Parenting practice.

Ordinarily my life in the summer is down in Lupeni (this is Kelly writing), while Jack's is up on Straja at camp.  But last week I got to join him on the mountain for a week of camp!  It was a crowded week with 95 kids coming, so Jack and Ilie were looking for some extra help.

My group was comprised of 15 kids between the ages of 5 and 10.  Kids under 8 aren't really supposed to come to VIAȚA, as they're too small to be able to do many of the ropes course activities and too young to keep up with the pace of the schedule, but our group had mainly come from a Montessori school in Bucharest, and they sent the whole class.  It quickly became apparent that dealing with the youngest kids was going to present a challenge... but it was also a really fun, adorable, and amusing week. 

One of our kids in particular, a 7-year-old named Zeno, was really, really homesick.  Every few hours we'd see his lower lip start to quiver, and within a few minutes he was wailing, "I miss my mom!  I miss my dad!  I miss my baby brother!  I miss my cat!  I miss my bed!"  If we let his cries go on too long (and particularly if it was close to dinnertime when they were all hungry and tired), he'd set off a chain reaction in the other young kids, and soon we'd have a whole choir of wailing children, sniffing and hugging their stuffed animals as my co-counselor and I raced around trying to dispense comfort.

Zeno slogged through the week fluctuating between happy and sad.  We hit our low point one day at lunch when, tears in his eyes, he looked up from his untouched plate and said to me, in his hilariously-adult vocabulary, "I am going to walk home to Bucharest.  I implored my dad to come get me but he didn't, and I can't resist any longer.  I will start walking and sleep with a boulder as a pillow if I have to... but I can't stay here any more!"  I tried to reason with him at first: "Zeno, don't you think it would be better to wait until the bus comes to get you on Friday?  Then you will be home on Friday night.  But if you start walking it will take you at least a month to get to Bucharest, and you won't be home until August!"  He shook his head.  "I don't care," he said.  "At least I will be on my way home to a beautiful place and leaving behind this camp.  It's the worst camp in the world."  I nodded and said okay, but pointed out that he'd better eat his lunch so he had enough energy for the long walk to Bucharest, since this might be the last meal he'd get in a while.  (Yes, a shameless way to convince a kid to eat, I know... but it worked!)  Once the food hit his belly he started to feel better and soon enough he was out playing with the other kids, happy for a few more hours.

Our group's week at camp was perhaps less educational than VIAȚA usually is.  Yes, we got our kids up to the ropes course, and had a few debriefs about working together and not yelling at each other, but for the most part our goal was just to let them have fun and feel loved.  But there were tons of beautiful moments in individual conversations with kids -- about loneliness, about being bullied, about missing people you love, about being brave, about not letting other people's opinions bother you, about being nice to new kids, and on and on.  These were great moments.

But for me, the biggest victory came on Friday afternoon, when Zeno stepped onto the bus, grinned at me, and said, "I get to go home and see my family now!  And I am going to tell them that this is the coolest camp in the world."

Heat wave.

It's hot here.  Like, mid-90s.  Which, as a kid who grew up in Iowa, isn't strange for the summer -- but for these mountains, it's blazing.

Thankfully big concrete apartment blocks keep relatively cool in the summer, and the forests offer shady relief as soon as you step under their green, leafy canopy.  But mostly, people are wilting -- lethargic, sitting in the shade fanning themselves slowly.  The streets are almost abandoned, except for a few brave old ladies who are grocery shopping with umbrellas to keep the sun off.

It's hot enough that little boys strip down to their underpants and play in the river next to our apartment, jumping off the big flat rock (usually used to wash rugs) into the gentle ripples of the Jiu.  Today I saw an older man dragging his dog on a leash into the river, presumably to cool him down under all that fur.  I'd jump in too, if there wasn't so much trash caught in the weeds on the edge of the river.  Actually, I might jump in regardless.

So here's to summer!

Leaving for camp.

Yesterday three of our IMPACT members left for a week at VIAŢA camp.  A wealthy Romanian businessman had donated money to send a few kids from the Jiu Valley to camp for free, and we offered three spots to anyone from our club who wanted to apply.  Three of our most involved girls jumped at the chance, filling out forms explaining why they wanted to go to VIAŢA and what they would do with the lessons learned there – and so it happened!  None of their families can afford to send them otherwise; the cost of a single week at VIAŢA is almost equivalent to a month’s salary here in the valley.  So when I told them their applications were accepted, they squealed and jumped around, hugging each other and giggling, as 13-year-old girls are wont to do anywhere.

Throughout the past week, they’ve been stopping by the office to drop off permission forms and ask about their luggage.  One of the girls’ moms called me a few times to make sure tennis shoes were okay – the packing list says to bring boots, so she was thinking to send her daughter with snow boots, but I talked her out of that.  Their enthusiasm has been adorable... and contagious.

So yesterday, on a gorgeous, sunny Sunday afternoon, we met near our apartment to send them off.  The three girls were grinning ear-to-ear.  Like my own parents did when I was young, their parents gave them hugs and sent them off with parting instructions as they piled into the van (“Listen to your counselors!”  “Don’t go wandering in the woods alone!”  “Be good!”).  The van pulled away, grinning teenagers hanging out the windows waving, and the moms sniffed while the dads patted their shoulders.  The little brother burst into tears, burying his face in his mom’s stomach and wailing, “I’m going to miiiiiiss her!”  And I just couldn’t help but laugh with delight, at the wonderful familiarity of families loving each other, watching their kids grow up, and sending them off to the great unknown.

I think it’s going to be a great week.