Last night Dennis helped me book my flight and a room at the airport hotel for one night. I fly out of Houston Intercontinental on Friday July 24th and meet my Global Volunteers team and program representative at the Otopeni Airport in Bucharest. A link to info about the airport:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Coand%C4%83_International_Airport
From there we'll take a 3 1/2 hour train ride to Barlad and begin our volunteer program. I'm looking forward to meeting the lovely people with whom I've been communicating via email and who are also going on this trip. A number of people have either participated in the Romania program before or have volunteered in other countries with Global Volunteers. That tells me that this is truly going to be an incredible experience and that Global Volunteers was the right choice for me.
I'm going to spend part of the three weeks working with high school students, helping them develop their conversational English skills. I can't wait to learn about their lives, their hopes, their dreams, and their viewpoints. I know my students will feel the same way! I'll volunteer at Tutova's "failure to thrive" clinic as well. Severely underweight babies come there to be nursed back to health. Some of them will be reclaimed by parents once they're healthy and whole again; others will not. Their parents are very poor, and according to Global Volunteers, about 25% of the children are left in the government's care.
On the weekends, I hope to see as much of Romania as I can. I know I want to see Bran, home of Dracula's caste, and the painted monasteries in the north. I have lots of homework to do between now and July 24th, but I found a terrific interactive online map and I have a cart of resources I need to order on Amazon. It will be fun to explore such a culturally and historically rich country with some new friends, and I know this will be the most fun I will ever have putting together instructional materials!
Here's a link to the Global Volunteers website. Join me in Romania, won't you?
http://www.globalvolunteers.org/
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