Mos Nicolae and Clean Shoes

This past Sunday was Mos Nicolae. We all woke up Sunday morning to find our shoes filled with bows, pens and a giant chocolate Santa....well, Amy and I found bows and notes from the girls in our shoes, but everyone else had pens and a giant chocolate Santa as well. The Romanian tradition goes like this-the night of December 5th you clean your shoes the best you can, your biggest pair of shoes of course as they can fit the most stuff. During the night Saint Nicolae (Nicolas) leaves pens and chocolate in your shoes for you to discover in the morning. Great motivation to get kids to clean their muddy shoes...

On a day-off walk to the edge of town, Welcome to Nicoresti:

I can't believe I've already been back in Romania for 2 weeks!!...everything seems to be happening so fast around here-so much to do, so little time I guess! For the past 2 weeks the heads of the mission, Mama Sandie and Tata Bruce are in America taking care of some things there leaving myself and the two other volunteers to run programs for the residents/kids solo...Issue-one of the volunteers left a few days after I returned and the other leaves in two days...so we have been doing lots and fast! Everyday has been packed with activities, fun, laughs, and at least 3 or 4 "I miss Mama and Tata"s...They come back this weekend (ffhew!). The highlights:

The first day I was back we bundled ourselves up and roasted marshmellows outside-very reminescent of California beach bon fires, and even the Tauernhof bonfire with mellows earlier this past summer in Austria. No chocolate or graham crackers, but delicious nonetheless.

Roasting over our fire:

Rodica:

Marianna was a huge fan:
Thanksgiving! As an American-founded mission we did in fact celebrate Thanksgiving...well, sort of. Basically we had turkey for lunch with mashed potatoes, an apple homemade pastry for dessert (dessert is always a treat!), and Workshop was cancelled for the day. We even decorated our Christmas tree that afternoon, untangled lights for outside, and listened to Christmas music (almost felt like I was back in Temecula, despite the Romanian lyrics to the classic songs).

Tina and our Christmas Tree: (she insisted upon me taking her picture in front of it in her PJs)

We have found a guitar in Casa Sarah! This discovery has been such a blessing for me! After Amy leaves I know it will be a much welcomed way to pass time in the evenings and practice with. Everyday since our discover the girls have had me playing them songs upstairs from choir, my favorite worship songs, any song with la la la in it, songs in Romanian (this is where it gets interesting and creative), made up songs with their names in it, "How Great is Our God" by Chris Tomlin over and over again (no idea why this is all their favorite song), and now, Christmas songs and colindes-Romanian carols. It has been so much fun! One of my favorite things now is to watch one of the girls in particular, Verginica, attempt to play. She lives pretty much in her own world and can often be found nodding her head back and forth whistling, but her face lights up as she strums the guitar and hums/sings along...definitely marching to her the beat of her own drum. All the girls and house mamas get a huge kick out of watching her do this...for five minutes, longer than that and we would all have blazing headaches.

Bingo is a favorite afternoon activity, so much so that we have had to limit our games to only twice a week as we are running out of pens and candy bars to give away as prizes. It is always quite a festivity involving jeering, shouting, pleading, and laughing. I can now successfully count to 75 in Romanian, and describe the rules and regulations for a game of Bingo...

Another blessing is that I have had the great opportunity of spending more and more time at the boys house (opposed to just hanging out with them at workshop daily and a few evening visits to the house after work). With the departure of volunteer Ellie who worked at Casa Rachel (the boys house) Amy, the other volunteer, and I have switched off days working at Casa Rachel so that the boys have someone to hang out with...no sense in Casa Elisabeta having two volunteers for 8 girls and none for Casa Rachel with 11 boys. It has been great getting to know the house women there and how the house is run, and of course playing games and laughing with the boys. A typical day over there consists of helping Marius with his jigsaw puzzle, playing Snakes and Ladders (Ellie made a giant board for the house), playing rock paper scissors, requests upon requests for Bingo, helping Constantine and Patrica with French and English homework, making Christmas decorations, watching TV with Costel, miming with Florentine and looking through magazines with Nicu. I actually work there tomorrow and Wednesday and while I absolutely love (and secretly prefer, probably just because I am so comfortable there) working at Elisabeta, I am very much looking forward to spending the next two days at Rachel with the boys.

Well that is everything for now. Other activites have included coloring and crafting-attempted an origami afternoon one day...almost a success, as well as writing notes and pictures for Amy before she goes, preparing for Christmas with decoration and card making, random impromtu games including Pin-the-tail-on-the-Donkey (so funny!), paper chain making, hot cocoa drinking, and tons of little practical jokes.

Until later..

1 John 5:1-5