Photos from Thurs and Fri

Here’s the link for photos from Thursday and Friday. Friday’s blog to follow. http://www3.snapfish.co.uk/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=917788006/a=56491871_56491871/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfishuk/

Belated Thursday blog

I didn’t write this before because I was shattered!! Sorry!!

The cement truck came for the summer house foundation, which was a little inconvenient as we had to crowd the kids in to a tiny space, and compete with the noise of the engines. Thankfully no one got covered in cement and I didn’t see anyone trying to climb in it.

We still managed to get stuff done…I enjoyed reprising my role as Head Watermelon Cutter, I think we cut up seven watermelons in the end…and they ate all of it! Lucho was so excited that he probably ate a whole one by himself, which for a six year old is pretty impressive. Lots of sticky fingers/wet wipes/a little bit of sick later we did some painting on paper plates and banners. I don’t think they get to paint very often judging by the amount of paint that they got on their faces, legs, clothing etc. A minor fight brewed as Yanka, (15 years old or so) hit one of the littlest boys (the one who fell off the climbing frame). After she’d been told off she went and told one of the little girls to hit him- she did and of course he screamed and got rather upset! We can’t really stop that stuff happening, but at least we can consistently make it clear that we don’t tolerate that behaviour. We first met Yanka last year when she returned from a psychiatric unit. She sat on the new swings and pretty much refused to get off…I think we’re all still a bit scared of her! (Jumping ahead of this blog a bit, she did cry when we left, which would suggest that even if we don’t think she participated much, she was sad to see us go!)

In the afternoon we gave the older kids pillow cases with photos in them. They love to have their photos taken, and have brilliant memories about when, where and with whom they had them. Thursday was almost farcical because I would take my camera out to take a photo of one kid, and every surrounding child would start screaming ‘foto’, ‘foto’, and posing or pulling the camera. I could barely move! Before we went home for the night some of the boys took my camera from me to take photos themselves; I have some ‘interesting’ shots!

We did another question time, with Kris choosing the questions for each individual child. They’re not really used to sharing feels/hopes etc, so it can be quite slow. I found it interesting that most of the children have ‘sensible’ professions in mind when asked what job they want to do- lots of teachers, psychologists (they havem one who visits regularly), and doctors, with the odd singer and supermodel thrown in! One older boy loves Manchester United- a couple of days ago he said that his greatest dream was to visit Old Trafford! I was surprised that he didn’t want to play for them…he said that dream was just too big.

During lunch Anna Marie burned a CD for us to play in the afternoon. She included Cupid Shuffle, which we’d taught the kids last year. At first no one joined in, which was rather awkward (we looked very silly indeed) but eventually we had a huge group! I’ll put it up on Youtube when I get home! We also played ‘Jai Ho’, from the Slumdog Millionaire film, which went down a storm! Some of the kids must have had latin dance lessons, because they did a routine that I would have been very proud of! It was utterly unexpected! I did some more hair braiding, and Boika read me a letter that Marinka had written to me; it was very sweet- she mentioned again that she wants me to be her mother!

In the evening we revisited a restaurant on a rooftop overlooking the Danube and Romania. The view is brilliant! It struck me how diverse our group is in temperaments- from the outgoing to the reserved, we all get on and work together well. I always learn as much about Americans as I do Bulgarians!!!

Over and out…it’s 1 am and I have a 7 am start. Yucccck. Besides, I need the plug socket for the fan, because it feels like I’m just eating hot air!!

A (sort of) quick post.

Again I’m waiting for photos to load (same album as last night, about 80 photos in- yesterday ended with a girl hanging upside down http://www3.snapfish.co.uk/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=885714006/a=56491871_56491871/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfishuk/ ). I hope you enjoy looking at them!

The weather was better for us today, considerably cooler (which does not mean cold by any means) and it was a bit easier to run around. We began the day with music and fruit again, this time oranges and apples. Hristo sat on my knee for bells and his orange so we were both a sticky mess by the end! Boika, our local translator, told him that I remembered playing with him the first year we visited and he told her that he remembered me, which was quite impressive considering he wasn’t there last year, and he’s quite little!

After the music the older kids went off to do ‘yarn art’ (sticking wool to paper in shapes…it looks better than it sounds!) and I stayed with the babies. We had some bags of beads and wool, and helped them to make necklaces. I helped one little boy who must have managed to put 3 beads on his wool in half an hour. His hand-eye coordination is terrible, probably because they don’t do this sort of thing very often, and he probably hasn’t started school yet, so won’t be holding pencils etc regularly. It was cute to see one of the American men who is usually occupied with the building helping Hristo with his necklace. When that was finished, the kids scattered in all directions, each wanting someone’s attention, ball, camera etc etc…We got the nail polish out and were instantly mobbed. The kids can sometimes be insistent/whiny/ rude, but today was something else!! I literally felt like screaming as fifteen little kids surrounded the chair I was sitting on, grabbing my nail polish, sticking their hands on my knees (and at one point a foot, which was admittedly quite a gymnastic feat) and all the while screaming at me in Bulgarian. It’s frustrating if no one is around to translate, especially with the babies because they cannot grasp the concept that we do not understand them. Getting them to keep still was absolutely impossible, so my leg is now covered in blue nail polish! Eventually I whizzed through the queue, and everyone was satisfied! At one point one of the littlest fell off a climbing frame and smacked his head, immediately starting to scream. I picked him up and sat down with him to check out the damage- he’d cut the top of his ear and developed a nasty bump under a graze behind it. It took a good ten minutes for him to stop crying, poor thing . The carers took him inside for lunch then and we didn’t see the babies this afternoon, so I hope that he’s ok!!

In the afternoon we made bracelets with the older kids. I hadn’t been involved with the planning of the activity, so I was also learning how to do them- it was theoretically simple, but in practice frustratingly difficult. I was trying to demonstrate to one of the girls, but kept making mistakes and being unable to explain it. My frustration was probably obvious…but hopefully by persevering I set a good example!! It was mainly an lazy afternoon, with the kids playing with skipping ropes, and me braiding lots of hair. The kids wanted a million photos taken- I haven’t taken much video yet, so will make an effort to do more over the next couple of days!

One of the boys, Zoiko, had his fifteenth birthday today. He bought chocolates to share with everyone, and insisted on buying the American girls’ drinks when he saw them in a shop in the evening. Every kid’s story is sad, but his makes me quite mad too…his parents are well off….he knows this, doesn’t have contact with them, and knows that they just don’t want him. How is he supposed to feel about himself with that in the back of his mind? Also, why on earth does a government allow this? It is painfully obvious as we walk around this town that people are desperately poor. Kris was talking this evening about a cousin of his; he is a 60 year old intelligent and hard working man, yet he’s never had a steady job, and lives basically hand to mouth taking whatever jobs he can in order to get by. This seems to be a familiar story. I don’t really know what happened to make the country like this, besides the obvious history of the Soviet Union.

I’ve been bitten by some mosquitos and have reacted pretty severely. Please pray that they don’t get worse so that I don’t have to worry about them tomorrow! Also pray for the kids…that they’ll be excited about the activities, and that we’ll have patience and energy!

Night night…photos now up.

This was going to be brief, but I got a bit carried away…photos!

Zdrasti! I’m currently uploading photos as I type, so hopefully by the time this post is finished I’ll be able to publish the link to an album giving a taste of the first three days.  After a good night’s sleep (thank you electric fan!) we spent a sweltering day attempting to keep strenuous activity to a minimum!

We began the day with an old favourite- the kids each get a colour coded hand bell, and we play a backing cd, and one of the team holds up cards in time to the music. The kids only ring their bell when their colour is shown. The first year we did it they were a bit confused and over excited to be given something noisy, so very often the result was a rather unmusical racket, but they seem to have got the hang of it now. The babies were outside too, so some of them got big bells and the others little rattle things. I think that making noise is probably a universal pleasure for little children, and they certainly seemed to enjoy it! Following the music session we gave each child a banana or a half (we bought all the bananas we could find this morning!) because they very rarely get fruit and vegetables. We’ve used oranges, apples and bananas as prizes before! Judging by the amount of sticky fingers and faces the bananas went down pretty well.

Following music and fruit we split the age groups, with the older kids making ‘Eyes of God’ things- two sticks crossed over, with wool weaved around them, and the babies playing duck-duck-goose (but ne-ne-da to make it a bit easier!) and got the temporary tattoos that we gave the older kids yesterday. ‘Ne-ne-da’ took a minute or two to catch on, but they seemed to have grasped the concept of running in the same direction by the end! One or two of them can’t run at all, or possibly just don’t know how.

After lunch we played a game with the older kids where they picked a number from a hat, the number corresponding to a question that they had to answer in front of the group. We’d included things like ‘Why is it wrong to steal?’, ‘What makes you happy?’ ‘What do you want to be when you’re older?’ (”Pretty!”) etc…some of the answers were rather revealing…one boy said that he’s happy when he’s beating the younger kids- and lots of kids said that they were unhappy when they were being beaten up! We asked one of the younger girls in that age group what she would buy if she could have anything in the world…and she said flip flops. Just gives you an idea of how small these kids’ world is. We gave them the chance to ask us questions (Do you like coming here? How old are you? What do you think of Obama(Brilliant question as the majority of the group are staunch Republicans!)?) and they told us that they loved us (aaaw), were beautiful (well clearly they don’t watch enough television, ha!) and Marinka, a previously stroppy girl said that her biggest wish was that she had a mum like me! Quite a turnaround from cursing me the first year…

I talked to Tedi and Kris about some of the kids who have left. Stefka is at her grandparent’s home for the summer, one of the teenage girls is pregnant (apparently it’s pretty normal for the Roma girls to get pregnant at 13 or 14, although less so at the orphanage) and others have been moved out for various reasons. Emil, a boy who left before we got there last year but who was still living in the town, hasn’t surfaced and his mobile seems to be disconnected. Hopefully we’ll get hold of him via email or one of the kids. The reception we get every year just confirms to me how important it is for the kids to have some continuity. People go in and out of their lives very quickly, which is unsettling and means that many of them have difficulty trusting others and building relationships. Most of them still have at least one parent, who may or may not be in contact. It’s pretty heartbreaking when one of the translators tells you that a child is talking about their parents- they live in hope that someone will come and pick them up, even just for the holidays. Usually their family is just too poor/big for them to be looked after properly, but some kids also have horrible histories 0f abuse and abandonment.

It’s a tough concept to grasp that no one cares about many of the children here  – the carers do what they can, but it is a low-skilled and low-paid job, and they simply cannot provide the love of a parent. I’ve referred to the trip as a ‘mission trip’ a few times and I think I should probably explain what I mean, because we don’t use this opportunity to evangelise to the children. Simply put, we believe that there is a God that loves them all, and that we can serve Him by serving them, and demonstrating in just a small way the love that we believe God has for them! There is a Christian singer called Tim Hughes whose song ‘God of Justice’ pretty much sums my feelings up. “God of Justice, Saviour to all. Came to rescue the weak and the poor…Jesus, You have called us, freely we’ve received, now freely we will give…We must go, live to feed the hungry, stand beside the broken…Keep us from just singing, move us into action…We must go”  (Link to the song and lyrics on Youtube >> ) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6k-knvCWUA  I’ll probably elaborate further as the week goes on, but feel free to email me with any questions/comments. baw202@ex.ac.uk

Taking a child, He set him before them, and taking him in His arms, He said to them,
“Whoever receives one child like this in My name receives Me; and whoever receives Me does not receive Me, but Him who sent Me.”
Mark 9:36-37

Good night!  There are about 80 photos on Snapfish if you want to take a look…. http://www3.snapfish.co.uk/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=885714006/a=56491871_56491871/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/COBRAND_NAME=snapfishuk/ I’m afraid you need to make an account, but it is free, quick and easy to delete.

 

New year, new kids, new team members.

Hi y’all (as the Georgia contingent would say!)

We’ve had a great (baking hot) day today, meeting loads of new kids and lots of the old ones too. Some noticeable absences- my little Stefka isn’t here, Jesus was adopted by an Italian family and one of the older boys who had been a nightmare the first year and brilliant the second, Naidan, is apparently in a psychiatric hospital. The orphanage has had a recent influx of kids from other institutions, but they look fairly comfortable already. We have three new team members too, Karen, Laura and Emily, who got stuck in getting to know the kids and all their crazy names. It looks like there is a new set of twins- with matching names!! ‘Netko’ and ‘Netka’, masculine and feminine forms of the same name. Crazy. We made loads of tags and stickers so that we can learn who everyone is and they can read our names in Bulgarian. Unfortunately Bulgarian doesn’t have a ‘th’ sound, so I am ‘Bet’ or ‘Beti’! Within about half an hour half of the babies had swapped tags, so goodness knows what we’ll call them. The oldest boy insists on being called Ronaldo (as in obscenely rich footballer)…thankfully I passed the test of guessing who he looks like! It was lovely to see little Hristo again, although he’s not so little now- he’s all legs and really noisy. I don’t know whether he remembered me from 2006, but he spent a good half  hour sitting on my hip and chattering away while we watched the men working. The odd Bulgarian words and phrases that I’ve picked up over the years have convinced a new teenage girl that I understand her and am pretending that I don’t to catch her out! If she’d seen me introducing myself by saying ‘Iskam Bet’ she’d have realised her error…it means ‘I want Beth’!

Two suitcases of craft supplies are missing (Wayne’s was lost somewhere, and the Americans’ minister sadly didn’t get further than the airport as his passport expires in August) so today we opted for the easy fail-safes- chalk, tattoos and nail polish! Oh….Mum and Dad, I’m not going back to Exeter next year- I’m clearly destined to open a nail salon 😐 I spent hours doing French manicures and tiny little flowers on tiny nails, with my ‘skills’ in high demand!  I’m pleased I was good at that, because my frisbee skills are so bad that the boys won’t let me play with them after knocking several of them in the head! In the afternoon we ran a few relay races with buckets of water and cups or sponges. The older kids do it pretty well, but the age range is apparent when the younger ones lose their leg of the game and run off in a strop. With the babies it takes ten minutes to get them to stand in two lines, and the concept of winning hasn’t really caught on!

The men are installing some more swings and bouncy things and hopefully a summer house, but the council seem a bit reluctant, so we’ll see whether that goes ahead.

The air conditioning in our hotel still doesn’t work, so we bought some fans which we’ll donate to the church and/or orphanage when we leave. It seems a bit ridiculous but it is so hot that the majority of the group didn’t get more than a few hours of sleep last night, and I’m not sure how long we’d last like that! My air conditioning machine succeeded only in making noises that sound suspiciously like footsteps.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment, and hopefully a link to some photos. The photo in yesterday’s post doesn’t load on my laptop, so please let me know if this is a general problem!

Bet(h) 🙂

Back to Bulgaria

After an exam, some frantic packing, a train from Exeter to Banbury, two hours sleep, an early flight from Gatwick, and a boiling journey to Lom, I am finally here….back in Bulgaria! I wasn’t sure I would get here at all as I was scheduled to have an exam on Tuesday the 16th! Amazingly my department agreed to let me take it early, so here I am… It doesn’t seem like a year since I was last here and Lom doesn’t seem to have changed. We’ve seen some of the kids for a quick hello this evening- the ‘babies’ were on their way for supper and saw us through the door-they jumped, screamed and clapped! I can’t wait to see them in the morning. Hristo, a real cutie from the first trip is back, which probably means that his trial with his mother didn’t work out. (She left him in a hospital when he was born, and last summer was allowed to have him stay for a while.) This evening the mission group had a brilliant catch-up/getting to know each other dinner in town. Now for some much needed sleep (hopefully, the air conditioning isn’t working and it’s at least 25 degrees)!