The Black Sea and then Back to Rome

At the beach. Notice factories in the background. The woman behind the kids was often sun bathing with her top off. This is typical and unavoidable.
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35 Gypsy kids saw the sea today...most for the first time.  Beti and Hardie arranged a big tour bus and driver through connections at the city and we rounded up all the poor kids Beti could find.  Parents need to sign off on having their kids go...except most of these parents either don't care enough about their kids to sign, don't have birth certificates for their kids so their kids don't really exist, don't know how to sign or are too proud to take any help from "weathy" folks like Hardie and Beti.  One girl was left behind this morning because she had lice. These poor people think Hardie and Beti get paid based on the number of kids they gather up.  They can't imagine anyone doing this for free.  Beti is like mother Theresa.  She just can't stop trying to help these families, even thought it's a thankless job.

More of the beach
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We could not go to the main public beach because people would complain about Gypsys on the beach and the kids might steal or at least pester us for something from the vendors there. Our beach was near some industrial plants that spew junk into the sea, and there was a lot of algai and a bad odour where we first parked. We moved down the beach closer to the main area where it was  better.   Not exactly my kind of day at the beach...but these kids loved it.  Most of our kids just swam in their underwear.

One kid asking for "Posa". Asking to get their photo taken.
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The night before we had visted the poorest of the poor and handed out bread, candy and bunch of Julia's Beanie Babies we brought along ( see prior blog). There were about 30 of these very poor kids that climbed out of their rat infested mud huts with no clothes on and smiled as we gave them these gifts.

Think about those Unitarian Service Commitee TV ads and you will get the picture,  Naked kids, flys, dead animals around etc. It's been a visit none of us will ever forget. The sadness is everywhere..and it just makes you cry. Yet...the kids still smile.

Fun in the sand.
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The last day we made our trip to Bucharest with Hardi and Beti to see the People's palace built by Nicolae Ceausescu as a monument to himself.  It's the main tourist attraction to show off Romania ..and they can't even mow the lawns but let them go to weeds and dandilions.  Nicoalae tore down a mile or two of churches and buildings to build a street of apartments for his cronies.  All apartments view the palace.  This palace is aparently the 2nd largest building in the worlds, second only to the Pentagon. There are 13 stories underground.

Part of the Group.
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While in Bucharest we picked up Christine Peters (Wayne Peter's daughter) who is now volunteering to help Hardi and Beti with nutrition for the next month.  I don't think she knows what she is in for.  God bless her.  While were in Medgidia there were 2 Hutterite girls from Winnipeg ministering with Hardi and Beti too (Evelyn Mendel and Rosanne ?).   Evelyn is a very good cook (see photo of Evelyn on porch with Dawn).

After viewing the Palace we visted an outdoor museum  that was like a little village showing all the historical dwelling types in various areas of Romainia.

The People's Palace.
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Then we said good-bye to Hardi and Beti at the airport and they drove off back to the mud huts in Medgidea with Christine and Evelyn.   We stood in line for almost 2 hours to get our boarding pass.  The line was only 20 or 30 feet long.   Nice flight back to Rome on Alitalia airlines.

Brad