Anyone want to buy a horse?

Nearly March

You can see our house from here
View from the hills - house is to the
right about half way up

It feels as if we are moving towards Spring and real warm weather at last.  It was plus two degrees today,which felt positively baking. 

I bought some running shoes yesterday and Kiki and I went out for a short run this morning.  There is a general background sound of dogs barking just about all the time.  They excelled themselves when we ran past - I am sure that every house has a dog.

The nights are getting a bit lighter which means that I should be able to get out and run straight after working at the hospital.  Previous volunteers have reported being joined by stray dogs. Should be interesting.

I can't figure out the translation for
this at all - but something happened in
Tarnaveni in 2000.

Language

Romanian is a lovely sounding language.  A number of the patients speak some English.  However, many don't.  It is taking longer to get to grips with learning Romanian than I had hoped.  I can say, "I don't speak Romanian" in fluent Romanian with an almost perfect accent - this just causes more confusion.  I have started saying, "Sunt din Anglia", (I am from England), which receives knowing nods as if that explains why I am coming across as a bit of an idiot. Also, many patients have Hungarian as their first language. I haven't managed to get myhead around Hungarian at all yet - it is famed as being the most difficult language in the world to learn.

Another view of the hospital psychiatric
wing - it really is very large

The Horse

 It is very tempting to just smile and say 'yes' (Da) when someone talks to you and you don't understand. 

We have a session for 'open patients' once per week.  I mentioned the closed wards last week.  There are also two massive 'open' sections (men's and women's).  These are far less restricted.  Patients have the freedom of the corridors and the grounds. - Not that there is much for them to do; hence the club session.  One of the male patients seemed to be a bit on his own, so I played a couple of games of connect 4 with him and chatted. - I'm honestly not sure if he was speaking Romanian or Hungarian.  I was starting to do the nodding thing and saying "Da".  Unfortunately, it turned out that he was trying to sell me his horse, plus 8 hectares of land.  Luckily we didn't shake hands on it otherwise we might now have a horse in the garden along with the rabbits. 

I really must improve my Romanian - or at least stop saying 'yes' to everything.

Health and safety


View of the infamous short-cut
bridge taken from the hills



Manhole covers are a constant nuisance as we all know; particularly if they are right in the middle of the path.  However carefully they are laid, there is always the possibility that a little bit will jut out and cause an unsuspecting pedestrian to trip and fall,possibly hurting themselves.

The Romanian answer to this is brilliant in its simplicity.  Simply remove the cover altogether.  No chance of a trip.  I can't see any downside whatsoever.

This was right in the middle of the path
luckily it was daytime.  There was
another one exactly the same 20
yards further on



Party time



We got it a bit wrong with Valentine's day the other week.  The bigger 'romantic' celebration in Romania seems to be 'woman's day' which is the 8th March, but already seems to be in full swing.  I am not sure, but I think it also welcomes in Spring.  We have been invited to the hospital party  (150 plus people) which takes place next Friday.  We are really not sure what to expect, but it is lovely to be invited. Report next week. 

Final thoughts for today

A dissapointing entry in the 'tallest
house in Tarneveni' competition

Internet still going a bit slow, so another short blog. 

The famous Wednesday morning
market sees 10's of traders and
thousands of visitors - very
colourful - unfortunately this picture
was taken on a Sunday afternoon

For sale with lovely views to the rear
I think it is built out of chipboard

If I did buy a horse, I would
definately need to know what
this meant

Pe Curand

Paul

To Blaj in the big car

That was the week that was

Blaj

Another week flown by.  I can't believe that we we have been here for well over a month now.



Some green scenery
Between Tarnaveni and Blaj



We went off to Blaj, small town an hour away by train, this weekend.  Partly to see something new, but I must admit, I just wanted to go on a Romanian train.  Very impressive.  On time, comfortable and cheap.  The snow had gone (came back today) and it was nice to see some green scenery.

The first thing that struck us about Blaj was the number of stray dogs.  There are plenty of dogs around where we are living.  There are a lot of houses with dogs as pets (guards?) and a constant background of barking.  There are also quite a few strays wandering about on the outskirts.  Blaj town is full of them.  Many looked really wretched in the damp rain.



Banksy was here?



Guitar

I managed to find a cheap classical guitar in Turga Mures last week.  I am not the worlds best player and the only way I could stop Kiki (co-worker) from wrapping it round my head is to say that I would leave it for the club at the end of the placement.  Now she daren't damage it.

Shopping

The world of wireless communication

Not so wireless

Romania is being propelled into Westernised consumerism at a rapid pace.  Long gone is the old communist joke of a woman going into a shop and asking for some meat.  "I'm sorry", came the reply, "this is the shop with no bread.  The shop next door is the one with no meat." 

Having said that, I did go into a cafe the other day to be told that they didn't have any coffee as if this was the most natural thing in the world.

Hospital update

View of the psychiatric wing from the
train.  The club is in the middle right at
the bottom under the man's closed ward
balcony.

I haven't said too much about the wards.  It is still difficult.  Three very large closed wards (80+ people each).  Two women's wards and one men's. Officially they don't refer to them as 'locked' wards.  However, earlier this week there was a bit of a panic outside one of the women's wards when we went up to pick up a group for the club.  The door was locked from the inside and staff outside were not sure if there was a member of staff inside. - Not locked?  Mmm, really.  All ended well.

The men's ward and one of the women's wards have 'incontinence sections'.  In the woman's section this is a small side ward and it is locked.  The door is very solid, but has a few gaps in the upper half where the glass panes have been taken out.  It is quite distressing trying to talk to someone we know well in the club who can just about see over the solid bit of the door and is reaching out her hand for a bit of human contact.  There is still a long way to go.

A toilet in Blaj

That individual has been in institutionalised care all her life.

Letters

I mentioned before that I can't put in any photos of individuals, but that we take loads of pictures.  We didn't manage to get to the photoshop last week in time to give one of the women the two photos that we had taken of her.  She was understandably a bit upset.  There are no mirrors on the wards and a lot of the females like to have a photograph of themselves (particularly after a bit of a beauty session).  We got the picture to her this week.  She carefully wrote a letter home - writing it out twice to make sure it was absolutely perfect with no mistakes, and then put both photos in with the letter.  It is not possible for patients to write letters on the wards.  Quite a few like to spend their time during club sessions writing letters.

By the way, the lady I mentioned in last week's posting is considerably improved this week.  We ran an extra session at the end of the day on Friday and had her and a couple of other patients (who we felt needed a bit of extra one-to-one) down to the club.  She spent most of her time cuddling a teddy bear - bruises on her face were almost totally gone.

Brand new sign outside the
hospital - it lights up at night

Culture

There are many things that are different in Romania.  However, by far the most difficult thing to come to terms with is the fact that Audi drivers in Romania are actually nice people and careful drivers.  It is a scientifically proven fact that all Audi drivers in the UK are complete tw*ts (insert a Cameron letter or another of your choice).  One actually stopped and let me cross the road today.  There is a lot of (very) bad driving in Romania - but not by people in Audis. I am not sure I will ever get used to this.

One month in Transylvania and the
first 'dracula' sighting.  Its probably
the 60 inch Plasma screen he's after

Language

I was going to write a bit about the challenge of getting to grips with the Romanian language this week, but I have blathered on long enough and the internet connection is particulary slow, so I will leave that for another time.

I think I'll just throw in a couple of extra pictures and leave it at that.  By the way, you can click on the pictures to get a full size version.  Isn't technology wonderful.

The outskirts of Tarnaveni is covered
with the remnants of disused factories

Micu-Klein's Greek Orthodox
cathedral in Blaj 1738.  I'm sure
you know he founded the first
public school in Romania

No idea what this is - I just liked
the colour scheme

The big car we traveled to Blaj in.
Almost looks like I'm taking the photo
from the middle of the train tracks doesn't it?

Charity

I nearly forgot to include a link to the charity.  If you are interested, check out the Volunteer Experiences page, there are a couple of blogs from previous volunteers as well as a number of personal recolections of the work in the club at the hospital.

www.vfmh.org.uk

Pe Curand

Paul

The big melt

Snow, snow go away...

...and it did.  However, there is talk that we could be in for some more freezing conditions and some 'big' snow very soon.

As noted before - sometimes spelt
with a hatted 'i'

Things so quickly go from this...



When it does warm up and the sun comes out it is possible to anticipate just how lovely spring is going to be.  You can almost see the apparantly dead and twig like plants and trees bursting to show their full regalia. - Sorry, got a bit Wordsworth there for a minute.  Seriously though, I am really looking forward to Spring.  Corina did the Sunday cooking today and made a wonderful Spinach dish which is traditional in this area to welcome the Spring.

To this

With the snow a bit more melted, I took a walk out of the town.  There really is some lovely countryside around this area.

Tarnaveni nestled in the valley

Hospital

This week seems to have flown by.  We had quite a long ward round on Wednesday which turned out to be extremely emotionally challenging.  We 'rescued' one of the female patients who was in a particularly bad way and spent some one-to-one time with her in the club room over lunch. Some of the patients are extremely thin and seem to do little but lay in bed all day.  You feel like you are watching them dying in front of your eyes - which is probably not to far from the truth.  Anyway, we discussed this at our regular Friday (hospital management) meeting.  Staff were concerned that we could not manage the more challenging patients in the club.  We exlained that we were very happy to work with all the patients including the most challenging.  I am happy to say that staff agreed and will allow that particular patient access to the club.

We takeloads of photos of club sessions - non-of which can go on the blog unfortunately.  Initially hospital staff said that they were only interested in 'finished products' from club sessions.  However, they all commented positively on how happy the patients looked during the club sessions - and how different to on the ward.

No idea how a picture of a police
station got into this bit

Ward Incident

Visiting the wards is harrowing, but there is always room for fun.  Kiki was chatting to a female patient who was laying in bed (in German - see previous blogs).  Two other female patients rushed over to her, one of them wrapping a lenght of toilet paper into a roll (toilet paper is a precious commodity) trying to hand it to Kiki.  The other one started to assist Kiki towards the toilet.  For some reason they thought that she was in desperate need of the loo and that there was no time to waste.  We are not 100% sure why they thought this, but think it might be the way that Kiki was walking.  I said this in German to the lady who we  was talking to, who translated it (or something like it) into Romanian.  Everybody absolutely fell about laughing.

More about money

I gave a link last week to the charity website for those of you who want to make a donation.  In fact there is a direct link, which I will give below:

http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/donate/donate_b.asp?charityid=2683

Romanian Culture

Two key things that people associate with Romania are bad driving and superstition.  Well, for the sake of brevity.  Here is an example combining the two.

The impact of this broom crashing
into the tree must have been
significant as it broke in two. No
news of the driver

The cat was unharmed, and landed in
a tree nearby

There was also a worring story regarding the mysterious demise of a flock of birds.

By pure chance I was nearby and picked up on what was going on.  It took the BBC several days to catch up on the story.

Bird 4 toBird 10, "I'm bored, shall we
all go down the pub for a few jars?
What's the worst that could happen?"

Click on the link below for the sad end to this story

After the pub

Anway that is enough for today.

Monday is February 14th.  Club has been decorated with hearts all over the place that the patients (club members) have spent a lot of effort making.

There will be a report next week.

Pe Curand

Paul

Very, very cold

Cold

Snow on frozen snow

Another week gone by.  Sorry to keep harping on about the cold, but it really is...very! Although yesterday (Saturday) it warmed up considerably to plus 2 or 3 degrees C.  Myself and Kiki walked into town in full Arctic regalia realising too late that we were overdressed and much too hot - particularly carring bags full of shopping back.  Having learned our lesson, we went out in the evening much more lightly dressed only to freeze as the temperature had dropped to minus 8 again.

I am sure this will be lovely come Spring

I think I forgot to mention that the radiators in the club don't work properly.  We have a two bar electric fire and a small fan heater.  By the end of the day things feel a bit chilly.  Hopefully all the radiators need is a good bleed.  The other day (a really cold day) the hospital water stopped completely - frozen we assume.  


Club stuff

Side view of the psychiatric wing
it goes back quite some way.

This week saw Corina (check earlier posts for who is who) revert to 3 days per week which meant that Kiki and I were on our own for Monday and Tuesday.  Biggest issue being that our Romanian language skills aren't quite up to scratch yet.  However, we managed to collect patients from the ward and take them back without getting too lost.  One of the male patients was called away during one of the club sessions to help with some manual work.  Rather than just him returning, the nursing staff send everyone from the work party back and we had a very full and chaotic club for a while - great fun.  We have tried to explain the British concept of 'organised chaos' and how we actually enjoy the creative atmosphere it creats - there is definately a cultural difference regarding this concept.

View out of the club window
we are in a semi-basement

We had a few new patients this week which was good.  As part of the Ward Round (which we do each Wednesday) Corina identifies new patients and then discusses them at the Friday meeting we have with the Nursing Heads.  I rather naively assumed that patients would be more than pleased to get off the ward and have some time in the club.  I completely underestimate what Goffman refers to as the 'total institution' and the effect it has on people.  New patients are simply fitted into the relentless schedule and initially coming down to the club is simply another very unwelcome change that is being forced upon them.  However, once they have been in the club room for a bit and had things explained, it is really nice to see the level of distress and agitation reduce significantly.

The person who did this has true
creative genius and only one hour
per week to express it.

Visiting the wards continues to be an emotional and professional struggle.  It has also become a personal one for both Kiki and myself.  It actually gets harder as we are starting to develop really lovely relationships with people during the club sessions and have started to understand their likes, dislikes, sense of humour, fears, anxieties - and everything else that makes them a normal (apart from a psychiatric label) and valued human being.  It is so difficult to then meet up with them and see them in their 'non-person', 'non-valued' environment. 


Money


I forgot to add the charity website link in the last blog, it is;
www.vfmh.org.uk

A close up of the bridge mentioned last
week.  Although it is dangerously high above
the water, at least the water is very shallow
with plenty of sharp rocks to break your fall.

The deal is that volunteers doing a 6 month placement (IE myself and Kiki at the moment) get our flights over here paid by the charity.  We also get free use of the 'volunteer house'.  We pay for our other expenses; food, travel, chocolate (lots of it in Kiki's case - none in mine) and all the other normal living costs.  Also as part of the 'package', volunteers raise 500 pounds (can't find the pound sign on this keyboard) for the charity before setting off.  That doesn't nearly cover things, so the charity is always looking to raise more funding.  Particularly important are regular monthly donations which will allow VfMH to plan into the longer term future.  If you want to feel particularly good about yourself today, go straight onto the link above and fill out a regular donation form.


No, seriously..do it now.  No don't make a cup of tea first. Seriously, it won't take long.  Brilliant. That's better.  Thank you! 


Assorted

If you look carefully at the top left
of this picture, you can see 'someone'
stealing a roast potato, unaware that
I was taking a photograph.

I have one slight complaint since I have been here.  I was told that pretty much all volunteers lose weight over their placement - something I would like to do.  I just don't see how that is possible.  Food here is both good and cheap.  One speciality which I occassionaly buy on the way to work is a type of deep fried cheese donut (it actually tastes just as good as it sounds).  Also, the house kitchen is quite well appointed so it is tempting to try out some more adventurous meals.  Kiki and I are taking it in turns to do Sunday lunch which is turning into a bit of a competition (with winning points measured in calories - lots of them).  Today I did chicken stuffed with garlic cream wrapped in italian bacon accompanied by roast potatoes, Yorkshire Pudding, Peas and Broccoli. - Because of all this Kiki has joined the local Gym and I intend to start running as soon as the snow dissapears. 

I hope this clears up the confusion
caused by last week's photo

Anyway.  No time to write about the smoking controversy, the forthcoming staff party (that we have been invited to), the handbag fight in the middle of the highstreet,  Being refused a seat (in a nightclub) at a table not marked reserved and then allowed to sit at a table marked reserved, seeing a black Mercedes doing over 100 mph down the end of the street, etc etc.






See you soon


Paul