There's no place like home!

[Tony (NC)]

It's been a long but very rewarding week. We traveled to Moldova last weekend to deliver our Christmas gifts that we shipped over to Europe back in September. The first question everyone always asks is "Where is Moldova?" This may help a little. It's over between Romania and Ukraine down toward the Black Sea.

[attachment 42655 Map.jpg]

We got to visit the village of Blendesti which is on the Romanian border. The children in the villages are slow to warm up to strangers, but they eventually came around. Here are a couple little girls in the village.

[attachment 42651 BlendestiGirls.jpg]

Here is another little girl that came to get her Christmas gift. This little girl was SO CUTE!

[attachment 42652 BlendestiCutie.jpg]

All the children in the village got a back pack, and every family got a bag of food.

The next day we went to the orphanage in Leova. These are some of the kids we had the camp for back in August. It was really good to see them again. This little girl is Nina. Her older sister is Miss Leova 2006.

[attachment 42653 NinaampFatMan.jpg]

She was one of 442 children we got to give a back pack to. The packs had a pair of shoes, soap, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, school supplies and so on. The communist government makes it very difficult to get these things to the children. We could do much more, but they will not let us.

Last of all, this is the big holiday meal the children look forward to all year. I guess this is their "Thanksgiving feast". When these kids get a bananna, they act about like us when we dig a civil war plate.

[attachment 42654 HolidayMeal.jpg]

It was a long, hard trip. It took us 48 1/2 hours to get home. But it was worth every bit of the money and effort it took to get it done. I would do it all over again in a heart beat. Thanks for looking.

 

[gztx]

Tony, you are an inspiration.

 

[Bavaria Mike]

You are definitely a modern day hero and display a selfless interest in giving and helping!!! That is a lot of backpacks filled with goodies, nice to see you have some backing power and caring people to help out with all that. It is sad to see how some countries supress their people. Thanks for the awesome post, I enjoyed it! HH, Mike

 

[Tony (NC)]

But the real heros are the ones who live it every day. My friends in Moldova have devoted their lives to helping these kids. I'm just fortunate enough to get in on it! Here is our next project for the orphanage at Leova. They still heat with coal, and one of their furnaces blew up, so they are now down to one.

[attachment 42676 Furnace.jpg]

Coal is $200 USD/ton and they need 80 tons/month. So they are burning everything they can get their hands on. They were raking up the leaves and burning corn stalks for heat. They waste nothing. They have a natural gas line in Leova that comes from Ukraine, but they will not allow the orphanage to connect unless they come up with the funds to do it themselves. It will cost 800,000 Lei or about $62,000 USD to complete the project. They would spend that much in 4 months on coal (if they had it to spend) So as you can see, there is still much work to be done. We are going to try to have that heating system replaced by next year.

By the way, we got to spend a night in Germany this past week. We missed our connection in Frankfurt so we spent a very nice evening in the Hotel Post. We took a short walk to get something to eat and got a much needed nights rest. Too bad I didn't have a detector and a headlamp!

 

[Mike T]

After seeing what other folks are looking forward to as a holiday feast it validates what I was already feeling toward most Americans arrogant sense of high food consumption. I was in Safeway Market yesterday, while in the middle of the aisle I noticed two 300lb. women in electric wheelchairs approach from opposite ends , neither one wanted to give way I barely slipped by and I looked back and they were banging into each other trying to push the other aside, it was surreal and I thought is this what its come down to? eat until your ankles can't support you than go electric?

 

[Jackpine Savage]

n/t

 

[Bavaria Mike]

Good luck with replacing the oven! A work colleague has been supporting an orphanage in Czech for about 15 years, they have made a huge difference. I remember they donated 5000 Euros cash two years ago, they completely renovated the attic of the orphanage with the money and made many needed rooms. They have a lot of volunteer support at that orphanage. Too bad you couldn't do some kind of raffle to make some cash for the cause. If you get the chance, you should take your detector with sometime, nothing wrong with a few hours of fun for yourself. HH, Mike

 

[deerman]

n/t

 

[Bill Ladd]

n/t

 

[Tony (NC)]

n/t

 

[Anonymous]

n/t