Orientation Day

Today was orientation day. We started off gettign up at 8:30 for breakfast at the hotel. Then we went on a walk around the town with our leader. It was interesting to walk around and hear about the culture. We talked a lot about how the Romanians classify Gypsies versus Roma people. It was sad because there were a bunch of children begging for money that would follow us for whole blocks. We went through a farmers market with veggies/meat/dairy etc., which was really cool. I wanted to take more pictures but we only took a handful because we weren't sure it was appropriate to be whipping out cameras. Apparantly if you take a picture of a Gypsy and they notice they will make youu pay them for it and it just leads to trouble. Barlad has one of only 30 cinemas in Romania. The leaders claim that it is the poorest town in Romania, and possibly the EU.

When we got back from our walk we had orientation meetings until having lunch after three o'clock. Lunch is the big meal of the day and involves multiple courses of soup, bread, salad, and a meat. Then we had an hour of free time where we went across the street to get snacks and water then figured out the internet.

After the free time we had another couple hours of orientation. Orientation involved "bonding games" and making team goals; all the lovely things you do at a summer camp. It was funny to watch all the adults doing the activities that you usually see kids doing. We also had a lesson on basic Romanian which was very helpful.

During a dinner of Romanian pizza we picked groups for the hospital. Most people wanted to be in the non-mobile group so we volunteered for the mobile group along with one other woman. We got to look through journals about each child that the previous teams had written. The group that we're working with has kids between ages 1 and 6. The oldest one, the 6 year old, has brittle bone disease and dwarfism which is why she is still in this room and not the toddler room. There are going to be about nine of them, and three of us, so meal times should be interesting. We'll try to put up pictures of our kids tomorrow!