I know you want more of Romania but I'm finding it difficult to proceed very far without PICTURES (Matthew, ahem) beyond those I took with my own tablet. The other team members who were playing Trip Photographer are dating and at each other's homes and therefore are sort of MIA at the moment ... and yours truly is wishing she'd taken less pictures of the Decebal Head and more of the people I love. Also, there is just so much that went into the trip that today, I'm going to simply share three favorite memories:
//Butterfly Whispers//
One morning in Arad we were given the opportunity to visit a small children's day-center down a twisting, forgotten street of the city. This charity doubles as a dentist's office and ministers to the neighborhood/street children. There were only a few children present that early in the morning: a few gypsy boys, the British care-giver's daughter, a gypsy girl (Corinna), and the daughter of a Romanian caregiver.My favorite part about working with children in other countries is that the language barrier is not as much of a problem as with the adults. The children have no scruples against chattering at you in Romanian and are equally fine if you speak to them in English. There is no need to understand each other, really, because isn't the desire to play on a slide or chase each other around a room a universal theme? When the language barrier became too frustrating, the little girls would simply plant their feet and shout, "OANA!" till the Romanian woman came running to translate for them and explain the rules of a game rather like Ring-Around-The-Rosie. The three little girls seemed to gravitate toward a different member of our team and I found myself the chosen friend of a tiny, shy girl named Roberta. Roberta and I played chase for the longest amount of time. She was Oana's daughter and the cutest little thing I'd ever seen. At first she wouldn't let me pick her up but by the end of a solid half-our of tag, she was nestled quietly in my arms. We walked to the window and Roberta began to point outside and whisper in Romania about what she saw and what she wanted to do. It was the sweetest thing: the tiny whispers and the fact that she spoke in Romanian made me feel as if I was holding a fragile little butterfly in my arms and she was telling me things I'd like to know. We soon followed the others outside in "The Secret Garden" and my fearless little Roberta was whispering to the pet dog and pelting down the rickety slide, sliding recklessly on her belly into my arms. By the time we left, we had gotten rather attached and there were actual tears in Roberta's eyes as I set her down for the last time and waved goodbye. I couldn't help but feel glad that she was one of the children who had a steady, dependable parent. <3 I never got a photo of her but Mrs. Edmonston did manage to get a bit of a video and you can see a glimpse of my dear little Romanian butterfly:
//Makeshift S'mores//
You will have heard of Stefana, our friend from last year. Stefi is one of the sweetest, most transparent young women I have had the delight to meet, and we only grew closer this trip. Leaving her was like leaving one of our best friends here in the states. I am so blessed by her testimony, her spirit, and her friendship. We spent several nights at Betel hanging out with friends local to Arad, and on the last night, I'd cracked open the bag of marshamallows I'd brought. Several sources had told me that they don't have marshmallows in Romania ... this is sort of a falsehood, for they do sell them. But they don't taste the same, they're expensive, and they are certainly NOT Jet-Puffed or whatever that good brand is called. ;)
Stefana has a sweet-tooth the size of Russia and was super excited when I brought out the marshmallows. She laughed and told us that she had tasted a marshmallow before but had never toasted them, though she'd seen it on movies. Then I had an idea: there was a kitchen in the church. Certainly we could roast marshmallows over the gas stove? We hurried into the kitchen, flipped the light-switch, and toyed with the knobs on the gas stove. Unfortunately, the gas had been turned off for the night and we didn't know Romanian stoves well enough to bother trying to get it back on. That was almost the end of our marshmallow roasting adventure, but at the last moment Alaina and I searched for a candle, found a tealight and some tiny matches, and lit a little blaze (not before I'd coughed and blown it out once, blown it out with one match, and otherwise foiled the candle several times). I speared a marshmallow on a fork and showed Stefi how to roast a marshmallow. It caught fire and she squealed but we blew it out and continued. It's rather tricky to toast these things over a tealight blaze! :D When the marshmallow was suitably gooey, I handed the fork to Stefana and watched her experience a toasty marshmallow for the first time in her life. She adored it and we laughed over the absurdity of our positions at eleven-thirty PM, crouched in a dark kitchen in Romania toasting marshmallows over a tealight. Stefana roasted her own (and possibly a third) and we let some of the gypsy women who live with friends of ours try one. (They said it was too sweet.) In the end, I gave Stefana the last half of the marshmallow bag and her eyes lit up with girlish excitement. She told us that she was going home to her husband in a few days and that she'd save them so they could have a date of toasting marshmallows over a candle. My work there was done.
//Give the Lady a Camera//
The trouble with travelling with a group of people you like a lot is that you always want a group photograph in nearly every spot and there really isn't one particular team member you'd like to cut out of the picture and force to snap the photo. At one particularly Alpine meadow spot, we pulled our little caravan over and arranged ourselves for a picture. We were about to send Sabine (red shirt, far left) to take the photo since he wasn't one of the Zaharias or the Americans, but then someone noticed a little old lady selling cheese at a stand. She saw our predicament and offered eagerly to take the picture. Amy (with the lingual aid of Pastor John) taught her how to work the camera and the little old lady cracked us up by arranging us, telling us to smile, and taking the picture. Amy went forward to view the product and, struck by the funny little scene, I whipped out my tablet and took a photo of the pair.
This lady is sharp. She started jabbering about something and pointing and Pastor John said, "She see your iPad. Want to take a picture." I handed her my tablet, taught her how to use it (she was grinning ear-splittingly the whole time) and hurried back to the group. She took one photo and I helped her check it out. Not satisfied, our new friend demanded I show her how to take another and she went for Round Two. We thanked her, said goodbye, and packed back into the cars, but I'm certain I will never forget the little old lady selling her cascaval. <3
