"rogues gallery"

please pray

For any of you reading this blog who are able, please pray for the son of very dear friends of ours here in Arad. Claudiu is only 23 years old and newly married and has cancer which has spread. He is very seriously ill. I don't know what else to say other than please pray for him, his young wife and his parents and grandparents.

the audacity of hope?

Our good friend and fellow Scot, Tom Kennedy called round this evening for a wee chat and he showed me something on the Internet that moved me to tears. If you haven't already seen the very ordinary Scottish woman from the wee village of Blackburn an hour away from our city of Glasgow now's your chance. Susan is 47 and it's been her life long dream to be a singer ... she didn't have a chance but she dared to hope! Go on ... click on the link and prepare to be moved. Thank you Susan!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Easter at the Secret Garden

Easter in Orthodox Christian countries such as Romania was a week after the western Easter this year. It varies from year to year - it can be as much as five weeks later and only occasionally coincides. The Romanian word for Easter is Pasti (pronounced Pasht) and is more strongly linked to the Jewish Passover than in the West, the same word being used for both. It is a beautiful time with some lovely and interesting traditions. Our favourite part of Easter is the "Inviere" (Resurrection) service on the Saturday night. At around 23.30 everyone gathers at the Orthodox church and waits with candles in their hands for the priest to come out of the church. When the priest appears everyone lights their candles from him and then from each other and proceeds around the church following the priest and his entourage. After three times around the church the priest then goes to the door of the church and sings the words of the Gospel about Mary and the other Mary going to the tomb of Jesus and finding it empty. This is interspersed with the congregation singing a short refrain which goes something like this "Christ has risen from the dead, with (his) death trampling on death, and to those in the graves he has given life" and at the end of the "Inviere" a pure white spotless lamb is brought into the church (thankfully not to be sacrificied!)

Another of the traditions which we love and always keep is the painting and decorating of eggs. Eggs are hard boiled and then dyed a variety of colours, the most important being red or painted with beautiful designs.

At the Secret Garden we spent the whole of Good Friday (or Great Friday as it's called in Romanian) painting eggs, followed by watching the "Jesus" film.

As children arrived with their mums we presented them all with hard boiled eggs and felt tip pens and wax crayons and explained to them that we were having an egg painting competition.

The expression of the faces of some of the mums was comical ...

"not us, we can't do that!" they said ... "Oh yes you can!" we

replied, "but women like us don't do things like that" they argued ..."Why not?" we asked, and as they thought about it, they realised that there was actually no reason why not so they picked up eggs and pens and got stuck in! As you can see from the photos, they thoroughly enjoyed themselves!

It was a somewhat chaotic day in some ways as not only did we have a whole room full of people all busily painting eggs but we

had others coming and going.

Some came hoping for Easter food parcels, but we'd only been able to put together 30 this year as we had no money. We would have liked to be able to give to all the families who come to the day centre, even those who only call in occasionally but we just couldn't.

... and finally, as each child left they recieved a goodie bag and the mums a bag of groceries - not a lot, but a small help for them at this time of celebration.

you get knocked down ... you get up again!

Wee Amalia was so determined to ride the "trotineta". It's not easy when you've only just turned two and you don't know how to balance yet! She was so determined to ride it and so pleased with herself when she managed to gain her balance ...




what a great picture! Mum and dad stand proudly by, watching their daughter's achievment.

Look at me, look at me ... I can do it! I can do ...


Then comes the wobble ... can she hold on?

no ... yes ... no ... and she's off! Daniela looks on sympathetically, she's had her share of falls too.


Our wee Amalia is a tough wee thing, not to be deterred by anything so minor as banging her head on a wall.
"did you bump your head?" say daddy, "come on, it's nothing, try again ..."


All that effort finally paid off ... just look at her now! Isn't she great? Imagine this darling wee girl is one of several who live on the streets with their parents, sleeping wherever they find a derelict building or making a hut alongside some hot pipes in the winter. hard to get your head round it, isn't it?

Mary and Joseph

Maria and Iosif (Mary and Joseph) are two very ordinary pensioners who have lived hard lives, through the years of communism and the latter years of the Ceausescu regime when there were ration books and food queues. They pop in to see us from time to time and when we first heard their names we joked with them, as no doubt many have done over the years. Maria and Iosif are such a sweet couple, struggling along on their far too small pensions but not complaining and not asking for anything. Maria told us sadly but without bitterness that two of her four children died and the remaining two moved abroad, trying to make a better life for themselves and their children. Their combined pensions bring in just over £100 per month - not really enough to live on but like so many of the people we know they scrimp and save and do the best they can to make ends meet.

Prices here are at the same level as the rest of Europe and in many cases higher for basic necessities but salaries and pensions in general remain pitifully small. We saw a report about milk production in Europe on the Euronews channel which stated that Romania is the second most expensive country in all of Europe for milk. Tea, coffee, breakfast cereals, rice, cheese and many other basic food products as well as utilities such as gas are all more expensive here and if you worked out prices compared to salaries then literally everything you can find in the shops is more expensive here than in the UK or elsewhere.

homeless families

These children live with their parents on the streets and they're not the only ones. We have several families who visit regularly with their children. It is always hard to see the little ones and realise that they don't have much of a future to look forward to. Of course our hope is that one day we will be able to help families such as these off the streets, but at the moment that remains a dream. A father called in today who has lived at one of Arad's homeless night shelters for more than two years. He used to live there with his children but has now placed them in a small children's home so that they at least can have a chance of a better life.
Obviously our dream for all our young (and less young) people is that one day they will leave the streets, but for the long term homeless that sadly often remains just a dream.

Looking for wives!

The boys asked me to post this photo of them and say that they are looking for wives ... of course they were only joking (I think). What a bunch of likely lads eh? These lovely young men all live on the streets and get by as best as they can. They are regulars at the Secret Garden, taking showers daily and keeping themselves clean and tidy. We hate it when people talk about "the homeless" as though they are somehow less human - they're not at all, they are simply hurting people who are loved by God and deserving of our love too. In among the hardship of their daily lives, it always amazes us that they manage to retain such a sense of fun. We who are so privileged by comparison have something to learn from them, don't we?

"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 ...