Dec 5th 2012 05/12/2012
Once again it has been a slightly frustrating day, we have now heard from the drivers that the necessary part should be available tomorrow and then they should be able to head for Romania and the border tomorrow afternoon.
In Romania Hilary and I have been busy. We have just got back from our evening visit which was to Kathy Langston and i must give Alex top marks as with his map and directions for the first time ever i found Kathy's place without getting lost! kathy could hardly believe that she had not had an SOS call from me to say i was lost!!!
In the morning we went with Alex to the village of PAGAIA where we hope to help with building a community centre. The villagers were prosperous till industry in the area all stopped and now it is the poorest area of the Bihor county. Hilary had not been there before though I went last summer (that was the day it was the hottest and I was quite knocked out by the heat), my strongest memory is of the wonderful musical talent of some of the youngsters there and the welcoming attitude of the church.
In the afternoon we went to Agape who work with young people who have been through the state orphanage system and need a helping hand to become self supporting and self sufficient. They run education programmes and then as the young people become able to cope they move out to apartments etc but still visit very regularly and receive emotional support. They run a number of craft projects to raise funds.
One sad thing happened - on the summer lorry there was a second hand washing machine from Jersey that was given to Terezia one of the young women on that Agape programme for her new apartment. I remember how THRILLED she was when she saw it come off the lorry. I asked her if the washing machine was working well and to my great disappointment was told that it would not work. In spite of her having had it checked and had someone in to repair it the machine did not work and could not be made to work. Obviously beneath her bright smile Terezia was disappointed, and I was disappointed too. She said the vacuum cleaner we gave worked well.