Diary 8
Tuesday December 14th 2010
I sent last
night’s diary early in the evening before we sat down and chatted with Geo and Simona otherwise I would have added on my concern at how
they tell us they have taken a 50% reduction in salary since June. We knew
about the 25% reduction in all state salaries in June and we had heard that
more cuts were planned. As well as the 25% drop in salary, they now all must
take the equivalent of one day a week unpaid leave but the work load remains
the same. Their house hold is really affected as both parents work for the
government as social worker and university lecturer and both the sons are
employed as doctors. They said that there is talk of a tax being imposed on the
pensioners.
This morning
we got up and found it had frozen hard and our car locks were frozen so the
doors would not stay shut when we set off. Eventually we sorted that out and
set off to Agape – this foundation works with young orphans past school age,
education and life skills. Nadia from Nicu’s Girls is
now there as is Gyonghy from the Mustard Seed
programme. For both of them the new structure works well. The young people are
employed by Agape making cards which are then sold to raise funds.
The most
encouraging thing about the whole visit was to see that the china donated from Le
Lievres sent on the December trailer was in use
already and they were absolutely thrilled with it and very grateful. So we took
photos etc.
When we came
to leave we found the car under a thickness of snow and the door locks were
frozen again. That problem with the door locks, sheet ice on the ring road and
our considerable confusion as to how to get to the Speranta
Familiei office, also the fact that we could not
contact them by phone made us decide against going into town to try to find
them. Instead we drove back to Geo’s.
We heard
this morning the lorry is travelling through snow in Austria – their target is
to get to Paris by tonight; as they are on motorways all
the way that should be no problem as the roads will be regularly treated.
Just spoke
to Flori on the phone - good news – she is due to travel back
to the Oradea hospital tomorrow so we should see her before we leave on
Thursday. Nothing definite about the success of the surgery but the signs are good.
Tomorrow I would expect the diary
will not be uploaded till 24 hours later than usual as I anticipate being back
too late to write and then send the diary to my brother in time for uploading
on Wednesday evening before he goes to bed. There will probably be a final
short one on Thursday after we have visited Flori and
before we set off for the border and 2000+ kilometers
to home.