Summer is here, is it?

Kittens, work and weather

Summer is now officially with us.  Weather in this part of Romania is very changeable.  Temperatures can soar up to the mid 30's then dive down below 20 - usually with the most spectacularly loud thunderstorm in between.  However, when it is good it really is very good.



The 'club tree' is now covered
in butterflies to celebrate
Summer

I wanted to try and give an idea of a day in the club in this blog as I didn't mention it much at all last week after the glorious trip to Sibiu.  By the way, for anyone interested in more information on Saxon Romanians there is a DVD film called, 'Der geköpfte Hahn' which covers the struggles of being both Romanian and German (IE Saschen) during the second world war.  Most of it is shot in and around Sibiu and Medias.  - There are also a couple of bonus documentaries about German Transylvania which are worth watching.  However, it is in German only I'm afraid.

 

Kittens

Well, kitten anyway.  Olivia, specifically.  She continues to eat us out of house and home and is growing fit, strong and healthy.  She has had her jabs and has started to venture outside.  We do have one offer of a home - from someone we trust - however we are not 100% sure that the location is good.  She has become a bit of a living metaphor for the whole experience here - I am sure you can work that one out!  Just a short video of her this week.  Her three favourite things are eating (you've seen that), running amok (you've seen that too), and falling asleep (here we go...)

Club stuff

I thought I would try and describe a few short vignettes from some of today's activities - not sure if this will work or not.

A train playing hide and seek

First session today one individual, who is normally extremely lively, very demanding and occasionally challenging, was reported to be sleeping and not coming to the club.  We challenged this and he eventually came down with us.  What a difference from all the previous weeks we have worked with him.  His eyes were bloodshot with eyelids drooping, his speech strangely higher pitched and he was stumbling as he walked.  He normally chatters non stop, including the phrase, "...and I'm never coming back." (referring to the hospital).  He always sits down to write a letter to his mum. - He has no official identity having been found severely brain damaged through an accident and brought to the hospital where he has remained ever since.  No address, no family.  His letter consist of wavy lines of scribble, with the same for the address on the envelope which he posts (proudly) in the new bright-red club postbox.  I have seen him smash several windows up on the ward and knock another patient clean off his feet just to get him out of his way.  Today he couldn't swipe a fly.  I understand that there is a ward of tightly packed beds with 60 patients and that it is difficult to maintain control with such a lively individual.  I am not sure what has happened to instigate such a change (although I have a pretty good idea).  It is heartbreaking to think that this might be permanent - I will let you know over the next next weeks.  Here's a quick (unrelated?) link. Chemical Cosh Drugs. It is never the answer.

Quaint Romanian Houses

In a later female session, there is a delightful older lady (80+) who often has severe memory issues and shows signs of advanced dementia.  She is a terrible (or should that be 'good') flirt with the most beautiful and piercing blue eyes you have ever seen.  A lot of the sessions are spent with her drifting in and out of 'the moment' - often she will bury her head in her hands for the whole session.  Today, she gripped my arm tightly as we walked to the club and chatted (albeit very short sentences) in Romanian, English and German.  She tried flirting with every male open patient we passed.  We then had a lovely session watching a 'Mr Bean' DVD and she asked me to paint her nails - first time ever.  A couple of weeks ago, she went for a wander with me in tow insisting that she was going back home.  We stood outside a workshop door for several minutes with her getting more upset because it was locked.  When someone opened the door and she saw it was full of tools she finally allowed me to take her back to the ward.  It was lovely to have such a positive session with her today.



No idea what goes on inside
this building - its a secret

Fruit and veg is seasonal and good

In another session we have a very lively man in his early 60's who is as fit as a fiddle and seems to have led a very adventurous life.  It is likely that he could have bipolar disorder. He was in a great mood today and launched into one of his epic adventure stories - told at 1,000,000 miles per hour with plenty of enthusiasm and accompanying actions and roars of laughter. Unfortunately my Romanian is not nearly good enough, but see if you can piece together a story from the following bits I  did understand.  We were talking about dogs..."Big dog, German...tennis ball...milking a cow...tennis raquet...cow ran off...tennis ball (again)...tall church tower...I ran very fast...rolled over and over (this bit was acted)...fell a long way...landed on back of head...not dead...teacher...in his 60's...drank a lot...right on the back of my head..not dead." - I am trying to persuade him to write a book.  Other stories have included stowing away on ships, foreign prisons and motorcycle rides to challenge Steve McQueen in the Great Escape.  Wonderful stuff.

Sadly, I only have 6 weeks left here.  Patients are starting to ask about when Kiki and I will be going.  It is going to be so difficult saying goodbye.

A sunny Summer day in a lovely
country

Pe Curand

Paul

Sibiu - Lovely

Out and about again

Sibiu - does what it says on the tin!

Most of this week's blog is dedicated to the lovely city of Sibiu (or Hermannstadt as I think I should really call it). Kiki, Corina and I spent an evening and the following day there.  It truly is a delightful place with enough culture, arts, quirks and streetlife to satisfy almost anyone.

Goran and some of his orchestra in
Sibiu the other evening - brilliant

SIbiu was on the list of places to visit, but the initial draw was to see the amazing Goran Bregovic and his Weddings and Funerals Orchestra.  The man is a musical genius and I just love his attitude towards what he does for a living (for those of you that know me, the fact that he studied philosophy and sociology and then played bass in a band does not influence my thinking on this at all - although, of course, it does make him a better person).  If you don't know him, check out the films 'Underground' and 'Black Cat, White Cat' for which he wrote the music - the orchestra play a large part in the films as themselves.  He also did the music for the Johnny Depp film 'Arizona Dream' youtube video advertising the concert .  Concert was outdoors in the main Sibiu square - and the weather was perfect. Great fun, great crowd; and yes, he did include 'Death Car' and finish with 'Kalashnikov.

Sibiu, or Hermannstadt as the Germans call it

Probably the nicest town (City really) in Transylvania that I have visited so far.  I do have a soft spot for the Saschen (Saxon) towns, and this is one of them.  So, quite a few pictures this week as I didn't include many last week.

Main Sibiu street in the evening
pedestrianised and great for
people watching

Main square - day after the concert





If you like stuff like this, you'll
love Sibiu.  If you don't, try
Slough - I did; once.



The yellow triangular design
is obviously highly symbolic





A very nice building on the square



Fortified Wall

Every Stannah salesman's
dream

It is worth looking in every Nook
and Cranny - I found this quaint
little house in a Nook in the middle
of town



Bridge of lies - build at 1 minute to 7.



Me and Kiki - far too early in the morning



Bits and Pieces

I tried to use my emailed Argos
discount voucher here - but
they wouldn't have any of it!

I am not totally sure what this means,
but I think it means you are not
allowed to do anything.

Anyway, not many words this week.  But it is a couple of days early!

Olivia is still doing fine - she gets her jabs this week.

Next week will be more hospital news.

Pe Curand

Paul

Green and Pleasant Land

Boy can it rain here!

The clue should be in the very high embankments on each side of every ditch and river.  Plus the fact that the countryside is so incredibly green and things seem to grow right in front of your very eyes.  The sporadic, but intense, thunderstorms were replaced by constant torrential rain for the whole weekend (I exaggerate - it eased off a bit on Sunday).  I had planned to go to Sibiu and/or Medias over the weekend, but didn't.  So this blog consists of a few old photos that I haven't used yet, some pictures of plants and a video of Olivia being sweet.

Next week should include a report on a concert I am going to in Sibiu.  I am very excited about this.  A phenomenally talented and prolific artist - brilliant fun too.

Green stuff

Apparently, these little green dots
will turn into grapes which can be
eaten or turned into wine. Massive
vine in the front garden.

I was wondering why people didn't seem to bother about cutting the grass on the verges and other places.  In the UK the council are out with their machines ensuring everything is kept short.  Hospital grounds were looking a bit disgraceful.  Reason is simple.  Everything is seen as a hay crop.  They really don't waste anything here.  Very skilled people (including some patients) wielding massive scythes soon turned impenetrable grass into giant haystacks.  The garden in the house is looking great too.  No idea what is growing there, but rabbit man (see previous blog) and his wife have been working very hard to cultivate something that looks good.

Do you recognise any of this stuff?
sweetcorn? lettuce?  beans?
Back garden

The general countryside is looking quite healthy too with crops springing up all over the place.  Every garden is full of growing things.

Countryside.  Mostly green.

There are also greenhouses (giant industrial sized ones) in the hospital grounds, but they don't seem to be being used to their full potential.

Hospital and Club news

You have possibly noticed by now that I often do not refer directly to some events or aspects of the hospital.  This is a public blog for friends, relatives, anyone else interested in the charity http://www.vfmh.org.uk/ and, well, anyone else really.  It is important to keep a positive relationship going with the hospital, so I don't want to use this blog as a medium to rant on about things.  Therefore, you will need to read between the lines a bit (if you haven't already).

They have a legal situation in many 'Eastern' countries, including Romania, called guardianship.  This is a controversial measure whereby a persons legal and human rights can be signed way through a very non-transparent court process - you become a non-person; invisible.  An organisation called Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC) has recently (April 2011) been instrumental (after a 5 year campaign) in getting the guardianship laws changed in Russia.  Go to the VfMH website and look under the 'links' section if you want more on MDAC and the guardianship laws.  I don't know how many patients at the hospital are detained under guardianship, but would not be surprised if it was a significant number.  In the UK things are better - or are they? Autistic man wrongly deprived of liberty .

Coming Home

This should be my last month in Romania.  However, I have extended things by 1 month so will be returning in the earlier part of August.  I got my flight details through the other day.  The return is all getting very real now.  On the one hand, I am really looking forward to getting back to the UK - seeing friends and family (getting a job!) etc.  On the other hand, I can't believe that I won't be going into the club and working with such wonderful people who I have grown to absolutely love.  I am feeling truly split.  I know that Kiki is feeling the same.  More reflections on this in future blogs.

Olivia

Just a short video of me and Olivia this week to show how even-more-cute she has become.  What can I say about this video? - i love cats - i just want to hug all of them - and I want them in a basket - and I want little bow ties - and I want them to be on a rainbow...(youtube fans will understand this).

Next week

Hopefully a report on Sibu plus a write up on what I am sure will be a brilliant concert.  - Assuming the online ticket system worked, the bus arrives when it is supposed to and the room in Sibiu is really booked.  Here are some old photos.

Local nightclub at its peak.  Honestly,
it was full - I just asked everyone to
get out of shot so I could see the
club properly

Camping down for the afternoon.
They drove through town
lovely sight

Self explanatory

Pe Curand

Paul

Dreaming Aloud!

Dreaming Allowed?

Someone once said that the only difference between an optimist and a pessimist was that an optimist believes that they live in the best of all possible worlds and that a pessimist knows that they live in the best of all possible worlds.  I am not sure which of these I am, but I do dream of a world where the most vulnerable in society are not treated with cruelty, contempt and total disrespect by others simply because they think they can get away with it.

This has been quite a difficult week.  Have a look at the link below and watch the video.  It makes for uncomfortable viewing, but I think it is important for people to see it.  Unfortunately the BBC's iPlayer doesn't work here so I will have to wait until I am back in the UK to see the full version. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13617196 .  Couldn't happen here?  We all think that, but it does; again and again.

Patrick Worth, founding chair of the Canadian Joint Task Force on Deinstitutionalisation (2010) wrote thus:

“Institutions deny you a life - they take away your ability to know and connect to your family and your community - they deny you the opportunity for friendships. Institutions take away the ability to have responsibility for your own actions. An institution is a place where people are not permitted to dream.”

If they are not permitted to dream, maybe we need to dream for them.  Maybe just dreaming is not enough?

Weather

Continues to be brilliant.  However, the clouds roll in quickly and 9 times out of 10 bring heavy rain and storms.  The video below was taken today out of the back window - luckily the clouds disappeared with no rain.

Bike Adventures



You might need to click and enlarge
to spot the dreaded no bikes sign



Included for two reasons. 1, it's all
downhill to Tirnaveni from here. 2,
you can see how far up we are from
the flat underside of the clouds.



I decided to cycle to Medias (should be a diacritic under the last "s" which makes it pronounces as Mediash).  After about 15 km of totally uphill cycling there was a sign indicating that bikes were not allowed.  This was just at the point when I left Mures County and entered Sibiu County.  To be fair, the quality of the road became much better in Sibiu so maybe they simply didn't want any messy squashed cyclists on their roads.  There is an alternative route, but I didn't have time to double back and add an hour to my journey time.  On the plus side I freewheeled 15 km back home - very refreshing in 30 degrees C heat (that's 86 degrees F for non-metric people).

Oliver Olivia

Again, as I write this, Olivia is bouncing around attacking everything in her path (including my feet!) and being a typical 6 week old kitten.  Very healthy and very strong.  We have had one offer of a home already - but we do need to check it out properly.  We bumped into her vet in town the other day.  "Oh, I haven't seen you for ages", he said,"I'd assumed he (she) had died".  Vaccinations are due in two weeks.

Two weeks old.  Blind and  deaf.  Broken leg, wounded
stomach and hernia from being thrown out of a car and run
 over.  Wet cold and hungry - very hungry

Six weeks old.  Running, jumping, biting, scratching.  Oddly
fashionable in fake fur - and absolutely adorable.  Still hungry!

Art for Art's sake

Click on these to make them bigger.  Some of my favorite pieces of artwork from this week.

Have a good week
Te Pup

Paul