Well, after so many months in the planning, my trip to Romania has been and gone. It was a real time of challenging myself to do things in unfamiliar conditions, and I was very glad to have gone with Dad who was an encourager and companion for the week.
Romania (at least the bit I saw) was less grim and poor than I expected, but not to say that there were not grim and poor bits, especially where we were building where you wouldn't believe how horrid and crowded the conditions were. It made it so obvious that houses should be built for these people crammed into flats which should have been long since condemned and making the best they could of them. Although the Roma future owners were fairly suspicious of us to start with, apart from anything else, they don't let their women help with the building, they got used to us, realised we were trying our best to build the best houses we could for them and in the end were smiling with us at the joint results of our labours.
Our comfort was much better, interesting food, a nice guest house, a fantastic leader in Emil and team leader in Rob and a fun building team (lucky their English was better than our Romanian!). The worst we faced was coffee coloured water coming out of the taps some days and nothing at all flowing on others! Apart from a blister on my thumb and a few bites I really didn't suffer at all.
I painted, varnished, installed soffits, floor underlay and laminate flooring and did lots of running around handing things to people!
It was a good trip, and if we take our own homes for granted 90% of the time, at least we should spare a thought occasionally for those who don't enjoy our living conditions and who deserve a lot more than they have.
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