Puppet shows.

On Tuesday I found myself in a kindergarten in Petroșani, watching a group of Romanian teenagers perform a puppet show of Little Red Riding Hood for a room full of fascinated children. 

An IMPACT club had decided that they wanted to do a theater project, telling old children's stories to younger kids in order to keep traditions alive.  The club is afraid that kids today are not learning the games and stories of their childhood, that they're spending too much time inside on the internet instead of reading and playing in the parks, and they want to help change that... hence the puppet show.

So there it was: a half hour of hilarity, watching kindergartners wave goodbye to departing characters and stand up and yell when the Big Bad Wolf ate Grandma (I really was afraid they would start a riot -- that was a lot of angry little children!)  And at the end they all applauded wildly and stared adoringly at the group of teenagers who had come to spend an afternoon at their school, showing them they were worth paying attention to.  It was adorable to watch them smile at each other shyly.  It was exciting to hear the IMPACT club, buoyed by this success, talk about their next theater project -- a project to teach about the dangers of drug use.  And it was just fun.  Just plain old fun.