Juerian picked us up bright and early from the hotel and we started the day with an aerobics class, taken by one of the councellers called Cataline. We then continued the music and therapy class by making musical instruments with the students. We used bottles, dry beans, string, sticks aand straws to come up with some fabby shakers and blowers. Dan performed an impressive tune on a scale of glasses filled with different levels of water. We then exchanged National Anthem tunes with the students and Rachel gave a rendition of Flower of Scotland on her tin whistle. It was really nice to see her and Victoria singing together in English and Romanian- we could all spot a bond formning there.
After lunch, the boys got some sand and hand-mixed the cement for the renovation. Poor Gareths hands were blistered raw by the end of their efforts. Laura, Jordan and I headed into the heat of the town to get footballs balls and varnish. 'Ball' in Romanian is 'minge'- how amusing! There was much confusion when buying the varnish in that we have no romanian language apart from 'yes' and 'thankyou'. Throughout the day there was also lots of babysitting to be done and attempting to keep baby Naomy happy. We had an unfortunate dinner by a pretty lake/pond. Mega delays and crappy food so we scarpered without a tip and noway were we paying for the sauce and bread they attempted to charge us for!
That night Dan invited loads of his friends to join us and the students for a big game of football. Again a glorious sunset over the mountains and when the dust from the dirt tracks got thrown up, the whole sky was goldy pink. There was an arrogant twit on the team who seemed to be both sexest, vain and far too overly confident. I hardly contained my dislike. I was playing on the opposite team to this guy and stopped to take a photo. The ball came my way and as I was taking pics, I kicked the ball. This said dude freaked out and said I was on the side lines, so I shouted back, thinking his english was crap, but turns out he understood all of my comments about him being arrogant and thinkin he ruled the match. Anyways, he said 'you can't play with a camera so you must have been on the sidelines'- soo, I put my camera around my neck and played and gave him a decent tackle. Later in the game he got his comeuppence (sp?!) cause he took a fall and twisted his knee. I thought he was bein a total drama queen by making a fuss, but once off the pitch, the swelling was blatantly apparent and there was an awkward point sticking out his leg- nice. So off to the hospital we went with Dan. Laura and I went in with them to check out what a typical Romanian hospital looked like. The first door off the street was the A+E dept, which consisted of a room fitting 2 iron beds. We didn't see much else other than that and a dark corridor with a few chairs in it. While the guy was in seeing the Doc, Dan filled us in on his story. He was an ex-student and had grown up in an orphanage, then taken to the streets, where he was found by Marshal (the guy who set up Open Hands-who's mega respected here). His story got worse, but can't go into details. So man, did we feel bad for judging him so quick off the mark. We were all knackered after waiting at the hospital so headed back to the hotel for a well earned kip.