After a lot of hard work, sweat and - yes - even tears, we have published a book containing 64 activities for use outdoors with children. The book is designed primarily for use by therapists and can also be helpful to parents, youth leaders and teachers. The activities vary in their challenge from sitting against an oak tree visualising a secret entrance to swinging on a rope across a ditch. Group challenges include building stepping stones across a small river and getting your whole team from one point of the forest to another without being seen.

Each activity has a therapeutic theme and purpose. The book is useful for building children's confidence and self-esteem as well as for enabling them to express feelings that may have been bottled up for years.

There are plenty of safety warnings in the book so that the facilitator can ensure maximum safety for children. Equipment is kept to a minimum and many of the activities can be done in a nearby woods or even a park.

We have written the book partly because we believe children need this kind of thing and partly to help our therapeutic work in Romania. Here we are developing play therapy and psychotherapy for children in poverty as well as children who have been abandoned, abused or traumatised. This is all very new here, but desperately needed.

If you want a copy of the book Therapeutic Adventure Game: 64 activities for therapy outdoors (price £10 plus £3 p&p)please contact us at romaniaretreat@hotmail.com All money from the sale of this book goes directly to the work here.

Roger & Christine Day

 

We're thinking about Christmas here in Romania. We're getting really busy with workshops and organising presents and things for friends and family in the UK. It's more difficult as Christmas isn't quite the big event it is in the West. The shops don't sell many Christmas items of the quality we are used to. Even Christmas paper is difficult to get hold of. Thank goodness for internet shopping.

The one big family occasion in all villages in Romania is the 'cutting of the pig' ceremony. The family members all return to their villages for it. A fattened pig is slaughtered in front of the house in a ritual way and then butchered so that the family has lots of fresh meat for Christmas and the New Year. People even have their own manual machines to make sausages. What is left is smoked to last the bitter winter from January to March.

We were privileged last week to visit families in poverty and bring some cheer and laughter to children (between 7 and 11 children in each family) who won't be getting much in the way of presents this year. Some of them are young carers who look after dying or grieving parents. We hope to offer some play therapy to these lovely children in the New Year.

For the well-off children here they have a small present left in their shoe on 6 December by Mosi Nicolai (Old Nicholas) and then another present at Christmas from Mosi Craciun (Santa Claus). There is one day off work when most people go to church and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. Then it's back to work as usual.

It's so easy for those of us from the West to get busy at this time of year and forget what Christmas is all about.

Have a peaceful Christmas with your family and a New Year of family fun and play.

We just got back from a couple of days in another city, doing training for carers at a home for 12 children aged 5 to 12, all of whom have lived on the streets in the past.  The training went really well. The carers were inspired to help build the children's very low self-esteem.

We also got to spend time with the children. They are so hungry for attention and affection. Last evening we had 14 of them (including the house parent's two children) wanting us to give them personal attention all at once. It got a bit chaotic. At times we wished we were 14 people instead of just two. They are always so grateful for anything you do for them, however small.

They have material things as a result of the charity. What is missing for them is often years of lack of loving care.

These children wanted to talk. They asked us why we were taking the photograph and what we were doing. Then they were satisfied. 

I thought after nearly two years living in Romania I understood a little about culture. Yesterday I was going round the corner to the post office when a young girl (about 10 or 11) said the polite greeting to me, the usual one from a child to an adult: 'Saru mana' (literally 'I kiss your hand'). I replied: 'Buna ziua' ('Good day'). Then she wanted to engage me in conversation.

At that point I panicked and quickly hurried off to do my errand. I am so used to the UK culture, where talking to children in such circumstances would be viewed with great suspicion. I reacted with scare to this girl's polite desire for conversation.

Later I talked to a younger Romanian colleague who explained the unwritten rules about talking to children you meet in the street. It is fine as long as the child initiates the conversation. It is of course not OK to start talking to a child or to invite a child to your house without the permission of the parents.

Two other areas I've noticed are different from the West. Children in the UK are taught not to accept edible treats or rides in a car from a stranger. Here, very young children ask for food and money from the cars stopping at railway crossings. Children as young as eight or nine sometimes hitchhike for rides in strangers' cars in the villages rather than having to walk several miles to and from school.

Oh, well, we live and learn.

Roger

Typical Romanian house with ornate metal gates

Today we helped the young disabled boy we visit every Wednesday afternoon. His mother and his grandmother care for him between them. It is much more than a full time job, even though his mother works full time to earn enough to feed the family. He has no education at all and there is nothing in the way of practical support in Romania for children with disabilities.

Today they asked if they could go out to the local market and leave the boy with us. We were delighted. For the first time, we produced poster paints and pieces of wallpaper to do colouring. He absolutely loved his first experience of this kind of paint. You can imagine, just like a tiny child, this big 11-year-old got paint everywhere - all over us, the doorposts, the bathroom, the floor, his own clothes. But he was so proud of his pictures. He showed them to his mother and grandmother when they got back, laughing and waving his hands in the air.

We are so privileged to work with this young boy.

Here is Roger with our daughter Rachel on the way to her wedding. What a day it was! After 26 years our daughter got married. All three other children were very involved. Our oldest daughter was chief bridesmaid. Our two sons were ushers. Something like this makes all the hard work of parenting worthwhile.

Here we both are (Christine and Roger) together with Rachel in the church just before she walked down the aisle. Doesn't she look beautiful?

 

This is Rachel, our second daughter, with Joe, our new son-in-law. Roger read this poem as part of his speech. It was written by someone especially for the occasion:

As was intended

Life is short but love is longer,

And time serves but to make it stronger.

Such love as we might hope to know

You have, with your whole lives, to grow.

Were it ever in doubt, justice is proved,

Our belief is restored, our faith renewed.

That justice exists in ample measure,

We know, because you're both together.

The heavens agreed, the stars aligned,

You met the man you were to find.

How lucky, but how deservedly so,

That fortune prevailed, and Rachel found Joe.

 For many parents of young children it may seem a far off dream that such a small child could one day become an adult and get married. What we have learned is that what you input into that child - time, love, energy, praise, encouragement - will prepare your child for a successful adult life. The years roll by very fast. Enjoy each stage to the full with your children because they will soon grow up.

 

We were struck by lightning while we were writing a blog last Sunday night. We were OK but the modem and a card in the computer were destroyed. It took nearly a week to get back on line. Such is life in Romania! Here goes again.

We have reached agreement with a major charity to help children from families in poverty with their emotional problems. This is a very exciting opportunity. The charity helps 150 families a month. We reckon half the children are affected emotionally by poverty, neglect, abuse and parental problems such as alcoholism.  

We also went to the Oradea Flower Festival. It was great to see so many children and young people taking part with such enthusiasm (see the picture). We spend a lot of time with children who have emotional problems. It is great to see children (who are Romania's future) so normal and healthy!

 

Yesterday we travelled two hours into the Romanian mountains to spend time with an 11-year-old boy with disabilities. We have visited him every week for the past 20 months. He lives in our town but is on holiday now. It's a highlight of our week. He doesn't go to school or get any education (apart from what we give him). We spent the morning teaching him to throw a ball in approximately the right direction. We threw it very carefully so he caught it. Christine reminded him of his colours, just like a two- or three-year-old.

In the afternoon we went for a walk. It wasn't very far but he struggled and was exhausted after walking for 10 minutes. Roger had to hold him up so he didn't fall over. (They look like a couple of drunks staggering along.) He loves to play, and so do we! His mother said to us yesterday that he was bursting with excitement when he knew we were coming. It's such a privilege to make a difference in his life. 

 

Sometimes it's very frustrating helping families here in Romania. The old view that the father is the boss of the home and the wife and children cower to his command still seems popular. This might work where the children are relatively problem free. The difficulty comes when the children have been adopted or traumatised or have suffered in other ways. These are the kind of children we help here. The reaction from the father, instead of understanding the emotional difficulties, is sometimes: 'You conform to what I want or get out of this family.'

We struggle sometimes. It is a part of the culture that we find difficult to deal with. But we didn't live for years under communism so how can we fully understand?