Okay, so I still haven’t finished writing
about my month in Romania… but I’ve had a long day and spend look at my photos
approximately 10 100 times a day so I thought I’d share them with you
(whilst giving me another excuse to look again).
Some of my boys from first camp - Levi, Lala and Marius
The boys in their football kit
Levi suits my glasses :-)
The kids queing up for food at the BBQ - over 150 turned up!
All the volunteers and a few kids at the BBQ
At the zoo with the cutest kids
All the kids and volunteers at the zoo
Enjoying being one of the kids :-)
Painting at one of the playschemes we ran
Round the back of the village where some of the poorest kids live
Me and my favouritist Joska
One of the games the kids play - would not pass health & safety in the UK!
Bela and Dudu traditional Roma dancing (they both had bruises on their legs after this)
Dudu, Pepi and Bela in their hats
Me and Dudu colouring in his folder
Amazing dance off
Chicken with cornflakes (yes, that's right)
Last meal with the volunteers and helpers from the village :-(
Camp 1 boys balloon game
The volunteers turn at the balloon game :-)
Possibly my favourite pic - all 74 kids plus volunteers
The contrast of the back of the village and town
For more information on the work of the charity Aid for Romanian Children (ARC) visit their website.
So you made it
back for part 2…. congratulations! :-)
After the first
group of volunteers left, me and my friend Alice had a week off before the next
group of volunteers arrived. We moved from the hostel we were staying in, to
Katie & Jeno’s house in the village. This was this first time I’d stayed in
the village, as we usually stay in a hostel in town where there is enough room
for all the volunteers. It was quite surreal staying there after going so many
times for justfew hours at a time.
We decided to
teach the older boys who have been helping the English volunteers run the camps
for several years now. When we first met the boys they were 14/15 and now they
are between 15-18.It’s been
really strange seeing them grow up and change every time we see them (one of
the lads is now married and living with his wife!). Being a teenager in the
village is difficult, there is very little for them to do and without support from their parents there is nobody to drill in the importance of
getting an education to them. Three of the boys have now dropped out of school
and have very limited options available to them. In the four days we had spare
me and Alice took them out of the village for a couple of days to teach them a
little bit of English.
For our first
English lesson we took the four lads, Lapi, Vergin, Gyozo and Feri to a beer
garden and played pool to break the ice as we wanted it to be relaxed. We tried
getting them to only speak English but that didn’t work very well whilst
playing pool! So decided to go back to ‘proper’ teaching and gave them all a
pad of paper and pens. It was great to see them writing and really taking care.
Gyozo ripped up his piece of paper about 5 times as it wasn’t neat enough for
him!
The walk back to
the village was the highlight of the day. The lads had got confidence in
speaking English at this point. Everything we passed we pointed at and told
them the word in English and practised what we'd taught them already - sit down, stand
up etc. It was amusing them suddenly stopping or sitting when we said something!
What was even better was Gyozo shouting ‘What’s the problem’ across the street
at a stranger. Luckily not many people speak English in Tirgu Mures (or don’t let on that they do anyway!).
The next few
days of teaching them went well. I tried out my skills as a TEFL teacher and
made little cards and got them to match them up to make sentences. It was going
well until a gust of wind blew them all off the table! Despite trying our best
to get them speaking in English it was conversations about girls, drinking or
smoking that got them all talking – typical lads! It was great to see them
taking in an interest in learning and even though we might not have taught them
as much as we’d like, it’s more than they knew before and got them more
confident in speaking English. Lapi and Vergin the older two lads, knew a bit
of English but would never speak it so that was progress in itself! Vergin was
even reading his notes on the walk down into town one day, which was really
nice to see, as he'd been one of the quieter ones on the first day and we
weren't sure if he'd return for day 2!
For our last
lesson we took them to see Batman in English with Romanian subtitles. I don’t
think they had ever been to the cinema before. It’s little things like that,
which we take for granted in the UK but it’s a real treat to them. Felt like
such a mum buying them popcorn and drinks. We asked them if they enjoyed it and
Gyozo looked really annoyed, he said he didn’t like it because Batman died so
when we told him he didn’t he decided he did like it after all!
Vergin, Lapi, Feri, Alice and Gyozo at the cinema :-)
Me and Alice
booked a couple of days in Budapest. After we booked it we realized there was a
big festival, the Sziget festival on at the same time so we decided to go to
that while we were there. I got a really cheap deal on a 5 star hotel, which
was actually cheaper than most hostels so we couldn’t pass up on the
opportunity! We enjoyed the 5 star luxury and all the touristy things around
Budapest before heading to the festival. If you’re ever in Budapest Sziget festival is a must.
Good bands, cheap beer, great location and a lack of festival idiots – what’s
not to like?!
That's me and Alice with our Hungarian (not Italian) festival hats
On a bar suspending in the air on a crane (sorry Alice!)
After a
horrendous plane journey back (see cheap beer reference and above pictures), we returned to the
village for a day to relax before the second group of volunteers arrived. The second summer camp is the one I usually come for. The same kids go on the camp until they get too old and I've looked after the same boys for three years now. As soon as I saw them in the village they told me who else was going to be in our cabin this year!
Well, this has turned out to be quite long so I'll stop now! I'll post the final part of what should really be a book soon...
Long time no
blog! I’ve just returned from an amazing month in Romania. Well, I say just
it’s been over two weeks now but I’ve spent all the time since I’ve been back
looking at my pictures, listening to the songs and just generally getting
emotional. So, I’ve finally got round to writing about my time without bursting
into tears (not so far anyway!). Before I start
rambling, I’ll give you a little background into what I do in Romania (if I
haven’t already bored you!). I started going to Romania in 2009 when I found
out about the project through Leeds met university. The charity Aid for Romanian Children (ARC) work with
kids in a poor Roma gypsy village in Transylvania. These kids live in
horrendous conditions and have very difficult lives. ARC run two summer camps
with the help of Leeds Met volunteers every year which take between 60-75 kids
out of the village to have a week of fun and just generally allow them to be
kids again. Without wanting to use a cliche (I'm going to anyway) volunteering in Romania has changed my life and the work that the charity do to help these kids in need is fantastic. I usually just
go to Romania for two weeks, but decided to go for a month this time and go on
both the summer camps. I flew out on my own to meet the volunteers who were
already in Romania. Flying alone on a Wizz air flight is a scary enough
experience in itself! As soon as I got to the hostel to meet the volunteers it
was straight into helping with the preparation for the first camp, then after
attempting to catch up on some sleep we had a early start to pack the bus and
go pick up the kids to start the journey to camp (all 68 of them!).The first day of
camp is always a bit mad with the kids running round excitably! Each of the
volunteers is given a room of kids to look after for the week. I got a room of
8 boys, who are some of the poorest boys in the village. One of them, Peti, who
I had in my first year has a really tough live and sniffs glue :-( Seeing them being happy and enjoying what
all kids should on camp couldn’t make me happier.
6 of my boys with their photoframes before we put photos of them in :-)
This was my
fourth camp with the same routine and you'd think you'd get a bit bored with
it, but I don't at all. I still love watching the kids say grace before they
even touch their food, seeing how much they love their new clothes and seeing
them sharing their sweets with you! The week on camp
was made up of craft activities, group games, a sports day and lots of playing
football. I’ve been learning Hungarian (the kids speak Hungarian not Romanian!)
for a while now. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t understand or was able
to speak that much in my first few days. One of the only sentences I picked up on
was when playing football and one of the kids said to his friend that I played
like a boy. To be fair it’s true, compared to most girls I probably do play
like a bloke haha.
Some of the boys in their football kit – Marius, Levi, Lala, Petu and
Peti :-)
On the last
night of camp we have a disco with the kids. No matter how many times I see the
kids dancing it will always amaze me. The kids learn traditional Roma dancing
from a very early age and it’s impressive to say the least. The disco is always
a fantastic night where the kids have a great time, but it also means it’s the
last night we put our kids to bed for the last time as we had back to the
village the next day. At least for me this time, I knew I’d be doing another
camp. The following
day we left camp early and the volunteers said goodbye to the kids until the
next day when we returned to give the kids their photos! Even though I wasn’t
leaving the village, it was still quite emotional seeing all the other
volunteers getting upset and the thought of me actually leaving after a full
month wasn’t exciting me! Well that was my
first week in Romania, I’ll be posting about the rest of my trip soon! I’m sure
the anticipation will kill you! In the mean time I'll leave you with some of my favourite photos from my first week:
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