vegetarians amongst you).Then after the fourth course (pre pig roasting) the dancing commenced with the famous Hungarian poet, who just happens to be the grooms uncle... dancing to ‘Chardish’ (Hungarian folk music) by throwing his arms around, in what looks liked hysteria, but turned out to be the style of dancing... people spun each other round randomly, in no specific musical rhythm, either in pairs of big circular groups... I loved it!!! For all you salsa groovers out there, you'll be glad to know I threw in some sleek salsa moves for effect!!! my personal theory for such extravagant dancing, I think was just to make room for the pig roast that was to come!!!! only joking! also in between dances there were some party games... honestly... first they sent the groom out of the room, and had the bride answer several personal or funny questions about him, he then had to come in the room, and answer the same questions.... then second game was much more surreal... both the bride and groom were given a wooden spoon (symbolising the women) and a slipper,(symbolising the man) I'm not making this up... the couple then were blindfolded and sat back to back. Questions were then asked about who does what / or who decides what in the relationship... each of the couple had to answer by raising the corresponding item, representing either the man or women, and of course the funny part, is they cannot see each other and then usually answer differently... it was really funny!!!

I think I'll stop there because to be honest, I don’t remember too much after that, possibly due to the large amount of alcohol I consumed, or that my head is still recovering from the violent shaking it took, during the mass dancing session....I hope some of you will get chance to see pictures of this, as I am hopefully going to be able to download some of my camera's memory card this week...This has been one of my best experiences here so far, not just for the wedding day, but for the warmth and friendliness shown to me, by the entire family during this week. Even the grandmother sat talking to me for a good half hour, it was in Hungarian, she could have been telling me to bugger off for all I know, but whatever she said, it sounded friendly and she was smiling!!!
Have a good week!!!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 8

2009-01-10T03:09:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody,
well I'm really happy to report that nothing spectacular happened this week... not near death, public transport experiences, no confusing language mix up's... just a good old run of the mill week...so we can finally chat about the hospital, which is after all, the purpose of my stay here!
Don't get me wrong, I have not exactly been house bound, but have stayed here in the village that is Tarnaveni. I've even been out socially with some different people including neighbours, and it’s been great to get back to relaxing. I did have a mini shopping spree of 35 pounds, which is almost equivalent to a person’s monthly wage here, but I did buy trainers, two tops, and some jeans, all in local shops... that’s my justification anyway. I have met another family on my street who are Hungarian and who have 10 children, yeah 10!!! I almost got an invite to the wedding of one of the children this weekend, which would have been good... I have been out for drinks with one of the family who is a nurse and has worked abroad, and again have discussed the whole idea of people's ideas of life outside Romania. She told me of the difficulties that here in Transylvania, there are three nationalities, Hungarians, Romanians and the Roma (gypsy) people... and that no one really feels like this land is their own, with all three nationalities facing prejudices from the others... She thinks that life in Romania (at least in Transylvania) is limiting, because of these issues.

We have also spent some time this week with a local Roma girl (Alex) who is 21 and has a 5 year old son, who loves to go to the local river and try catching fish with a little stick... she has been telling us her dream (which is something I have heard from several of the other young people, mostly girls) that they want to go to 'the west' and meet someone (a man) that will look after them, so they have the material possessions that people see as a sign of quality life here. It’s interesting because the more time I spend here, the more I perceive that people here are, ironically, more free than we perceive ourselves to be... by this I mean there is no great social pressure to be well dressed, to have a car, to have a nice house, or treasure anything of great material value. Here people look after each other, neighbours just stand in the street talking to passers by, and people just share what they have with each other. For the youth, the ideas of the west are becoming more prominent and the difference between the generations is growing fast... yes, the fact this is a small town plays its part. Some young people just want to escape to a bigger place, but there is definitely a belief that 'the west' has opportunities that are not available here, and that all people from the west are rich, they seem very sceptical when we tell them there is great poverty in parts of the UK... and the idea that people can be homeless is a concept that many find unbelievable.

The hospital is also interesting at the moment, the reason I say this is because we are having some real difficulties accepting, 'what seems like', a lack of human rights, afforded to the patients. The patients like to write letters whilst visiting the club room, but become angry and frustrated when we won’t give them an envelope with their letter (as is the rule)... the hospital has a rule that no letter can be sent without it being checked for 'offensive material' or 'improper accusations' so you can imagine how few letters ever get sent... but us volunteers in the club, face the frustrations of the patients over this issue, and of course we feel strongly that the patients should be able to send letters, make phone calls etc.. but this does not always happen... imagine, you have put in this hospital, possibly by your family, and no one comes to see you. You can not contact anyone, and you can not do anything without the permission of the people that are keeping you locked up. Also remember that some people are here not because they have mental health problems.. and are living with 200 other people, sometimes fighting for food, cigs, or clothes... and the idea soon dawns on you that if you have no family, or your family doesn’t come for you, there is no way out of this place... there is no social security or welfare state... many patients talk of losing their homes, and possessions, stating that family members have conspired to have them kept here, so they could sell the patient's house. Some patients have been / are qualified teachers in language or art, we have a former chess champion, so many people with skills that could be used to rehabilitate themselves, but no infrastructure or resources to allow this to happen. Please don't think this is the hospital staff's fault, because it is not... the government have not provided, or have not had the funds to provide for these necessary services...

The charity I met last weekend in Brasov, had been funded by a mental health trust in Northern Ireland, and now by a Dutch organisation.... unfortunately, Romania is many years away from moving people on, but hopefully with them joining the European Union, they will begin to be supported in these endeavours...
Sorry for the sombre tone of this email, but I felt it appropriate to share some of the more difficult, but no less important issues we face here...
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 7 - Road to Hell

2009-01-10T03:05:00.000-08:00

As you can tell, I have just had one of the most bizarre public transport experiences of my life, this past weekend. Me Helen and Karen set off on Friday after work, back to Turges Mures (with the cheap lovely hotel with interesting pictures of women on the wall...) this was all fine.. just an hour bus ride. We then spent the evening going to a festival of youth, which was situated at the citadel / fort, on the top of the hill, where they had music and food stalls and beer! A great night was had by all, and an ageing rock band "Cargo" played whilst the kids swished their hair about, like a women on a shampoo advert. I have pictures that I'll send at a later date of this... it was fantastic! We then retired early to the hotel as we had a 0915 bus to Brasov...

The reason I was going to Brasov, apart from it being the most beautiful place I've seen for a long time, was to meet with two other organisations that I have been in touch with. One organisation works in community mental health, and the second one works with the Roma (gypsy) people......

The next morning after a great night of sleep we headed to get the maxi-taxi (minibus!!!) to Brasov, but it was full, and they wouldn’t let three of us on, and the next bus wasn't for 2 hours. They did however say one of us could go on the bus, but I wondered how as there was not a single free seat! We decided that I should go because I was due to be meeting my first contact in 3 hours. The driver pulled out 2 smelly, empty beer crates, and placed them on the floor of the bus, gesturing for me, and another young passenger to sit on, and my crate made me face the rest of the passengers... I couldn't believe it, this was to be a 3 hour journey through some mountain terrain... but things soon became much worse... 5 minutes into the journey, the driver pulled over at some lights and negotiated to take another passenger... so I was sat on a crate, on a mini bus floor, facing the rest of the passengers, with the latest passengers armpit just resting on my head... could it get any worse I thought? YES was the answer! Because as we crept up the twisting mountain roads the bloody crate I was sat on, kept sliding sideways, so I was trying to read my book, whilst sliding around on an empty beer crate, in a minibus!

I survived this journey (only just) at the cost of having the imprint of the local beer "cuic' imprinted on my backside the rest of the weekend! I met my first contact Luiza, who ran a community day centre for people with schizophrenia... it was amazing what they have achieved without any financial support from the government, and I'm hoping to go visit them during a working week... Luiza then turned into our personal tour guide, when the girls arrived. not only finding us accommodation in a near sold out hotel market... but then taking us on a walking tour of the city... and wow, what a city it is! People you must come here!!! It’s like a Swiss alpine village...

After the tour and a pizzeria meal, we returned to our nice little apartment in the city centre (200 lei for all 3 people = less than 50 pounds. and ended up having an early night cos we were knackered. The next day I explored the most amazing panoramic views from the old town towers whilst the girls went shopping... I'm not commenting on that!! I then arranged to meet my second contact Dan, who took me and Helen to the project he is working on - building a community centre for the Roma families in the area... it’s amazing and I would urge anyone who really wants to give anything to check it out at www.fastcharity.ro. He then took us to one of the gypsy villages to deliver a cement mixer, and we say both a newly built 'house' and the existing shacks that a 7 child family is living in a space of 5 by 5 metres... as we walked in a rat shot across the floor, and remember this is where the children sleep too... it was truly humbling, and I didn’t take any pictures of these condition as I felt it would be disrespectful to do so...

Dan then took us back to the train station to get our mini bus home.. but guess what?? it was full again, and this time not a beer crate in sight... so we thought sod it.. we'll get the notorious train... why not for just 23 lei... (roughly 5 pounds) for the equivalent of a 3 hour bus ride.... what a great idea, see the country side... and how long could it possibly take???

The train left at 1615 so we chilled out before getting excited about boarding the train... once on the rain we noticed a miss-print on the ticket, it said it arrived in Turges Mures at 0005... so when the ticket inspector arrived we pointed this out, but he just gently smiled and said no. the train journey was 8 BLOODY HOURS.... I couldn’t believe it... where else in the world could a 3 hour bus ride turn in to an 8 hour train journey???? So we sat there for 8 HOURS! But wait.. 8 hours later the train jerked to a halt and the girls suddenly started telling me to move as we had arrived in Turges Mures.. I informed them we had another ten minutes to go, but they were insistent we rush off the train... so no word of a lie, we tried to get off the train, Karen led the way and as Helen was try to get down the steps the train started moving!!! Karen shouted this at me, and I thought bloody hell.. I know the trains moving!!! So I jumped from the MOVING train with my bag... as it rolled out of the station... and guess what... it was the wrong bloody station!!! I thought this can not be happening to me today! Anyway, we ended up getting a very expensive taxi back home I was glad to be back to my 'normality' of Tarnaveni!
Sorry this was so long, but imagine my 8 hours of train travel yesterday!!! Happy travelling!!!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 6 - Back in Turges Mures

2009-01-10T03:01:00.000-08:00

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

Romania Week 5 - The New Volunteer

2009-01-10T02:57:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody...so the weather continues to disappoint, and in the eastern part of Romania, after weeks of drought, there are now serious floods, destroying villages... this land really is full of contradictions at times. Here in Tarnaveni, the biggest news is that we are cold and wet.... but I am hopeful more trips to the outdoor swimming pool are not far off... Karen the new volunteer has settled in fantastically, and we have had many memorable moments, both good and bad, seeing Karen's initial shock and concerns and looks of horror at the hospital conditions, which we must have had on our faces during the first week. Our daily schedule has changed slightly as Karen gets up first without fail, which acts as a good alarm clock for me... she has a similar background to myself and has just been working in a community mental health team in Warrington, so shares some of my despair at the lack of any concept of community care here.

The hospital remains lively, and I could tell you more disgusting things I have done for patients this week, like cut and clean this blind,, Hungarian man's seriously overgrown fingernails, with serious growths beneath them.... I was very nearly sick there and then... the patients continue to love to sing folk songs and dance to random music, (mainly Abba) but I am slowly introducing the idea of salsa, but most patients get dizzy too quickly...I think we have all realized that for the patients, having just one hour in their week, where they can choose what they want to do, and they can sit without fear of competing with each other for food / drink, or for the women who can be made to feel like females, rather than patients, it’s a real benefit, even if we feel like we could be doing more to help with the mental health condition itself, or trying to help them move onwards. But as you only go home if someone is willing to take you, the system seems so unfair and encapsulating!...but I want to focus more on the town again this week. I promise I will get to writing more about the hospital soon...By the way, they showed the England game last night, which was a bonus, unfortunately we didn’t realise it was on until we had watched most of Romania's game against Belarus... never mind!

So Friday night, Helen's boyfriend came for the weekend, and she went off to meet him at the airport, so me and Karen decided we would stay out for a beer with the interpreter, and then go to the disco... this is the first disco we visited called ‘Infinity’, which is ironically how long it feels like you have been in there after just 5 minutes. We got a drink costing about 3 quid for a gin, lemonade and over a pint of beer... then sat watching several different types of 'dancing'... the music varied from light dance to the following tunes (all of which saw me and Karen spring from our seats to relive past era's...: road to hell (Chris Rea), ‘rhythm is a dancer’, ‘come a chameleon’, ‘girls just wanna have fun’, ‘dirty dancing’,.. all serious classic tunes... hmm... but believe it or not, we were not the oddest sight on the dance floor during this time, several young couples appeared to be moving, in a style I can only describe as 'jiving' which seemed bizarre to say the least...
...other highlights this week included:1) being told off for the second time by a serious baton waving security guard for not using a shopping trolley to but one item in a supermarket... it seems this is not negotiable no matter how many time you say ' I only want shaving cream'!2) going to our Dutch neighbours house (or should I say palace) and seeing the type of luxury I forgot existed, like flushing toilets, warm rooms, and a big TV! the point of the visit was to see all the amazing work her and her husband have done with the Roma (gypsy) people, building a village for them to live, its completely mind blowing when you see these people making their own bricks from mud, just to build a rough house, after floods washed away their old houses...3) the shop I go to most week days for lunch, the women now get me my two slices of ham, without me even asking for it, when I go to get lunch during the week.... and as people don’t queue here whatsoever, when the queue is big, they take me by the arm to the spare until and let me pay... it’s so friendly...So life continues to offer new experiences, here, but I think I need to get out of Tarnaveni a bit more because it’s feeling smaller and smaller each week...Anyone wanting to call me from UK can call the following numbers 0871 801 4840 (7p a minute) or 08444 300 181 (3p a minute), listen to the voice prompts then call my house number: 0040 265 442 969 or if you are outside UK, get a phone card, and call my house number as above.

P.S.. Liz, thanks so much for the postcard, it was great to receive it...
hope everyone is well!
Regards from Romania
Dan

Romania Week 4

2009-01-10T02:55:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, here is your weekly report from the land of the vampire..... (Still no sightings yet)!

Well today has been very hot, and I have managed to retrieve my holiday tan without burning like fire... which is a pretty good achievement for me, the added bonus is the ensuing thunderstorms that almost always follow the hot weather.... the house shakes with the thunder, the lightening can be seen stretching down to the floor, and lights the entire sky... it really is like a scene in a horror film. This weather is also accompanied by howling dogs and huge flocks of crows circling the sky, very eerie, but great to watch!

Lots to say this week, so I'll get on with it... sat in front of me on another computer is Karen (the new volunteer) who arrived late Friday night, she'll be with us for the duration, and we've already been out drinking last night! She's a good laugh and today we went on a walk to the surrounding hills, where we managed to go down a private road, walk past the 'tip' and then get chased by three dogs because we were trespassing on their land....at one point I was glad to have had the Rabies shots!!! But don't worry we managed to escape unharmed! ha ha

Also last night we met our interpreter (Lia) for some drinks and food (the most delicious pork I have ever had for just 7 lei = 1.70) and after the two girls went to bed, I sneaked off to the other disco, after getting an invite from a neighbour called Monica who I have been begging to let us know when they go to the disco. I got there about 00.00 and stayed until almost 5am...... remember I said the first disco was a cross between grease the musical and a barn dance, with no dress code.... well this was completely different... a beer was less than 50p, but I swear the age range varied from 14-maybe 24, I met some very nice friendly people, guys and girls, but also met some quite deranged young Romanians, who would shout "English" in my ear at random intervals, whilst dancing to 'manele' which is almost Turkish belly dancing music. It was interesting to say the least... I felt very very old, and was convinced I was going to be arrested for dancing with such young girls... it was very very busy and is more cheesy than the other place, so I'll probably go back. I met some guys there who said they would call me today and take me to play football with them, but thankfully that didn't happen because I was in no state for it today!
At the 'Spital' (Hospital) the club has been tough this week, partly because we have increased the number of patients coming because there was a demand for it, and also because there have only been two of us this week to run the club.... going on the wards remains difficult when you see patients tied to the benches with bed sheets, of other patients with hefty black eyes after fights (including old grannies), but despite this sounding bad, you have to remember that there is one staff member for 80+ patients, some with dementia, some with psychosis, some not ill at all. Basically you can't leave the psychiatric ward if family don't take you... so if you don't have family to 'look after you' that’s pretty much it...I have noticed some differences though, there is almost no self-harm behaviour, only a rare suicide attempt, and depression doesn't seem very common, many of the patients actually work around the hospital or help clean the ward, which is great as it gives them something productive to do.Many patients in club ask us for clothes, sweets etc and it’s really hard to say no, especially as some past volunteers did give things out, but not to everybody, and so we have incorporated a rule of, one for everybody, or none at all... it seems to be the fairest way! I'm sure I'll remember other things that I wanted to say but I think that’s enough for now.a quick message for Leah... sorry we beat you 6-0....and to the united fans.... maybe next year eh? Ha ha. I have to gloat whilst I can....thanks for reading, until next week
Dan

Romania Week 3

2009-01-10T02:51:00.000-08:00

Ok, so after going on about the wonderful weather I must admit to walking here to the internet cafe in the rain, but it’s just part of the thunderstorm we get here after such hot weather... I'm sure it’s just a blip... as I want to further my tan... and just a quick note for my work colleagues, on Wednesday I used my very long lunch break to go swimming in the local outdoor swimming pool in 30+... if only the NHS would offer the same perks eh???

Back to real Romania, the big adventure this week was going to the nearest 'city' 'Turges Mures' which you could get a bus to on a Saturday at either 0430, 0630, or 1200 midday, can you make sense of such a daft timetable??? Anyway, it was a small old bus and it must have been 35+ on the bus... an hour seemed like a day, we finally arrived there about 1pm to find that most tourist places shut at 2pm, so we just baked in the sunshine apart from going to the cultural building, which hosted a famous 434 piped organ, a theatre, and a famous hall of mirrors.... the theatre was closed for repairs, as was the organ, and the hall of mirrors turned out to be a long room, with two mirrors, one at either end, and a host of stained glass windows, that supposedly told a story, but I could not bring myself to fork out for the explanatory tape, as everything was bloody closed! After 'treating' ourselves to a McDonald's..... I know I know, but it was well earned, we walked around the Citadel building, and then came back on the early 1730 bus, but seeing as the next bus was not until 2230, it wasn’t really much of a choice... ah well, I hope a trip to Brasov will prove more fruitful!

Back in Tarnaveni, we are getting excited as the new volunteer arrives on Friday, and that will make work a the hospital easier having another body around, I am also glad as it means there will be another women to help the female patients with the beauty sessions, because despite my best efforts, I have discovered that painting nails, and applying hair removal cream are surprisingly not skills that I am going to add to my CV.... I don’t know why women do these things to themselves... ah! No more embarrassing stories to tell, other than after emailing you all last weekend I realised that I had left my money at home, and the bank nearby wouldn’t let me withdraw money.. oops and try translating that in Romanian!!! ha ha.

I have met a few more locals, including more kids in the neighbourhood, who like speaking English, they have offered for me to play football with them because I miss it at home... surprisingly I passed going to the disco last night, as I can't find anything INAPPROPRIATE enough to wear!!!

All in all we feel very settled and coped with being by ourselves this week at the hospital, even when the priest came to conduct orthodox mass with the patients, full of chanting, it’s certainly different.....Helen (my fellow volunteer received some postcards) so those of you brave enough to try sending anything, my address is;
Strada Pleveni 6A
Tarnaveni
Jud. Murges
545 600
Romania

Hope all is well back home....
Dan

Romania Week 2

2009-01-10T02:50:00.001-08:00

Hello everybody, well here I am over two weeks into Romanian life and I have to admit I like it...in future emails I will probably talk more about the hospital, but right now I want to paint a picture for you about how I am living here... so here goes... I can be sat out in the back yard, I can hear next door's two pigs waiting for feeding time, other neighbours all have hens wandering around, and just the other day one of the neighbours had just killed a rooster to eat for tea that night.... only the main roads are properly laid, and so most have large pot holes. Many people have the same type of car, a sign of the old communist regime here, which only ended in '99.The food is bland often coming with sauces or mustard to add flavour... however is it nice food here... lots of pork, eggs and breads... things are very cheap here with beers less than a pound, and they are larger than a pint... shots come in small size of 50ml... yeah that’s a large for us... and life is very relaxed as you can't find a reason to rush around... many things close at 2 on a Saturday and are closed on Sundays...the homeless people here are called gypsy and are despised by locals, they search through bins and we have found one man in our garden trying to take the vegetables, it’s hard to see the locals appear so mean, but it has root causes as a result of the change of regimes here. Many people have lost their homes and jobs since the so called 'liberation' as they had everything provided to them by the former communist regime, it’s easy to see why so many people are in the hospital really, because the way of life they knew, changed overnight.

There is a very nice new built outdoor swimming pool, which we went to yesterday, but I won’t be going back any time soon after embarrassing myself by walking into a glass window which I thought was an open door, in front of quite a few of the locals.... my head left a mark on the glass... it was a definite you've been framed moment... we also saw the only disco in the town itself last night, which was filled with (well about 50 people) mid-late 20 yr olds... and the words dress code clearly has no meaning here, I couldn’t decide if it was like the end dancing scene form the movie 'grease' or something a bit more like the first barn dancing lesson you have a to school...I'll stop there because I really could go on much longer....
hope all is well in the UK....
Dan

Romania Week 1

2009-01-10T02:48:00.000-08:00

Hello everybody, well here goes my first email report from Transylvania, excuse the spelling as the keys don't all work on the keyboard....well me and my fellow volunteer (Helen) arrived Friday night, to be greeted by William, who told us he was leaving us in three hours and we would be alone until the next volunteer arrived in a month, we were somewhat shocked but were told the interpreter (Lia) and another helper (Jackie) would be with us for the 1st week, and thank god they were. The town in called Tarnaveni, and is a very small 'town' in central Romania. It does however have good beer and lots of football on the TV... so I'm happy enough.

The hospital where we work Monday to Friday 1000-1800, is an old building, with rotting stone (but some new PVC windows), the patients we work with have very little other than the clothes on their back, but are some of the most warm and welcoming people I've met... apart from feeling quite tall for once in my life, (as most people are small) the biggest shock has come from seeing the hundreds of patients in such a small place... some have been there for years, after the orphanages, and some do come and go, depending on family wanting to take them.

I have been bitten lot at night, but not by any vampires, but from mosquitoes who have no mercy, though things are improving!!! The weather is hot but we have been having rain and some amazing thunderstorms which light up the sky. The local kids like talking to us in the street which is great and we are trying to learn Romanian quickly to help us converse more, but many people speak Hungarian too...

The work we do is based around activity in a 'club' room which allows up to 10 patients a time to come to the room, and do something fun, but many women simply enjoy having nails painted and lipstick, but also singing folk songs and dancing, the men like to read or play chess / back gammon, they also love a coffee and cigarette... we also see some patients on the ward who can’t get to club do to being immobile, the conditions which the staff here have to work in are bad but they do an amazing job sometimes having to look after 80 patients to one staff member, but obviously it means some things just can't be done, so people have to fight to be heard... or simply give in... it’s difficult to accept, but we must think about what we can do, rather than what we would like to do.

I'm going to leave it there for now, as some of you will have skipped bits already and I want to see if it will send! I'm hoping Liverpool beat Aston Villa today!!!! So fingers crossed! Please be patient if you send individual messages as I can’t reply quickly, and it costs money!!!!
Regards from Vietnam
Dan