Camp weekend!

Hey everybody! First of all, I want to say thank you for all your comments on my first post! I love reading them. :) So I just got back to Bucharest after spending Thursday-Saturday at camp. It was a very productive time and I'm super excited to share with you what all happened.

The tale of my weekend begins with an altercation between myself and this elevator.....

This elevator is fairly average by Romanian standards. It fits two people comfortably, 5-8 uncomfortably and experiences regular bouts of mechanical/electrical failure. It had been working "wonderfully" when I arrived, and so, since I was taking all my luggage to camp (two large checked bags and one carryon, plus a backpack) I decided to take the elevator instead of the four flights of stairs.

My first ride down carrying my small carryon and one large suitcase went fine. The ride back up was great, too. Then I got into the elevator to start my last trip down, with only one suitcase. This time, the descent began in a way that would have certainly freaked out anyone with no experience in the field of Romanian elevators: a blackout. As soon as I pushed the ground level button, the lights went out and remained so for about 5 seconds. I was pretty much unperturbed by this, as it had happened to me before. But then, the elevator stopped. I opened the inner doors (they are manually operated) and immediately noticed something off--I was stuck directly between level one and ground level.

I gathered my thoughts for a few seconds and began wondering how to get out of this predicament. Thankfully, my cell phone had service, so I texted Cami (who was upstairs getting her own stuff together) that I was stuck in the elevator and was wondering what to do. She didn't respond. A few minutes later, I heard someone on the ground level trying to open the outer door (which is also manual). It wouldn't open. Then, the person spoke. It was a Romanian man, and our conversation (also in Romanian) went a little like this:

Him: Is someone in there?

Me: Yes, I'm between floor 1 and ground level. The elevator is not moving.

Him: Push the ground level button again.

Me: *pushing button repeatedly* It's not working.

Him: Hmm...try to push this door open. I'll pull.

Me: Okay. *pushes door, door doesn't move*

Him: I'll have to call the administrator (of the building). Wait there.

Me: *waits there for a few minutes*

The administrator came and somehow got the door open, and I had to climb down a few feet because the elevator was still above the ground level. It was fun, and the two men found it very amusing that an American girl was stuck in an elevator and had to ask a bunch of questions about where I was going and what I was doing. Thankfully Cami came down then and we left for camp with no more trouble.

So that was how my trip to camp started. :) The ride was fairly uneventful, and I got treated to some pretty great views on the way.

I do apologize for how long this post is getting and I haven't even gotten to camp yet. So. Sorry. :) Anyway, we got to camp at like 1pm Thursday, and had a relaxing afternoon showing Ruth around and getting a plan together.

Friday morning we got up pretty early and started to work. There is a super long list of things that need to be done in the next 5 weeks before camp starts. The first thing Ruth and I did was saw boards to a length of 60cm to make shelves for the new trading post. It's in a different spot because the old trading post is now my room. :)

It's super tiny but I have my own space and I love it SO much!

Ready to saw some boards!

I sawed 33 boards total.

Next, it was time to nail the shelves up. We luckily have a nail gun at camp, so the task was made a whole lot easier.

As you can see, the power associated with a nail gun went straight to our heads.

The rest of the day, we did lots of other jobs. We cleared out the tractor barn, moved all the usable items to different locations, threw the junk away, took the six huge water barrels out of the water tower for cleaning, organized the trading post, and other odd jobs. It was a busy day! At night, we took some time to rest and read...

It was very nice to stretch out after a long day's work!

Saturday morning we took a trip into a nearby city called Panciu to go to the Saturday market. This market sells everything from clothes to chickens. We bought fresh cherries and strawberries to have with lunch that day. Here are a few pictures.

The main street of Panciu.

The entrance to the indoor part of the market.

The indoor produce/flower market.

Some of the fresh veggies.

Strawberries! They were so juicy and sweet.

More produce.

When we got back to camp, we had two main jobs to do that afternoon. We strung wire through over 100m of pipe for plumbing and used the sawmill to saw 6 logs and 18 posts. It took about four and a half hours to finish all that.

Well, that brings me to Sunday (today) in which we drove back to Bucharest! This afternoon I'm going to be making my schedule for the coming week, which will include visiting all the childrens' apartments, the orphanage, the Ruth School, and of course working on my intern Bucharest Bingo and notebook. 

I'll most likely post again at the end of this week unless I have something interesting happen to me again. Who knows, the elevator may break again.

Praises (in reference to the previous post's requests)

-Jetlag is gone!

-We had a very productive weekend at camp

Requests:

-Visa paperwork is still ongiong

-Visits to the apartments and orphanage would go smoothly

-Visit to the Ruth School would go well

Thank you for reading and for your prayers!

Maria