Ski runs, Hot springs,

All sounds good to me.

Roger

Hi Ani (Hope you do not mind me calling you that)

You are a breath of fresh air to me that reminds me of the great times that I spent in Ro.
I first went there in Early 1992, although I had been helping in the UK from 1991.
Our first friend was a guy that worked at the Hospital an anaesthetist, I sadly forget his name but you may know him - I think that it was Uri Salagi (Probably the wrong spelling) he guided us to the sanatorium at 'Baile Felix' where my group worked with another group for our first two trips in 1992, we also went to a huge orphanage in Oradea as well as the hospital.

In 1993 I formed my own charity to help a girls orphanage in Criaova and then on the Alba Iulia to another orphanage.

At that time I decided that it would more suit our abilities to work out in the villages on rebuilding which we did a lot of work around the Ighiu area on dispensaries and schools.

We built a social canteen in Alba Iulia and started a welfare centre, this was in partnership with the Mayor and social services.

We also worked up the mountains at a small village named Garda near a ski lift, the scenery was absolutely stunningly beautiful.

As I said before, I absolutely love Romania, the people are wonderful and just cannot give you enough.
I remember one time when we were working in Ighiu dispensary plus the school plus Ighiel school, towards midday four of my workers informed me that we were invited to dinner by a local, the only problem was that they all had different venues - As you know, it would have been an insult to refuse as they all had children at the schools plus they were overjoyed as we had just installed a dentistry with a good supply of anaesthetic and we had to attend all - We could not walk at the end of the day, we then decided that there was indeed a need for a social calendar.
We had a great laugh with them at the end of the work when we took them out to dinner and were able to admit the mess-up that we had with invitations.

Your language, WELL, I have tried and tried to learn Romanian, but I have had quite a few mishaps (I think that you might understand this one and I hope that it will not embarrass you too much as it did me - In the building trade we quite often used to work on the old measurements which are in FEET (which can also be said as FOOT) and INCHES, so:
We were digging wells and septic tanks and I was instructing our Romanian workers on exactly what I wanted and I was saying the following:
"I want the well 60 Foot deep by 4 Foot wide"
"I want a trench dug to 3 Foot deep and 20 Foot long"
Need I go on?
The Romanian guys were laughing so much and it took the lady doctor there to explain why.
Needless to say, I was so embarrassed and still I am reminded to this day.

I hope that you understand this, but I am not sure whether you can tell the others.

Love and kisses to you

From Tony x

Hi Ani,
Thank you for that the song was so nice. and it is such a joy to see a happy face on a child.
It really was my pleasure to be able to help in Ro.
it was such a hard task in our beginning there to put any kind of expression on an orphanage child's face let alone a smile.

It was so hard for us as we could only spend two weeks at a time there and when we left, the children were so traumatised it made us extremely sad on our return and very inspirational for us to find the funds and equipment for the next trip.

We always went by road in those days 1500km each way,  great going as we were all looking forward to it, but so hard on the way home.

I spent a bit of time in Bucharest as well, but I soon got back to the villages.

My friendship is offered in return and who knows, one day we might meet.

Very much look forward to that.
My very best to you from Tony.