Update for the 28th -

This update is actually from a couple nights ago. We had a terrific experience at a new kind of orphanage. There is an organization called Caminul Felix. Because the orphanages were so bad during the communist era, two missionaries from Sweden started this concept of family communities. In the old orphanages, there would be 3 and 4 times the number of kids that were supposed to be there. Children were often given medicine to make them sleep for hours on end. This stunted their growth both mentally and physically. We were at a community of 10 houses. The concept is that these orphans should be raised as a family - with a mother and father. This is similar to "foster parents" but so much more. For example, the man and wife who hosted us for dinner moved into this community at age 26, after one yr of marriage. They were given 17 children over that year! To see that family together was very heartwarming. The support goes beyond raising the children, it is for the rest of their lives - their weddings, their education,and so on. They end up breaking a cycle poverty as well. Two of the girls in this "family" were adopted at ages 8 & 7. They were living on the street because their mom had committed suicide. To talk to these girls now was really amazing. One of them is about to finish her last year in college in Cincinnati. The two pictures are of some of us with the family the other picture is of George (one of the older kids) sitting next to Scott.

I still have a couple days to update, but will need to do that in a bit. More to follow....

We might have started off slow this morning - everyone was a bit tired and sore from yesterday's work - but we got our 15th wind once we got a little coffee.

Ah, another successful day at the office! :) Today it was a bit cooler which was actually nice. The rain in the afternoon put a slight "damper" on things but we were able to finish what we needed to and be ready for tomorrow. Today's work consisted of putting 2 coats of mud/cement all over the house, finishing the stryrofoam coating, insulation and prepping the interior for drywall tomorrow. Hopefully it won't rain so we can do the stucco on the outside. My legs are already feeling it from climbing up and down and up and down the scaffolding. I lost count how many times we did that! I think at this time my body is starting to become numb to the pain. Whoever invented Advil is one of my heroes! Is it wrong to take 8 at a time???????????

One of the pictures today are of Alex - our new friend in Romania. We ran into a few of the guys again last night that are staying here at our Peninsea (hotel). Speaking of hotel, let me share with you a few facts. It is a small hotel - only 4 rooms on each of the 3 floors - then another building the same across a small parking lot. The bathrooms are a sink, a toilet and a shower - but the shower drains into a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. Oh, did I mention there's also no shower curtain??? We are paying what would amount to $20 a night per room at the hotel so clearly there is not enough money to buy shower curtains.

Another picture is of two puppies (you can look, but don't dare touch because there's no way of knowing what disease they could have). I feel as badly for all the dogs and their living conditions as I do the people.

Another picture is of me getting to use the power saw - yea! That was a lot of fun. It was a bit ironic that two of the men were holding the board while I - a female - used the power tool. I guess you could say I was a cut above the rest! :)

Today's 'phrase that pays' as I call it for the Romanian team was "It's not my first time to the rodeo". The guys seemed to like that one as well. Every day they joke around a little more. I think they are finally understanding my humor - that's a scary thought I know! They are just great to talk to and get to know.

One of the neat things we did was that last night my roommate and I were in charge of the evening "reflection/activity" (these are activities to help get to know each other etc.) We had each person write down something about themselves that no one on the team knew, but would be interesting) We wrote each persons statement on a big piece of styrofoam and then as a group went through each one and had to try to figure out who it was. For example, one person said "I once had to bail my mom out of jail" - yes, we had a lot of fun with the stories that came from each statement. Anyway, we ended up putting the names of each person next to their statement and today we used that Styrofoam as one of the pieces on the house. The Beius Team (the guys working on the house with us other than the Habitat home owners) got a real kick out of it.

One of the people, Angelina, on trip is celebrating her birthday today. The guys sang her a Romanina song at lunch and then "Happy Birthday" at the end of the day. I have attempted to add video clips of the song at lunch. I think the other clip might be too long. The one with just a few guys are Emil (Habitat regional leader), Clau (Beius team), Valer (Beius Team) and Jonuet(Beius Team site leader). I think I named everyone.

Tonight we will go to an orphanage to play with the kids and eat dinner. It should be very interesting. We did bring some toys to leave with our team leader to give to the kids. We have one more full day of work and then a half day on Sat. We will then drive to Beius Sat. afternoon to see the town and have dinner. It is about an hour away.

I hope the picture I attached of the horse drawn wagon and colt running behind shows up well. It was so cool. This was right out in front of our hotel. The cars didn't seem to bother the young colt at all. We commented that it is so weird that we are in one of the "big" cities with all the industry, big trucks and so on yet just off the main streets you'll see cattle roaming, horse drawn wagons and other random things.

Well, it is time for me to go get ready to leave for the orphanage. More to follow....

Well, we met a few Romanian men last night from Bucharest. They are staying at the same hotel and doing construction work for the cable company. I think it was when one of them - Alex - saw a group of 9 women and 2 men attempting to unwind a "human knot" that he decided to stick around. Then his friends came out. Needless to say, we invited them into the group and ended up talking to them in a blended language of us butchering Romanian and their decent use of English. It really was a lot of fun and a wonderful thing that laughter is a universal language!

Today we were hard at work again. Someworked on the outside while several of us worked on the roof and getting it ready for the tile. It involved placing long rows of boards across the roof that the tiles would hook onto. You had to be precise with your measurements so the roof was even - no pressure! It took a little while to get to where I felt comfortable walking around up there, but then it became quite fun. And yes, we pounded A LOT of nails today! After lunch it was time to start putting the tile on the roof. We formed a chain and passed tiles along and up to the guys on the roof. Let me just tell you, passing 1700 pieces of roof tile that each way about 9 lbs is hard work. Pretty sure I will have to use a straw to drink my beer tonight because at this point lifting anything heavier than a toothbrush could prove to be a challenge!! Attached are a couple pictures of our prep work for the tile and the house, the "chain gang", us playing with the kids and the house at the end of today. It was a great sense of accomplishment to see the roof done, but at the same time I think we all felt even more tired.

The 'phrase of the day' that I taught the Romanian guys was "The ol' gray mare ain't what she used to be" as i tried to get up and down the later and crawling over the roof rafters! They got a big kick out of that one. It was great spending time working with a couple of them and just talking about our lives, families, cars, countries, etc.. It is just amazing how other people have grown up. These guys all live in Beius and drive up to our Oradea site - about 90 minutes away. The other workers of course are the men from the families that will live in the house.

At lunch, several of the children that live in the Nato Blocs came over. We played games with them and took pictures - showing them the pictures afterwards which they loved. It was still sad to see the children playing in and around the garbage and living in those conditions in general. We are going to leave some toys behind, but we are not to give them toys directly as it would encourage them to beg. Instead, we will leave them with the local Habitat affiliate and they will give them to the kids. That also builds good will for Habitat. Tomorrow our local team leader is going to have one of the family member's take me and Andrew (one of the other guys on our trip) take us through the blocs and see them close up and take some photos.

We went to a local place just down the road for dinner last night. Can I tell you that their "English Menus" just don't translate certain items very well. For example, I did not order the "Pork Butt" for dinner!

One thing I learned today is that the Habitat building of houses has slowed because people just aren't able to make the trips because of our economy. Last year at this time they had already had 5 teams over for the build. This year, we are the first team. Maybe that's why there have been so much TV coverage.

Well, my battery is about to die, so I will cut this post short. Oh, a couple of us were recognized from being on the news! I'm an international star! HA Ha HA. More to follow....

It is with every last bit of energy that I type this entry! :) The good news is that the house is still on schedule! There's really no bad news except that there's no cold beer here yet - but a few went off to get it! We had a busy day. I was on the Styrofoam detail. You put cement on one side, then applied it to the outside of the house and then nailed it to the OSB. It was a lot of walking, carrying, applying, etc. I have attached a picture of the back of the house in progress. There is a lot of measuring and cutting that must be done. We will do the stucco on the outside tomorrow. I have also attached a picture of today's progress.

I was interviewed this morning for "Transylvania TV". It was pretty interesting. The lady asked "Isn't this hard work for a woman?" "Why did you choose to come to Romania" and a few other questions. I was going to answer the last question with "To find a husband" but wasn't sure my humor would translate, ha ha. It is very unusual for women to be involved in the building here. When the locals and the Habitat families are involved in the build, it is only the men. The women stay at home with the kids. They may come over to visit, but never expected to build. The guys we work with are just great and funny. I love making them laugh or blush - which turns out is quite easy!!! ... at least the blushing....some of my humor still gets lost in transation :) We have learned to communicate even without the language. It is really amazing how easily everyone works together.

We certainly have not gone hungry this trip. We have been taken to local restaurants every night and had the local food which is terrific, but probably not the healthiest :) Lard is very popular here, ha ha. The lunch that has been brought out to the site is also quite good.

Well, I am off to clean up. More to follow....

I am trying to muster up the strength to type this update, but with all the hammering we did today it will be tough :) I feel a bit misled - I was told that we would be working with a ton of studs today, but it turns out they were referring to WOOD!! ha ha. We worked with the local Habitat group which included some of the new home owners. They have stopped telling people who is getting which house because they were working a lot harder on their houses and not so much on the others. It turns out, the Beius Habitat chapter has built over 120 houses. The men were a lot of fun to work with. I had our site leader learning some new phases like "Howdy y'all" which he said with a nice drawl and everything. Other key phrases that he liked were "It's Miller Time" and "He's all hat and no cattle". They have been fun to joke around with as well. We were also on local TV as the local news media came out to film and do interviews. It is great coverage for HFH and should help their cause.

We are working right next to the "Bloc Apartments" which is really something. I have attached pictures that should show the apartments, the build site at the start of the day, middle of the day and where we stopped for the day. I also included a group photo with thelThe good news is that we are ahead of schedule! Therefore, we get to sleep in 30 minutes longer because the next task is installing windows and the delivery won't be there until 9 so we can sleep until 7!! Yea!!!! Tonight we will walk into town - about a 30 minute walk. Emil will give us some of the history and then we will eat there.

The group is a lot of fun, light hearted and hard working. 5 of us took a walk last night and it was beautiful out with all the stars. Well, it's almost time to head for dinner. More to follow.

Well, it is early in the morning on the first day of the build. We were able to spend yesterday morning in Budapest exploring the 'Buda' side of the river. We had a great time seeing all the old architecture and just walking around. Be ready to climb A LOT of steps if you choose to go up Castle Hill, but it is worth it.

We left around 1:30 for the 4 hour drive down to Oradea. Let me just say that neither the Hungarians nor the Romanias have road maintenance high on thier "to-do" lists. Our local guide, Emil, gave us a lot of great background information on the need here, the culture, and some of the animosity between the locals and the Gypsy population. There are over 700 ethnic Romas who have been living in just 96 apartments. People from Oradea referto those simply as the "NATO Blocs", as they look as if they were bombarded by NATO. Some of the apartments had over 25 people living in them. The community is ravanged by disease, illiteracy and joblessness, and have been caught up in the throws of cyclical poverty. Forced from their village into a communistic bloc apartment, the families, unaccustomed to urban life, were not helped to integrate. Now, 30 years later, they are a perfect representation of how Roma communities are marginalized and victimized by prejudice. In all, the project's construction goal is to build 20 new homes and renovate all 96 apartments.

One of Habitat's goals is to rehabilitate and integrate a community that has been cast aside. By inducing the community to work side by side with the Roma beneficiaries, HFH Beius brings those marginalized together with the normal Oradeans to work together.

Starting the program and finding community volunteers has had its challenges. This is a country where there is a lingering negative perception of volunteerism - Romanians were required to "volunteer" during communism. We hope that through our efforts we will demonstrate the usefulness and importance of volunteerism to the community.

Lastly, for those of you not familiar with Habitat for Humanity, I wanted to give you a brief description. HFH is a non-governmental, non-profit Christian organization dedicated to providing simple, decent and affordable housing solutions for those living in poverty regardless of their ethnic background, gender or religious affiliation, and in the way enabling them to leave a poor housing environment and improve the quality of their lives. HFH is guided by God's wisdom and 4 core values - Commitment, Respect, Integrity and Sterwardship. The families receiving the homes put in 600 hours of "sweat equity" on their house or another Habitat house. This lends to our goal of being a "Hand Up" not a "Hand Out".

Well, sounds like breakfast is ready so I am off to eat and start the first day of building. More to follow.

Munich/Freising

Well, I am almost to Budapest. I spent the afternoon and evening in Freising Germany. It is a very quaint little town and easy to walk around. It is also home to the worlds oldest brewery. Speaking of brewery, I am sitting here in the Munich airport at 9:45 in the morning and I would say at least half of the people in the eatery are drinking beer. I am not one of them :)

I broke down and did something I rarely do, I CHECKED my suitcase for this flight. Those of you who know me, know that is rare. However, my back is not cooperating with me right now so I decided it was best to check it - see Alice, I can, on occaison, make a smart decision. :)

I was sent on my tip well prepared. Laura, aka Maggie, gave me a little care package with some great tools. As you can see by the picture above, I will be the envy of the job site!!

I will leave here in about an hour and a half and meet up with 3 of the team at the Budapest Airport and then head to the hotel where we will stay for the night. We will head to Oradea Romania first thing tomorrow morning. Hope to have internet access there. More to follow....