Return to Romania

Buna Ziwa,

As you may have guessed I'm back in Romania, the land of brown bears and Dracula stories. Unfortunately it's also still the land filled with desperation for many gypsy communities. Despite having seen the hidden hills before the poverty still strikes the same. In some ways I hope it doesn't ever become 'normal' or 'acceptable.' So there is definitely still an awful lot to do so despite being here almost a week...I'm only now finding the time to update you all.

Last Tuesday night I took a bus form Edinburgh to Luton arriving early in the morning. Arrived into Targu Mures lunchtime on Wednesday with Nicola and Stephen. We were collected at the airport and Natalie didn't know that Nicola was coming so there was a great reunion to be had for Uniteam!

On route home we stopped by Seleus to leave off supplies for the men working. Within a few moments it felt like I had never been away. Dirty children clambered over me with their matted hair and snot covered faces. They laughed and played among the dirt with a rope and a stick pretending to be horses and carts. It was brilliant to see them again! A brief visit but definitely worth it.

Thursday was warm and sunny all day so we set up our clothes sorting shop in the yard and began to prepare for another clothing program at Easter. This involves taking bags of clothes from the store sent out in the container and organising them into gender and age groups. A huge thank you to those who have already sorted them before sending as it hugely cut down the time it took us to gather the right numbers of clothes.

Lunchtime feeding program in Seleus. It really struck me how shocking it is that children in a European country should queue up to receive their only meal that day. At home, we open the fridge and make a decision about what we would like to have, Here, fridges aren't a consideration and there is very rarely a choice to be made.

Gary and I headed up round the hill to call the children down. We came across many kids like the ones below whose parents were away working social (for the mayor for benefits) and they were just looking after themselves.

After the feeding program two children with burns had their wounds dressed.

The men here have been working on the ministry centre trying to have the electricity up and running. They have also been building the house on site so that the first family can move in. Permission has been given from the mayor to build houses for the gypsy families living in mud huts in their original location. So the plan is to move a family into the house beside the ministry centre whilst their new house is being built.

One morning the guys were on site Natalie and I set off up the hill to do the wound dressings for the children and a woman who cut her hand on glass. It was a trek across the mud to get there but the biggest challenge was avoiding the dogs, thankfully the children protected us as locals.

So much else going on, will try to find time to get more stories to you soon :)