Sweet Sleep Journeys

The list says its my turn to give you thoughts of my day/week/whatever I want to do with my "bloc" time. So here it goes.

So I stick out a little bit here in moldova. The kids are all skinny as rails, on average much shorter than me, and their heads are shaved. I am not skinny as a rail, I am 6'3, and my hair hasn't been cut in many many months. So first we must get over appearance differences. And then there is the whole language thing. I can now say "fart" in Romanian and something to the effect of "whatever...I don't care" in Russia, you know the important things to know when traveling. I find myself speaking with an accent when talking to them, but I know deep down that English with an accent is still English and they can't understand.

I have learned a lot about myself this week. Mainly I've learned what tools Scott is not good at using. The list includes most of them. I bend about a third of the nails I try to hammer and I haven't cut myself with the saw, but I gave it up shortly after trying knowing that I liked my fingers more than the ability to tell people I am good with tools. I made myself bleed using the drill, not badly, but the fact that I broke skin tells you how handy I am with that as well. The good news is I can lift things.

Today I worked with Jack and Cergio in a different building than the one we have been working in. We went in to tighten beds and were asked to fix one small thing. Then we fixed one more small thing. Well, we played the just one more thing game for about 12 rounds. She was very grateful though. I was glad that she thought we all did equal amounts of works and had equal skill levels. It made me feel good, regardless of the fact it was a lie. We burned through most of the day working for Ms. Maria. We knew we had to go rip up a floor in the next building, but she just kept bringin stuff. We talked about that, but I figured hey, Jesus fed 5000 with some bread and a few fish, surely we can finish all of this small stuff and rip up a floor with his help. Well he sent help in the form of adolescent orphans from Moldova. We had 30 minutes before it was time to leave when we made it to the room we were to destroy. We figured we would move the stuff out and rip up a few boards to see what we were working with. Once the boys got there however, it was as if they finally found what they were created to do. I believe they were put on this earth to destroy rotten floors in orphanages. That's what they did, and they did it with a smile on their face. They were talking the whole time and I didn't understand a word of it, but in my mind I think it was something to the effect of "Guys, we are really good at this. When we get real jobs, I hope its ripping up floors because we are quite possibly the best at this in all of the land." And they would be right.

We went to the camp where they live after lunch to watch them play soccer against the prosecutors of moldova. Its not only a good team name, its what they do for a living....They are lawyers. I realized that what I was watching was a Disney movie waiting to happen. The raggamuffin soccer team of orphans playing the government men who spend more on a car than the kids will make in ten years of fulltime manual labor. All the other orphans are standing around cheering them on as their friends play a team of men twice their age. They are playing a game they love, not for money, but for pride (and if they win they get a TV, but that wouldn't be part of the movie). I'm thinking mighty ducks meets soccer, where everything is super "euro".

I've enjoyed being here and I've enjoyed especially a translator named Dan. He is kid my age who is just very funny and nice. I enjoy our talks and (right now I feel like I am kevin costner in Dances with Wolves writing in my journal) hope they will continue through the end of the week. I got caught looking a ta girl out of the van window today, but I noticed he was looking too and immediately diverted it to him. He knew he was busted and just said, "I thought it might be my cousin" We all laughed and then he informed us that it was not his cousin afterall with a slight grin on his face. I'm glad he's my new friend.