Daily life at the "Secret Garden"

Every day the street children and young people and occasionally a not so young person come to the "Secret Garden" (or as Kenneth now refers to our Drop in centre "SG 1"). In addition to having showers and washing their clothes in the machine (there's always a queue for both) they play "Remi" (a traditional Romanian game with tiles which is similar to Rumikub) and card games or colour in. Most of these young people didn't have much of a childhood so its nice to see them enjoying themselves with such simple pleasures, though it's also sad to think about how deprived they have been. We have a real mix of homeless people coming, from babies and small children who come with their parents to the older 'street kids' like Bin Ladin (obviously not his real name ... though there used to be a street boy in Arad whose real name was Bosnia!) Bin ladin is a lovely boy, or rather I should say young man. He spent part of his life in one of the old State run orphanages and then ended up on the streets. He is quite a character but when he's not high on solvent he's really quite lovable! he has had a lot of contact over the years with various churches, including our own "Metanoia" church in Arad and can sing hymns and songs and Christmas carols in both Romanian and English.

One thing which visitors to the "Secret Garden" are all agreed on is that those who have the misfortune to live on the streets, no matter how rough some of them may look, when you get to know them they are actually pretty decent people with a great capacity for generosity and kindness.

In the winter months the street kids and other homeless sleep near the huge hot pipes which carry the city's hot water. Many of them used to actually live underground in tunnels (often incorrectly referred to as sewers) through which the hot pipes ran but most of these have now been sealed off. Several of the young people showed me their legs damaged from contact with the pipes, some have quite severe damage to their skin and maybe their circulation (I don't know I'm not a medic). Many of them also have terrible scars from burns which they have received over the years of sleping on or near the pipes.