"Daddy Day Care"?

Kenny had a week off university after his end of semester exams. He came to the Secret Garden daily and was very popular with the children. He helped entertain the wee ones while their mums had a cup of coffee in peace. The older street kids enjoyed having him around too - some of them have know him since we first came here when he was only 12 and call him their brother.

During the days we have a variety of younger children who come, some with their mums. One mother of a nine year old boy came to see me and ask if she could pay us to teach her son the basics of reading and writing. As with many of the Roma children, he doesn't attend school but his mum has realised that it would be an advantage for her son to be educated. Eventually we hope to be able to teach children the basics with the scope of helping them to then integrate in mainstream schools. We have talked with the education department and they are very supportive. Of course, as with everything else, this depends on us having staff and funding.

One minute we laugh, the next we cry!

Although the renovations still are not completely finished we decided to open for a few hours each day. Our 'quiet' activity room is out of action because it's still full of all the donations we had to move from the new dining room.

We have had quite a few volunteers over the past few weeks, which has been great. some girls came from a local church a couple of days and did a programme with groups of children - the children loved it and keep trying to sing the songs. One lady from a local church, Lidia is brilliant with the young ones and as soon as they see her they come running to me to ask if they can play the 'hanky' game with auntie Lidia!

For the past couple of weeks we have been blessed with MaryBeth from Edinburgh ... she has helped us burn (sorry, cook) the pastries, burn (I meant cook of course) meals and learn to dress and dance like a Romany! We have had a lot of laughs over the past couple of weeks, I hope MaryBeth has too!!!

As always though, all our happy days are mingled with sadness, working with homeless or semi-homeless people we are constantly reminded of the hopelessness of their lives. The wee girl pictured here sleeps at the homeless shelter with her mum and dad, look at her, she's absolutely gorgeous.

There is another family who come every day, a mum with her three children who has run away from her violent husband. For security reasons I can't picture them though I wish I could, because her children are so very cute and it's so absolutely awful that they have no home. We have been trying every possibility we can think of to try and find them a place. The maternal centre says they could take her if she had an Arad ID - but she doesn't. Our last hope is a charity just outside Arad called Networks which has a mother and baby home, we are meeting with the head of the charity tomorrow to let him meet the family and have a chat.

Wee Denisa pictured below, lives with her 17 year old mum and her dad and his family in a tiny apartment. She's a darling baby, so loveable and cuddly and very much loved by her parents even though they are very poor. Her mum, Tilo has been coming every day since we first opened the doors but recently has started helping us and is keen to be a 'proper volunteer'.

pastries and more pastries!

Recently we have had several large donations of pastries in various flavours. We cook them at home -it takes ages but heats the kitchen up so that's nice in this cold weather, then we take them to the day centre where they are very gratefully received.

Up until now we have provided a basic meal every day of soup which we received from Blythswood Trust, Scotland along with sandwiches and tea and coffee.

Our 'clients' all appreciate
whatever they get, but it has been really great to offer them a treat of bolognese, plum, pizza or pumpkin pastries. Of course all of us at the crazy casa have been enjoying them too ... though I must say, I'm not sure I want to see pumpkin pastries again!

Christmas Eve with the "streetkids"

Life was so frantic over Christmas and New year that there just wasn't the time to get photos downloaded and organised to put onto the blog.

After rushing around like headless chickens all morning we finally arrived at the Secret Garden to organise the food for the party. I use the word "we" in it's widest sense ... I didn't make it until about 15 minutes from kick off! I was at the Metro buying all the last minute things we'd forgotten to get the day before.

Before the invasion of the street kids the place looked lovely - newly painted, curtains all freshly washed and pretty tablecloths on all the wee tables. Of course the effect was somewhat spoiled when our guests arrived but the looks on their faces were worth more than pretty tables to us.

From the youngest present, baby Denisa, three months old (pictured with uncle Kenneth) to the oldest, everyone had a great time. Three homeless men turned up who are not amongst our normal "clientele" ... but how could we turn them away?

We had a fantastic team of helpers from several local churches and are indebted to them for helping the day to go ahead. We were so busy, tired and stressed that without their help this years Christmas celebration might have been a total flop. I told them all that as I thanked them for coming and helping to make it all possible.

The whole Cloke family was present, the street boys were especially delighted to see Kenny as they don't see much of him these days. The long term street boys have known him since we first came here and always talk about how they've watched Kenny and Amy grow up. Kenny had to pose with several of them as they all wanted a photo with him ... he's pictured here with Bodo, one of the boys who has lived many years on the streets.

There was plenty of food for all, one lady from our church, "Metanoia" in Arad brought a huge pot of traditional chicken soup withhome made noodles which went down very well as it was a good few degrees below zero outside. After the soup there was an array of sandwiches, salads, smoked sausage and other tasty treats. For dessert we had a selection of cakes and biscuits and fresh fruit.

Once everyone had eaten their fill (literally) we had a great time singing carols led by our "choir master" Calman (aka Bin Ladin) pictured here conducting the singing. Calman grew up in one of the former "orphanages" and when he left, ended up on the streets and has been there ever since. He's quite a character, very lovable and always ready to sing or even preach a wee sermon given half a chance! When he's high on solvent he can be a bit of a handful and on the occasions when he arrives high we try to sit him down in a corner until he comes down a little or let him into the shower first to "sober up".
The carol singing went on for a good while, I think our visitors enjoyed listening. We had hoped that we would be joined again this year by some children from the Oaza charity's children's home in another district of Arad but sadly they didn't make it. Also a group of children from the largest Roma area of the city were supposed to be coming along but Ramona who works with them told me afterwards that she couldn't get transport organised. it's a shame because had we known, one of us would have shuttled them in the minibus. Oh well, such is life, there'll be a next time!

As a special treat we put some music on and had some dancing. some of our young people are great dancers and really enjoy themselves. A few of the boys had fun trying some hip hop dancing ... hilarious, couldn't manage to capture it on camera!
... and finally, christmas shoe boxes. Thanks again to Blythswood Trust Scotland who kindly sent us 1000 shoe boxes this year, less than last year but we are happy to know that they sent more boxes to India this year and having lived and worked in India we are delighted to know that needy young people there will receive the boxes.

All in all it was a good albeit very tiring day. Our helpers had all left during the afternoon as christmas eve is the most important family meal of the Christmas period and they had to get home to prepare for it. After the last young person had collected their shoe box and goodie bag we started to tidy up. After doing a quick clean up we finally left at 1900 and headed to my mum's to pick her up.

When we arrived back in the village we went round to our wonderful friends Nelu and Mariana to join them for their Christmas eve meal. As always Mariana had prepared the most amazing spread and although exhausted we had a lovely evening. Amy, either incredibly bravely or just stupidly, offered to take Rosanna, Yasmina and Irina's wee girl Daniela our carol singing! considering that it was several degrees below zero and snowing we were amazed some three hours later when Amy and the girls turned up at Nelu and Mariana's to carol sing for us having trailed all around the village. If I find the photos I'll try to remember to post some of Amy and her wee band of travelling carollers ...

Kenny's 21st and a few bits and pieces!

I can't believe it - Kenny will be 21 tomorrow. I'm finding it hard to take it in, can it really be that long since I had him? Am I really that old? Here in Romania a person becomes a "major"at 18 and all things become legal at the same time so young people usually have a big party for their "majorat". Partly because we were so busy and partly out of ignorance (we didn't realise that all Kenny's friends would be having big parties) Kenny didn't really have anything special. He would like to have a party for his 21st but at the moment nothing is planned and I'm not sure how we will manage it ... so we'll have to wait and see.

Also can't believe it's almost a month since I updated ... time sure does fly when you're having fun! The weeks leading up to Christmas were so busy that Christmas week was upon us before we realised it. We had builders in right up until the 23rd, but that was good because the electricians came on the last day and it meant we had light in the newly renovated rooms.

On the 23rd we invited all the street people to come for showers and clothes. We had a few helpers that day and as each one merged from the shower they were handed a full set of clothes, starting with underwear.

As we have done for the past couple of years, on Christmas eve we had a celebration at the Secret Garden - 42 came and we had about 10 helpers so it was a busy day. We had plenty of food for all and one lady from our church even brought a huge pot of chicken soup which was especially nice as there was snow outside and the temperature was minus 7 or 8.

When Kenneth gets time to download the photos off the camera I will post photos so you can see everyone having a good time. A couple of people called us on Skype on Christmas eve and we were able to show them the street folks live enjoying themselves (much more entertaining than Big Brother!) More about Christmas eve in the next couple of days hopefully.

Many of you will be aware that the UK pound has been steadily falling in value for some time now, what you probably won't have thought about is how this affects people like ourselves working overseas as volunteers supported from the UK and trying to run charities. Over the past two years we have had an increase in the funding which both we and the charity receive but this increase has been cancelled out several times over by the decrease in value of the pound. Three or four years ago the pound was worth 6.3 new Romanian Lei, today it is worth less than 4.2 ... I'm not good at Maths but even I can see that's a big drop by any standards.

100kg of pastries ...

How exciting can our lives get? At the close of play today we received a phone call to offer us 100kg of uncooked pastries, but the catch was we had to collect them right away. There are two flavours - bolognese and plum with pumpkin seeds on the outside. Unfortunately some had defrosted and needed cooked imediately, so guess what we've been doing all evening ... and guess what we had for dinner? The ones we had to cook will go out tomorrow to one of Arad's poor communities, the rest will wait a while in our freezer.

I talked to Kenny on the phone, He's all right though he must still be in some pain. Somehow yesterday I didn't catch the fact that he had two broken knuckles as well as bruises all over.

shoe boxes (photo from a previous year)

We had 5 visitors from Fife in Scotland today, they have a charity and work with young people who grew up in an huge "orphanage" north of Arad. Kevin, one of their number was at Bible college with us and played the piano at our wedding, so we go back a long way! They are interested in our work, particularly the day centre, and of course there is some overlap between their work and ours as some of the young people from the "orphanage" have also spent time on the streets or in very poor conditions in Arad.

During the afternoon I had a text message from Kenny in Timisoara to say that he and a friend were beaten up last night and taken to hospital - fortunately he is only badly bruised, nothing broken. His friend's glasses were smashed, so we told Kenny to tell his friend we'll get him some new ones. This news coming right after Amy's being in hospital for an operation on Monday came as a bit of a shock as you can imagine, but it could have been much worse.

As we were preparing to say our goodbyes at around 18.00 I had a phone call from the driver of the truck with the shoe boxes to say they were waiting at the gate of our house! What a shock that was - we had no idea at all they would be arriving today and in fact did not want them delivered here as we have no space for them! However, as we learned long ago, it doesn't seem to matter what we want, what will be will be as they say!!!

We have only a third of the boxes we had last year as Blythswood Trust have sent many to India - for this we are delighted as we left part of our hearts in India when we worked there 20 years ago. We received a lot less than we had originally been told so will have to be extra careful to make sure they go to the most needy families.

At present the boxes are all sitting in our courtyard waiting until we can take them to the day centre. I Hope it doesn't rain, although it's so cold that if anything falls it will be snow!

Secret Garden renovation photos

I had to be at home today because Amy just got out of hospital after having her tonsils out yesterday (under local anaesthetic ... ouch!) so at least I had time to check emails and to update my blog. I thought it was about time I showed you some of the photos of the renovation work or you might think I'm imagining it all ... Our initial phase of renovation involved the room next to the street and the one beside it. We decided to renovate two activity rooms and put in the bathrooms and put in new mains drainage and central heating throughout the building so that the centre would at least be useable. The plan worked and for the last year we have used just the two rooms, with an improvised "kitchen" area in the first which we used for making instant soup and sandwiches as well as teas and coffees.

This second phase of renovation is to transform the remaining two rooms on the ground floor to make a kitchen and dining room and also a staff toilet and small changing room for the cook (when we have one) Future work will be to renovate the basement and convert it into a medical room for basic health care, vaccination programmes and first aid, and to turn the old solarium into an office - the only factor determining when this will take place is money!

Firstly the builders knocked down several walls, blocked off dorrways and made new ones - there were several small storage rooms and what we think was a room used for smoking meat tucked in behind the two rooms. We needed a vegetable preparation area and a storage cupboard as well as the toilet and changing room so walls were demolished (of course leaving all support walls and pillars!) and rebuilt in different places.

In the dining room we are trying to preserve the original parchet flooring as we did in the first of the activity rooms (we lost the other due to putting in the new drainage), once the work is done we will have it professionally sanded down and varnished. The health regulations stipulate that the kitchen and bathrooms all have to be tiled, so in those areas and the hall areas they builders laid a new concrete floor which will provide the solid base for tiles.

All the walls have now been plastered and doors put into place. Kenneth chose simple wooden doors with a window to let as much light pass from one area to another and keep an open feel to the place. The photo on the left is of the dining room - the indented part is where there used to be a large walk in cupboard. The room seems so much larger now and will make a very pleasant dining room. We don't as yet know how many people we are allowed into the centre at one time - the health inspection authority will check the place over when it's finished and then calculate based on cubic metres of air space per person ... sounds very complicated to me, but there you go!

Vali's funeral

We are just back from Vali's funeral. Only Kenneth, Philip and I were able to go - Johanna is in Scotland visiting a close friend who is ill, Kenny is in Timisoara, as he has classes on a Satuday and amy is staying at Granny's. We first went to the market to buy a wreath, and then on to the cemetary. It was raining heavily and few of the street folks had turned up for the service. We wondered about that and were quite surprised - usually they are very united when something happens to one of their number. The service was held outside at the cemetery, under cover from the rain but without protection against the cold. After the service we walked in procession to the graveside where we witnessed what had to be the quickest burial of all time. I think the combination of the continual rain and the fact that it was a street boy speeded things up.

Just at the very end as the men were hastily shovelling the soil back over the grave, a whole troop of street folks turned up. It was awful. We felt so sorry for them that they had missed the funeral. If the actual burial had been the normal 20 minutes to half an hour they would have caught at least that. They all spent a few minutes at the graveside saying their goodbyes before leaving. They were all asking us when the day centre will re-open and telling us how desperately they need showers and a warm place to come in the cold weather. Vali's death will hit them hard, reminding them of their own vulnerability and of the shortness of life.

Death of a street boy

A phone call from another of the young men from the streets confirmed yesterday evening's call, Vali was found dead by one of the street boys with whom he lived. As yet we have no further details but we have offered to help with funeral expenses. Vali leaves behind a young child with his former girlfriend and somewhere, his natural family, though whether they have been contacted yet or not we don't know. We loved Vali, a very gentle young man and to see his young life wasted like this is heart-breaking.

winter is here

Winter brings with it hardships for everyone, most of all the poor and homeless. Every year as winter approaches we find ourselves worrying for those who have no proper homes. The poor and the homeless are most vulnerable in winter as their inadequate housing and poor sanitation make them more open to all kinds of infections.
We had hoped that we would be able to help a couple of people to repair their roofs before winter set in but as yet we have done nothing for them. This poor man lives here with his family, including a couple of children and every time I am in the area he just looks wistfully at me without saying anything.
Likewise the old lady who lives in this tumbledown wee hovel could do with a few roof repairs fairly urgently. Again, we would love to be able to help her but finances are so tight that so far we haven't been able to do anything for her.

stop press ...

Having just arrived home and started cooking dinner Kate dropped a heavy jar on her foot, Johanna said the bruising and swelling indicated a possible break .. then just at that point one of the young men from the streets phoned to say that one of the street boys, Vali has been found dead. We are now heading off to the hospital - to the casualty for Kate's foot and to the morgue to try and find out more about Vali.

Wolverhampton and Liverpool team ... photos at last!

Back in September we had a team made up of folks from two churches in Perton in Wolverhampton and some lovely Liverpool lads! They came to help us turn the courtyard into a play area for ball games and other activities. They levelled out the concrete, dug lots of deep holes, shovelled huge quantities of rocks and soil and in places put down new concrete.

The team slept at the day centre, a first for us (and probably last) because it was literally just before Johanna's wedding and we were trying to get rooms cleared at the house for the wedding guests. Just before the team arrived we had a large donation which was completely filling one of the guest bedrooms (and still is ...)
Although it was such hard work I think the team enjoyed themselves and had a lot of laughs along the way! The "Liverpool lads" are a lively bunch from one of the large inner city housing estates and kept us all well entertained as they worked.

At the same time as the team were here we had a friend from West Glasgow New Church, our home church in Glasgow (obviously!). Linda represents us at church and passes on all our news so she wanted to come out and see first hand what we're up to. She stayed with us at the house and was a great help, willing to do anything and good company for us too.
I don't think the team quite expected it to be as much heavy work but they struggled bravely on and when they left we had a level play area and two rockeries, complete with plants. Now when you enter the courtyard from the street the first impression is lovely, instead of the uneven concrete with holes just waiting to trip you up, your eyes are drawn to the beautiful rockery!

pause for thought ...

On the way home yesterday I called at the cash and carry to pick up something for dinner. Amy was off school sick with an extremely bad case of tonsilitis and also has severe earache - she's been off all week and isn't at all well, poor soul, Kenneth went from the day centre up to Johanna and Philip's house to put up a ceiling and I thought I'd do something easy for dinner. I bought a cooked chicken, a large bag of frozen vegetables and 4 litres of milk. The bill came to £13 ... !

Flying Seagull ... !?!?

Kenneth and I were away in the UK for a few weeks at the end of August and first week of September ... immediately on our return we had on of our more unusual groups of visitors ... the "Flying Seagull Project" - a group of entertainers from the UK - south of England to be more specific, but they were so lovely we quickly forgave them that! Ash works full time as an entertainer in the UK and decided to come out to Romania with a group of others and offer free performances for disadvantaged children. With Ash and his team we visited several of the poor communities and a camp for disabled children in the mountains and brought a little joy into the lives of children and their parents wherever we went.

As we drove into a community we would drive ahead to announce the show and Ash and the others would drive behind us with loud music playing and several of the group on top of their minibus singing and dancing ... you can imagine the excitement as we passed by the poor shacks. People all rushed out of their homes to see what the commotion was and their faces lit up as they saw the clowns and giant teddy bear dancing on top of a minibus!

Whenever we arrived at a suitable place for them to perform we parked the vehicles and they set up their "stage".

It was wonderful to see the joy on the children's faces when we arrived ... and on the parents faces when they asked how much it would cost and we told them it was free! "Free ... for us? Why? How?" These poor families are not used to having people give up their time and energy for them for free - and some of them were literally overwhelmed. There followed a great performance including games, dancing, jokes, magic and juggling totally transfixing children and adults alike.

On one of the days we drove two and a half hours out of Arad to a mountain station called Moneasa where the team performed for a group of 40 disabled children who were enjoying a camp in the clean mountain air.

Another day the group did a show at the shelter for street children run by the Arad child protection. It was so funny - some of the older boys were trying to look cool and uninterested but within minutes were joining in with the rest, shouting out and volunteering to take part in the show!

One day we went to one very poor area (pictured) but after half and hour we were rained off - a very rare occurrence here, for a minute I thought I was back in Glasgow on a church picnic! Ash was keen to return and let the children have the full show as they had been having such a good time before the rain started. We decided to return on the Saturday and ended up spending pretty much the whole day there - from 1000 until 1700 ... it was a great day and we finished it off by heating up tinned soup in Ash's new pot over an open fire!

Of course we also had to have a show at the Secret Garden ... we had a full show one afternoon and then another afternoon when Ash and team tried to teach the young people from the streets a few circus tricks ... it was hilarious, very entertaining to watch and the young folk all had a great time trying to spin plates and juggle.

Amazingly one of the street boys, Dani got the hang of it right away and had his plate spinning in no time at all. he then impressed us further by taking another baton and tossing his plate from one to the other ... Ash said he would like to come next year and hold a few workshops to see if any of the other street kids have talent ... we could host our very own "Arad's got talent"!

All in all it was a very special week for our young people and families and we are very grateful to Ash and his whole team ( I'm not mentioning names in case I miss one out ... they were all great!). We will be delighted if they manage back next year ... as will all their happy audiences.

recent food delivery

Well, I'll forget the wedding photos for a wee while and try later! We recently had a HUGE delivery of tinned soup, baby food and cereal bars, compliments of Blythswood Trust Scotland - a big thank you to marshall Green and all at Blythswood for your hard work at the other end.

This time we even had help unloading - our good friends Puiu and Dorina very kindly offered us the use of their garage and courtyard in which to unload and store the food. Kenny and Philip came to help and even Puiu's retired parents helped us, tirelessly lifting box after box from the lorry.

In the past few weeks we have distributed most of the food, to communities all around Arad - some of it was even taken as far away as Oltenia in the south of the country by a couple we know who travel around visiting poor communities and helping where possible. Much of the soup and cereal bars was used here at the Secret Garden and has been a real blessing to us and all the street people and poor families who visit us. We have a microwave in the centre and can quickly heat up a cup of soup for anyone who pops in and give them a cereal bar as a dessert!

Still no photos ... but check out this blog!

I thought of a way for you to see a few photos of the recent work. Part of the recent team we had helping us was a group of young lads from the "Positive Futures" project in Liverpool, led by a good friend, Tom Cleary who is a community youth worker on one of Liverpool's large housing schemes. These young men are truly a delight to be with and while they were in Arad they kept a blog ... prepare yourself for some slightly unorthodox language and enjoy! www.romaniatrip08.blogspot.com

Secret Garden under renovation

The past few weeks have been more than usually busy with a team of 12 for two weeks, Johanna's graduation from medical school and then three weeks ago her wedding. (for photos of both see my mum's blog http://www.rose-mynewlifeinromania.blogspot.com/ as I don't know when I'll get chance to post photos - blogger isn't letting me post any right now ... who knows why, I'm sure I don't!)

Last week renovation work began on the kitchen and dining room at the Secret Garden -Kenneth says he's excited and already has an idea of what it will look like ... I'm afraid to say that all I see so far is partially demolished walls, piles of rubble and wood from the old door and window frames and mess everywhere ... sigh!

To add to all our stresses our bank contacted us to say that Barclays bank in England accidently paid money into the charity account here and now they want it back - all at once. I must add that the said 'mistake' took place in April and the money is long spent on general running costs. For us it is quite a large sum of money and we cannot pay it back all at once, neither do we feel we should have to. So ... our charity account has been blocked meaning that we can withdraw no money. Fortunately the builders and double glazing company were both very understanding and have agreed to wait for their money ...

Still, let's look on the bright side! The courtyard is looking lovely thanks to the UK team we had just before Johanna's wedding. Andrew Bradley from came out with a few folks from two churches in Perton, Wolverhampton and some guys from "Positive Futures" project in Liverpool. They came to even out the courtyard surface and put up a high fence. In the end the job was bigger than they had thought and they settled for levelling the courtyard and re-concreting parts of it and making a lovely rockery at the front entrance way. (At this point I would add some photos, but of course I can't and unfortunately my mum doesn't have any on her blog, so you'll have to wait!) The team are providing the money for us to get a 'fencer' in to do the fence in the near future ... but if anyone from the team's reading this, don't pay it into the account just now guys because we can't touch it!