Saturday 24th July 2010

What we did today...

The day started off at home doing admin type stuff, paying bills, bank bits n bobs and the like. Luckily a lot of this is done online nowadays unlike the employment papers which still requires us to drag round 4 different offices every month :-(

We then went to Cobila to the farm where we did some work in the garden, its all growing quickly now the castrovets (small cucumbers) seem to appear by magic overnight the tomatoes are ripening and we are on our second sow of salad. After weeks of rain we are now into the second week of high temperatures and one of the daily tasks is watering the garden and orchard! Luckily we get lots of help from the families in the village. The fruit trees were weeded around and the barrels of water for the garden filled with the pump for use in the evening. We do this to allow the water to reach air temperature before putting it on the plants and prior tothe pump it was all drawn by hand in buckets from the well.

Next stop was a quick visit to the apartment to shower and then pick up Camelia and her mum to do a medical run out to one of the small villages north of us. On the way we visited Roxanna and her mum, one of the families we meet at the Downs Syndrome Centre, they are busy trying to repair their house after the floods, they had over a metre of water and silt through the house and they now have no floors.

Next the medical surgery, this surgery was held in a tiny Pentecostal church and served about twenty people who could not make it into town nor afford the treatment. Blood pressure and sugar levels are monitored and if required an appointment with a doctor arranged. The folks in the village are so grateful for this simple service. The charity supports this work with drugs, paracetamol, aspirin, vitamins, ibuprofen etc. as well as transport and pill counting!

above: Outside the church
The church surgery
Entrance to the Container Village - Dorohoi




After we returned to Dorohoi we visited the “container village” near to the fire station where 80 families made homeless by the recent floods are being housed. The containers are fairly basic, a bit like site offices you might see in building projects. They have a toilet and shower block and an onsite medical facility. When we visited the temperature was still in the low 30’s and to say these units were hot would be an understatement. The children have no play area and many of them have had their heads crudely shaved to keep them cool, clean and free from nits adding a sinister air to the whole area. Some help is coming from the charities in the area and we are planning to go back and do some activities in about a weeks’ time. Above: Entrance to the temporary container housing - Dorohoi

That’s about it for today, time to eat and watch some English television, big thank-you to everyone who makes this happen whether it’s through donation, prayer, gifts cash whatever, noapte bună şi Dumnezeu să binecuvânteze.

Rain Rain and more Rain

The clean up after the floods continues and is hampered by further thunderstorms and heavy rain. In Dorohoi houses which were beyond repair have already been demolished as they were unsafe. People have been given emergancy accomodation in container size cabins which have been put in another area of town. Many are still in shock and coming to terms with all they have lost-family, friends, homes, outbuildings, fences, possesions, livestock, businesses & crops. Aid is being distibuted in the form of food & clothing by many different agencies. But we know the hardest times are yet to come. the knock on affect of loss of jobs from businesses which cannot recover, poor crops so less food to feed the animals or familes over the winter. All that in an ecomomy where many are already unemployed and being stretched by increases in prices, (VAT up by 5% this month) and reductions in pensions and allowances.

This afternoon the sun came out for a while and the children at Cobila came up to play at the cottage. It was lovely to spend some time with them and I know it gave the parents time to do some clearing up. One of the families had been busy all day helping their mother clear out her house which is across the road from the Cobila Hands of Hope houses.

floods

Yesterday we were out to visit families we know who had been affected by the floods. The water levels are going down and the full extent of the damage can be seen and SMELT. The silt and debris of possessions, rubbish and dead animals is devastating. Many of the houses had had flood water up to 1.7metres and these are single story dwellings. Everything wrecked and most families here do not have insurance. Everywhere in the areas we visited people were trying to salvage what they could with teams from the army and voluntary agencies helping. Aid is coming in from government, churches and charities. But this disaster has affected so many people were already living on the edge and with destruction and loss of crops the consequences will be felt for many months to come.

Floods in Dorohoi

We had a good drive back across Romania on Tuesday. As we got closer to Dorohoi we began to see the affects of the floods. Bridges damages, huge areas along side the Siret river flooded, many homes damaged and crops destroyed. On Monday night the familes at Cobila had been evacutated by boat, but as the waters subsided on tuesday they had gone home to inspect damaged and start to clean up. we stopped there on our way home as as we arrived another thunderstorm and more torrential rain. we had congregated in our old cottage behind the Hands of Hope homes, slightly elevated and not damaged. The water levels started to rise again and it was decided that the mums and children should move out and stay with us in our apartment in town and the men stayed in our cottage. We were so pleased that the power and water were back on in our apartment and we could let them all have a hot bath and find dry and clean clothes.

The flood waters had reached up to window height in some of the houses, chickens drowned and crops damaged.

Dorohoi town also had areas of devastation with 6 people drowned, one of those was the 15 year old son of a familiy we had built a home for in 2008.

On Wednesday & Thursday Chris and I were busy working along with many other charities who operate in Dorohoi to distribute food, water and dry clothes. i have also had our washing machine on the go washing clothes which were soaked by the flood waters. The clean up continues and repairs will have to be made to some of the floors and doors in the houses.