5-26 Orientation and First Visit to Peris

Once it was *actually* time to get up, we had a breakfast. I discovered a new favorite breakfast delight: Finetti. It's a lot like Nutella, and tastes fabulous on croissants. After breakfast we gathered and had orientation. They purposefully wait to give us all this information until we aren't completely zoned out from jetlag. To start out Jim (or "boss Jim" as we began calling him) led us in a fun and educational Romanian culture quiz game. I did fairly well thanks to some lucky guessing and some general travel knowledge.

A couple interesting Romanian culture facts:

Currents-This is the Romanian term for drafts or breezes and they are supersticious about them. In Romanian culture currents are very bad, they cause bad things and can make you deathly sick. You never have a door and a window open at the same time and in the car, you do not have more than one window open at once, if that. Most places do not have air conditioning, so you can imagine how hot it gets during the summer if you believe currents are evil.

Flowers-Romanians love flowers. There is a specific type and number of flowers for any occasion. General rule, odd numbers of flowers are for happy occasions and even numbers are for sad occasions. Also, when presenting someone with flowers, you hand them to them upside down. That way, when they turn them right side up, they catch the luck from the flowers. To hand someone flowers right side up means you're stealing their luck, which would be a terribly rude thing to do!

After our quiz game, Jen (who is absolutely amazing) talked to us about ministry specifics. She used props to show the tools necessary for successful ministry. Curiosity, forgiveness, patience, proactivity, friendship, and flexibility. Jen told us to think about what we needed to happen in order to count our trip as a success and reminded us that all we are asked to do is love God and love others.

After orientation we had lunch together and then the brass loaded up and left for Rosiori (a town about 3 hours southwest of Bucharest, pronounced "Ro-she-or"). They stayed at the boys' transition house and worked with two different groups of kids down there.

Meanwhile, us woodwinds loaded up and made our first trip to the Peris (pronounced "Pair-eesh") orphanage. Peris is a stark contrast from Bucharest. It is a small farming community with little houses and large fields. One day on our way back from the orphanage we had to stop to let a shepherd and a flock of sheep pass.

Kirsteen, one of the H2H staff members, has been teaching the children some basic music lessons. Our first day they performed some clapping rhythm songs for us. The rest of the time was spent playing with and getting to know the kids. I got to observe a cooking class that another staff member Sanda has been doing with some of the older girls. They made a lemon zest cake. Some of the girls speak Spanish, which they have learned from watching Spanish soap operas, so I was able to communicate a bit.

Oral communication, however, is not needed with these children. They are very good at using gestures, but most of the time they just grab you and drag you wherever they want. If they really want to tell you something, they take you to a translator. Once the children had worn us out entirely, we made the 45 minute drive back to the team house for dinner.

An H2H practice in the evenings is "Night Light". We sit down with Jim and talk about how our days went: things we liked, things we didn't understand, struggles during the day, etc. Then comes Hot Seat. Each person has 2 minutes to talk about themselves, and then everyone else can ask questions, any question they feel like. Suffice it to say, this got very fun by the end of the trip.