Dr Bob Ellis visited Romania in september 2005
A moving moment.
When a gift of paper and pen bought a child to tears.
This September my wife Val and I visited Convoy Aid’s refuge in Bivolari Romania. We went there knowing that these people lived in poverty. But what we didn’t know was what poverty really meant. We should have guessed.
Our first night’s sleep in a roadside inn was like a camping trip, flies everywhere, damp beds, strange toilet, and very little water. The staff work sixteen hours a day, six days a week and at three o’clock in the morning, in spite of the language barrier, they pored out their woes to me. Not enough money to clothe their kids for school; husbands who had given up and turned to drink or just left to work abroad and never came back; the hard labour needed to find just the basic necessities of life like food and water; the list went on and on.
But our first real understanding came when one of God’s children found a tear forming in his eyes when the English strangers offered him the gift of paper. He was Mihi, one of our Godchildren that Rod and Gabby so kindly introduced us to through Convoy Aid, the Romanian charity they so devotedly run.
Carmen and Kristi, the couple who run Convoy Aid in Bivolari, made us very welcome. They provided us with accommodation and Carmen introduced us to our Godchildren. We took many photos. When we look now we see happy people but don’t be fooled, beneath those smiles lays a deeply embedded sorrow.
Men talk about the difficulties their government faces in trying to bring some semblance of normality to their country; they know their plight is going to be very hard to change. The gift of a tool to make their work easier is taken in an embarrassed awkwardness.
Mother’s eyes light up when they see a bag of basic foodstuffs. Rice, sugar, tinned or rolled meats are very hard to get when you have no money, even for clothes or beds. Children, eyes to the floor or wide open in a deep shyness, seeing the gulf between what we have and their own state, are helpless in the face of it all.
But and it’s a big but, how they work to make a life for themselves. Men and women toil all day long in the fields using tools from a bygone era to till the fields. Nothing goes to waste, scythes are used to cut the grass for drying and using in the winter, mud bricks or wattle and daub to build their shelters, wood is gathered to provide warmth in the coming winter, the list goes on. Fruit from the roadside and gardens is gathered and stored wherever it can be and homegrown vegetables are tended with loving care. We saw one lady who, each morning let out her cow and then spent the next half hour or so chasing it away from the vegetable crop until it knew that vegetables were not to be eaten, yet.
The children don’t have it easy either, a toy is a joy to receive and a sweet, well that is luxury itself but you might have to show them how to take off the paper to eat it. They go to school for half the day but can’t work properly without paper and pen which is very expensive. The rest of the day and all day Saturday they toil in the fields with their parents, often shoeless and in rags. Covered in the dust of the fields their parents bathe them with pails of water drawn from the local well.
It’s a hard life but they face it with courage and determination. Convoy Aid help in this task, they bring in the basic necessities of life in spite of difficulties, too many to mention here. Romania is a beautiful country and yes it was an experience not to miss but what an eye opener, we didn’t know we had it so good.
OCTOBER 7 2005 |
