Care & Community - ROMANIA Daily Life

Daily Life of a Care and Community Volunteer in Romania

7:30AM wake up and shower in host mom's bathroom. She has a shower in her bathtub and a rubber mat to dry on.

8:00 eat breakfast while host mom cooks the day's meals. Breakfast is usually oatmeal, herb tea and toast with homemade plum jam. Pancakes are also a common meal and my host mom sometimes makes homemade pancakes with plum jam rolled into the middle.

8:30 leave for Projects Abroad office. Walk to bus stop and catch bus to the centre of town. Walk to the office. When I arrive, it's great to see my fellow volunteers. I check my emails. Sometimes I take care of 'business' in town such as cashing traveller's checks, buying supplies for the art classes I teach, or buying train tickets for weekend excursions. I take many photographs around town.

12:00 lunch either at my host mom's house or in the centre of town: cheese pastry, pizza, pancakes, or a salad.

During the early afternoons I take more photographs, finish my errands, and head home to get ready for the orphanage.

2:30 walk to the bus to go to the orphanage. A fellow volunteer teaches music classes at 3:00 or 3:30 and I sit in to help him. My class starts at 4:00 or 4:30 and he helps me teach art. It is a great plan because we are teaching 14-17 year-old kids and they need quite a bit of attention in order to get things accomplished. The times vary depending on their school schedules.

6:30 or 7:00 walk to the bus to go home for dinner. My host mom usually cooks soup, rice, bread, carrots, peppers, potatoes or French fries, and/or fried pork.

8:00 or 9:00 volunteers meet in the centre of town from where we go out for the evening to a bar or club. When I don't go out I spend time on my journal, call home, prepare teaching supplies for the next day, and/or budget for the rest of my volunteering.

10:00 or 10:30 bedtime if not going out

Weekends are spent going to the market, taking photographs, travelling to nearby towns for exploration, taking groups of children from the orphanage hiking and camping, hiking in the Carpathian Mountains, camping in tiny log cabins, and touring Dracula's castle.