Friday, Sept. 29, 2006: 10:20pm
So, where did I leave off? I believe we are at Monday afternoon. But I could be overlapping. I just want to tell you all so much about this trip. So bear with we. I would have been back sooner to blog, but Wednesday and Thursday were both late nights. After working our second full day (during which I finished demolishing that wall with Lindsey and Herman, and have the before and after photos to prove it), we stopped to pick up Elena's son (she is one of the partner families we are working with). He is 10 and goes to a school for children with special needs. We then dropped them off at their apartment. Can I tell you how small this place was? Four people (mom, dad, son, her sister) sleep in a dorm-size room. This place was so small that the whole team couldn't fit in at once. Really is so sad to see these conditions.
Speaking of which, the garbage piled at our site is has been smelling pretty rank for a few days now. Apparently, it's only picked up every three or four weeks. There are so many flies; it really is gross. These are just too much; they're even our bus. Especially when lunch comes around and breaks occur. Which is not good when you have raw meat in the garbage: At lunch on Tuesday, we had a BBQ cooked on a dinky rusted grill. sure hope it was washed beforehand. The burgers were good, but I wouldn't eat them again. Too fatty. Alex, our volunteer coordinator, even washed out the bag the meat was in. Guess they don't care about salmonella poisoning here, or don't know about it. We all found it rather gross. At least we had a great dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Good pizza! Mikey would have liked it as well. The girls wore skirts as short as at the PIC (our grocery store), only these skirts had slits.
I'm starting to have some doubts about Habitat. For starters, the quality of our work. I know we try our darndest to do the best we can, but it can always be better. We're not professionals after all. The one family whose bathroom we use already has mold growing on their kitchen ceiling and it is making their youngest, Bubulina, sick. I just learned today that this is not the original Habitat family that moved into the apartment, but a family that purchased the apartment from them. I wish I knew if Habitat kept up with repairs and stuff like that, considering they renovated the apartment in the first place. I found myself thinking on this trip that I'm surprised we're even allowed to operate some of this equipment. Plus, you see what these families have and it makes you wonder. Does HFH do enough investigating of the family? Elena had a huge stereo and Vasili (another partner family) an almost brand-new TV. In Hawaii, even, one of the families had a huge new truck with shiny rims. If you can afford something like that, you can afford to provide a roof for your family. Doesn't Habitat ask these questions?
Also, everyone smokes here. Even the poorest. Yeah, doesn't make sense to me either. And all apartments always have laundry hanging out to dry. Almost every window of the cold gray cement buildings left over from the Communist era.
Got Chris's Romanian police car photo, even before he asked for it in the comment's section of my last post.
One last thing I need to mention: Begging at restaurants is a very tough thing to endure. Sunday night it was an old woman who just stood there; Tuesday night during a team dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, we had two kids and their mom: Wednesday afternoon while sightseeing, it was a little boy by the Patisserie in Courtea de Arges. (More about that sightseeing in my next post. Dracula is all I can say for now.) You feel heartbroken, but ignore them anyway and always keep tabs on your purse.
A few more small ditties: You have to pay for rolls and dinner. And you don't even get butter with them. That's even more. Ice is not common to drink with sodas. You have to ask for it. Ketchup is not really ketchup. It's more of a sweet BBQ sauce.
Be back tomorrow to blog some more. I have a short ditty about Tuesday afternoon. There are just so many stories to tell and not enough time since the Internet cafe closes in about five minutes. It's almost 11pm here.
So, where did I leave off? I believe we are at Monday afternoon. But I could be overlapping. I just want to tell you all so much about this trip. So bear with we. I would have been back sooner to blog, but Wednesday and Thursday were both late nights. After working our second full day (during which I finished demolishing that wall with Lindsey and Herman, and have the before and after photos to prove it), we stopped to pick up Elena's son (she is one of the partner families we are working with). He is 10 and goes to a school for children with special needs. We then dropped them off at their apartment. Can I tell you how small this place was? Four people (mom, dad, son, her sister) sleep in a dorm-size room. This place was so small that the whole team couldn't fit in at once. Really is so sad to see these conditions.
Speaking of which, the garbage piled at our site is has been smelling pretty rank for a few days now. Apparently, it's only picked up every three or four weeks. There are so many flies; it really is gross. These are just too much; they're even our bus. Especially when lunch comes around and breaks occur. Which is not good when you have raw meat in the garbage: At lunch on Tuesday, we had a BBQ cooked on a dinky rusted grill. sure hope it was washed beforehand. The burgers were good, but I wouldn't eat them again. Too fatty. Alex, our volunteer coordinator, even washed out the bag the meat was in. Guess they don't care about salmonella poisoning here, or don't know about it. We all found it rather gross. At least we had a great dinner at a nice Italian restaurant. Good pizza! Mikey would have liked it as well. The girls wore skirts as short as at the PIC (our grocery store), only these skirts had slits.
I'm starting to have some doubts about Habitat. For starters, the quality of our work. I know we try our darndest to do the best we can, but it can always be better. We're not professionals after all. The one family whose bathroom we use already has mold growing on their kitchen ceiling and it is making their youngest, Bubulina, sick. I just learned today that this is not the original Habitat family that moved into the apartment, but a family that purchased the apartment from them. I wish I knew if Habitat kept up with repairs and stuff like that, considering they renovated the apartment in the first place. I found myself thinking on this trip that I'm surprised we're even allowed to operate some of this equipment. Plus, you see what these families have and it makes you wonder. Does HFH do enough investigating of the family? Elena had a huge stereo and Vasili (another partner family) an almost brand-new TV. In Hawaii, even, one of the families had a huge new truck with shiny rims. If you can afford something like that, you can afford to provide a roof for your family. Doesn't Habitat ask these questions?
Also, everyone smokes here. Even the poorest. Yeah, doesn't make sense to me either. And all apartments always have laundry hanging out to dry. Almost every window of the cold gray cement buildings left over from the Communist era.
Got Chris's Romanian police car photo, even before he asked for it in the comment's section of my last post.
One last thing I need to mention: Begging at restaurants is a very tough thing to endure. Sunday night it was an old woman who just stood there; Tuesday night during a team dinner at a nice Italian restaurant, we had two kids and their mom: Wednesday afternoon while sightseeing, it was a little boy by the Patisserie in Courtea de Arges. (More about that sightseeing in my next post. Dracula is all I can say for now.) You feel heartbroken, but ignore them anyway and always keep tabs on your purse.
A few more small ditties: You have to pay for rolls and dinner. And you don't even get butter with them. That's even more. Ice is not common to drink with sodas. You have to ask for it. Ketchup is not really ketchup. It's more of a sweet BBQ sauce.
Be back tomorrow to blog some more. I have a short ditty about Tuesday afternoon. There are just so many stories to tell and not enough time since the Internet cafe closes in about five minutes. It's almost 11pm here.
posted by Maggie | 12:24 PM
1 Comments:
I tired to call you a bunch of times but I couldn't get the phone card I bought to work. Call me on Saturday around 4:30pm my time.
Save some fatty burgers for me!
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