"One minute Romanian"

Wow ... is such a thing possible? Wish someone had told me when i first came here! Eight and a half years later and I'm still struggling ... anyway, here's an email from a friend - anyone planning to come and visit/help, you might want to give it a try!

hiya
for a while I've been downloading various free language lessons from iTunes, all produced in Glasgow by radiolingua.com. i've discovered today that they'd run a romanian basics class in november 2008 at http://coffeebreakspanish.typepad.com/oneminutelanguages/one_minute_romanian/ and wondered whether you'd want to let your newletter recipients know - it may help for any who are wanting to come out and see you too. i haven't started yet - and i don't imagine in 10 one-minute podcasts we should expect to become expert orators but even if it just teaches "hello, how are you? would you like a coffee?" it'd be nice for visitors to feel less foreign!
hope all's well. i'm still waiting for house stuff to be sorted out and am yet again house-sitting waiting for my own place. not for much longer, hopefully!
David

... and in the meantime, here's a photo of our beautiful Romania!

look how hard we work!

During the early part of the day at the Secret Garden children of all ages can come along and join in work and play activities. Many of the children who come should really be in school or gradinitsa (kindergarten) but for many reasons don't attend, often because their parents' lack of education makes it difficult for them to take such a step with their own children. Other factors such as extreme poverty and the transitory lives some of our families lead add to the difficulties of sending a child to school. We are trying to encourage parents to allow us to help prepare children to be integrated into the system this coming Autumn. Some are already too old for normal school so we will have to look at other options, others hopefully will be able to enroll. Sometimes when a child comes to us for the first time they literally cannot even hold a pencil or crayon and to see them make progress is truly amazing.

One wee girl, Vetta who started coming in January this year wouldn't even sit on a chair for five seconds (I'm not exaggerating) and she drove us crazy by her refusal to do anything at all that we asked her to do ... now she sits for as much as an hour colouring in, drawing and trying to write letters and is really sweet and desperate for our approval. For mother's day on 8th March Vetta made a card for her mum and learned a wee poem! Just look at her below on the left in the red top, isn't she a sweetheart?

Dancing on the streets?

I haven't tried to put a video clip on before so will see if this works! Some of the young folk from the streets having fun and doing a bit of 'gypsy' dancing ...

Where's Yasmina?

Johanna and Philip looked after Yasmina for us yesterday while we were out all day at the Secret Garden. She ususally has to come with us as we have no other option, but I don't really like it as I have to keep an eye on her all the time as well as trying to deal with all the people who come. It's not ideal for her or for me and it can be quite stressful, but at the moment there's no alternative. In the Autumn Yasmina can start 'Gradinitsa' (Kindegarten) so that will makes things easier.

Anyway, back to yesterday. I think Yasmina had a great day ... Philip lets her watch her favourite children's programme, "Balamory" - for those who have never seen it, you just don't know what you're missing!

At one point during the day Yasmina went into her room and closed the door behind her. Johanna and Philip were sitting in the living room, Philip was working on his laptop, Johanna was enjoying a cup of tea and they weren't paying attention. After a good few minutes had passed Philip asked "what's Yasmina doing all this time?" so Johanna went through to have a look and got a huge fright. No sign of Yasmina ...

Johanna went right into the room and it was empty and quiet ... she was getting quite worried when she suddenly caught sight of Yasmina - she'd taken her 'noo noo' (her name for her dummy) out of the cot and crawled in between her cot, the book shelves and her ball pit and fallen fast asleep!

Winter wonderland

When winter arrived this year, it really arrived! We had snow in January and February ... lot's of it and Arad turned into a wonderland of frost and ice, with icicles hanging off every building and a layer of frost covering everything and sparkling in the winter sun.

Arad is a lovely city with some very beautiful buildings mainly dating from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although of course we work in the less attractive areas among the poor and needy, we always like people to see the other side of this city which we now call home.

Our own "Secret Garden" as you can see is really a very pretty house and not only attractive but as all our visitors notice, it has a special atmosphere too. Covered in snow the house looked amazing, the photos don't really do it justice. the air is so cold here in winter that when we have mist, the water vapour crystallises onto the branches of the trees and gives a fairytale appearance to the trees and shrubs.
Vis a vis the Secret Garden and along our street are other lovely buildings, in need of some renovation perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless.

We feel very privileged to have found such a lovely house right in the heart of the city and the many homeless and poor people using our facilities appreciate having a 'pretty' place in which to sit and relax, play and learn.

We are busy every day Monday to Friday and the showers and washing machine are on the go non stop. In the early part of the day mothers (and sometimes fathers) and their children come. Any children who appear take part in activities, at the moment mainly drawing and colouring in, singing and playing simple games - most of the children who come to us have never even held a crayon or pencil before and so for them, basic education means literally that. For the past few months we have had a final year Social Work student volunteering with us. Dana is on maternity leave from her factory job as well as studying and has been a great asset to the project, her endless patience has resulted in several children who previously seemed unable to sit still for even one minute now sitting for half an hour at a time drawing, colouring in or learning to write letters.
During the later part of the day the "street kids" come. We have now 85 completely homeless children and young people on our register, although it's probably a good thing for us that they never all turn up on the same day! I don't know if we would be able to cope. Ususally anything between 12 and 25 young people come on any given day. We also have four older homeless people who have started coming, invited by the street kids with whom they share derelict buildings! All want to have showers when they come, so we have a list every day to keep order and make sure everyone gets a turn. Ususally several bring bags of clothes to wash so we have a rota for that too.

Our newest volunteer is a 17 year old girl, Tilor who has been coming since we first opened the doors. She's pictured here with her partner Georgie and their six month old baby Denisa. A few weeks ago I talked with Tilor about the fact that she can't work as she has no birth certificate and therefore no ID card, therefore cannot be employed. I asked her if she would like to become a volunteer and she was delighted. So far Tilor is doing very well and proving to be a valuable member of our wee 'team'.

Denisa comes every day with mummy and is a wee treasure. We have Yasmina with us anyway to look after and having recently discovered that Irina and others are pregnant, we will soon have a full creche!

Kathryn's visit to Scotland

Yes, Kenneth just arrived back in Arad a few days ago and now I am over in bonnie Scotland but only for a few days. I will be speaking at a couple of meetings including a fund raising ceilidh on Friday 6th March in Falkirk (tickets available from Lauri Crawford - contact details on the side panel). Kenneth will 'hold the fort' while I'm away, helped by Amy, Johanna and Philip as well as our volunteers, Dana, Lidia, Tilor, Irina and Viorel ... well, truthfully, he'll need all the help he can get!

"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.