These pictures are of children painting at my camp, a wooden church in Maramures and the Primarie or Mayor's office in Sighisoara, Transylvania decorated for Christmas!!
I have been in country for one year and working at my job for about 9 months now. I have made about 2400 contacts with children in the classrooms. I work in 12 schools with 17 different teachers. I have worked mostly with 5th -8th graders and some high schoolers. I work in some villages around my town as well as in my large town.
From now until the end of the school year, we are having a contest to see how much plastic the schools can recycle. Students need to keep a journal and will get extra points for beautifying their grounds and keeping their school grounds clean.
Trash on the ground or littering is quite a problem in my city. The Primarie or mayor's office does a pretty good job of keeping the streets clean. It is the school grounds and the grounds outside blocs or apartment buildings that need the greatest attention now.
I also started a summer day camp last summer. We hope to improve on it and have two more camps this summer. We worked with the zoo and had the camp near their grounds. So we spent a day getting to know the animals at the zoo, we did a bird day, a water day and a compass day. The compass day entailed using a compass to do a scavenger hunt. The kids had a great time and we did too.
Since I have been here, I had a grandson, Auggy born. So in September I went to the states to visit him. Since then I have traveled by train mostly, to many parts of Romania. I have been up to Maramures where the wooden churches are. I have been in the northeast part of the country where it is quite beautiful. I have been to medieval cities in Transylvania as well.
Romania is a beautiful country with quite a mountain range for the size of the country. I have not been to the seaside or the Danube Delta. That must come this summer.
Peace Corps will be phasing out the environmental sector after this year. Instead, they will only have English teachers and they will try to place them in small towns and villages where the need is greater. So, some fellow enviros and teachers and I have been putting together a curriculum to help them teach environmental lessons since we won't be here to do that. We are doing a pilot program this spring we put together for 5th-8th grades.
So, la revedere for now. I do not update this blog often. I am too busy with my work or my traveling to see other parts of my country. Sorry!!
