Day 12

A church in Barlad

The Gypsy King's Palace

My roomie Terri and I at our last dinner together in town

We had a good rain late yesterday afternoon that prevented us from going to the clinic until 7:30. I was in the toddler room with Ionela, Mihaela, Sami, Alina, and Maiestra. Sami pulled my hair again when I wasn't paying attention. Ionela had a great time running between Trevor and me and being lifted into the air. Maiestra wanted to be held, which was tough because she's a big girl. We think she is autistic. She loves music and looking through things like sunglasses. She doesn't speak, but she shakes her head at you like she's telling you no. She cried when Trevor and I put her down, so I turned on some music to distract her. It worked. When the music stopped, she wailed, so we immediately got it going again. I think everyone got plenty of exercise; there wasn't as much crying when we put them to bed as the last time.

Trent is having stomach problems, so he stayed home today. We missed him and we will miss him next week when he's in Amsterdam and, after that, headed back home. He's very good at starting discussions and keeping them going. I'm the one who needs structure--I need a piece of literature to read to begin a discussion. Fortunately today I had one; most of the tenth and eleventh graders worked with me. We read Walt Whitman's "I Hear America Singing" and we discussed his view of work in the late nineteenth century versus our view of work today. We ended up having some interesting discussions about which professions Whitman would choose to write about today as well as a discussion of the current economic crisis and how it's impacting our countries. The students concluded that corrupt politicians and an infrastructure damaged when the country changed hands are problems that continue to plague Romania. We talked about how to change that, and we were all quite pessimistic because we concluded that with human nature the way it is, there are few people in this world who are not selfish. Gheorge suggested that we create a one world order, one government to control everything, a federation; I asked, "Like in Star Trek?" and everyone laughed. It's great to hear students express their opinions, and in all honesty, they are very much like ours. Corruption, greed, selfishness, and the lack of ethics and morals are common human characteristics and affect all countries, not just our own.

Mihaela gave me our train tickets to and from Bucharest; the cost is $109.20 lei, which translates to about $39.00 per roundtrip ticket. I don't know which hotel we're staying at Saturday night, but I'll find out when we go into Barlad tonight and stop by the travel agent's office. Amy Johnson, the college student from Utah, is going with me. We'll arrive in Bucharest between noon and 1:00 and Saturday and stay until 5:00 p.m. on Sunday. Amy will turn 19 on Saturday, so I plan to treat her to dinner to celebrate. Big city, here we come!