Teaching Day 1

First teaching day! Lori had two groups of younger beginner students in the morning; Mihaela went with Lori and did any needed translation with the staff or students. The school staff are very gracious and the students are quite motivated.   And someone at the school can make a wonderful cup of coffee – not to be taken for granted when one is trying to accommodate to an 8 hour time change. Lori returned to the hotel for a lunch of soup and salad – although salad comes looking a bit different in Bârlad. Then it was back to the school for two more classes, this time with more advanced students.  Dan went along this time to help with the translation. One class in particular is quite advanced and what to do with them will be a challenge.

In the evening Mihala and Lori went back to Trattoria da Vinci for an evening meal. Lori topped it off with a wonderful dish of Ice cream.

Over Slept

Lori had a nice breakfast at the hotel, and then managed to fall asleep afterwards and had to be awakened by Mihaela’s phone call for the planned meeting. The principal of the school where Lori will teach was waiting to meet her – embarrassing – but hopefully people understand jet lag. Miheala and Lori met to start the team goals and team characteristics. More team members will be arriving on Tuesday, and the team goals and characteristics will be furthered developed then.

Off to a lovely lunch at the Trattoria Da Vinci. The food at this restaurant is wonderful and what good news – we will probably return more during this stay.  Lori worked with the hotel staff to try to find a room in which the wireless will work – without luck.  We decided to give up and try another room tomorrow. After a time of rest, it was off to eat again, this time at Restaurant Alona. Lori tried Romania dishes of stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage, and mammalgia. All was very good. The wind is still howling.

A day of Sandwiches

This service team began when Dan met Lori in Bucharest. It was a very hot day in Bucharest, but the air conditioning in the car made the trip to Bârlad easy. On the way they saw many different aspects of Romanian terrain and life, including vendors along the road selling wine, cherries, and tomato and pepper plants for gardens. They stopped for an early supper at the McDonald’s in Bazău.  After a day of sandwiches on the various planes, a salad at McDonald’s tasted good to Lori.

Shortly thereafter, Bârlad began to appear on the road signs, and after 4 hours of driving since the start at Bucharest, they arrived at the Hotel Occident.

Dan got Lori water to use during her stay, and then was away to home after a long day of driving back and forth to Bucharest.  The weather began to be very windy, but Lori went for a short walk anyway in the area around the hotel, mostly observing the places of worship nearby. The wind continued to howl through the night.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Quotation:

A strong woman knows she has the strength enough for the journey, but a woman of strength knows it is the journey where she will become strong.

-Unknown

Journal:

We enjoyed another fun and busy day. We began the day meeting the new nursing students who will be spending 3 weeks training in the hospital. They were very friendly and it was nice to not be the “new ones” for once and we were actually able to demonstrate to them how some things are done, and what activities the children enjoy. One exciting event was we observed Marius imitate one of the older children building with the blocks. This was very interesting because his typical activity with the blocks, no matter how many times we demonstrate how to build with them is to dump them out and then put them back in the bag. With the extra help we were able to look for pictures in magazines to use for our English lesson with the middle school students on Wednesday. The older children from the floor enjoyed trying to identify the pictures in Romanian and English. After lunch and our daily coffee and cake we explored the grocery store nearby the hospital. We were in awe of all the different kinds of cured meats the grocery store carried. We also went on a hunt for peanut butter which we were told was not available in Romania. Sure enough, none could be found. As Americans, we were perplexed by how others could joyfully go on with life without our much loved peanut butter! When we arrive after lunch the younger children were still napping so Laura began an English lesson with Postolache. She would name an animal in English, and he would write it in English and then in Romanian. He is a very smart boy!