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CHALLENGE CAMP 2002
CAMP CHIEF'S REPORT
This was my twelfth Challenge Camp, the tenth on our present site and my seventh as Camp Chief.
So you’d think, by now I’d know what to expect. But, as usual, things were different. This year we had more rainy days than ever before. It all started very well! During the first week our old friends from the hospital at Sasca were joined by two new groups from the hospital at Falticini, and the orphanage at Suceava. All three groups mixed very well and we had a great week. Then it rained!! With the site very wet (we had a stork fishing on the field we use for football!), I had to cancel the first day of a programme of visits from the hospital at Siret. The old Neuro Hospital which Anneka Rice visited has finally closed. We had been told that 150 patients were now in what used to be the Boys Home. We found that they were all over 18’s, most of whom had been ‘institutionalised’ since they were 3 years old. The rain stopped, the sun shone and we picked up the programme on Tuesday. On Thursday night, it rained again! When I phoned to cancel Friday’s visit were amazed to be invited to send a team into the Hospital, a real breakthrough. With our stork back in residence we spent the next week sending teams twice to visit the orphanage at Guru Humourliu, who should have been with us, and to the Hospital at Siret again and to the orphanage at Suceava. The site had dried by the weekend and we held a most successful ‘Fun Day’ for the local children from Zamostea. Everything from ‘Face Painting’ to ‘Beat the Goalie’ via ‘Wet Sponge Throwing’! On Sunday we took a long hot bus journey to Iasi (pronounced YASH!)On the way we visited a boarding school for children with eyesight problems. Normally there are about 130 children, but the boarders were at home for their summer holidays. The ‘local’ children came in to meet us and accept the special toys and games we had brought. Very soon they were beating us at the games. We went on into Iasi to visit Gulliver, a run-down building, where over 40 children all HIV positive are living. We were very proud to find that the young lady in charge learned her child-care methods as one of our Romanian leaders some years earlier. The children were delighted that they were being visited. When we produced bags of sweets they really made us welcome!! We hope to support a team to assist their efforts to refurbish the building (any plumbers, plasterers, painters, electricians etc. with time to spare??).The weather finally decided to be kind to us, and in the last week the planned camp for children from the orphanage at Falticini went ahead quite successfully, even though Wednesday night’s campfire was ‘drizzled off’ until Thursday.
In spite of adverse weather, over zealous quoting of rules by some of the authorities and the lack of our wet-weather shelter (funds ran short!) Challenge Camp 2002 succeeded in its primary aim - to bring joy into the lives of as many Romanian children as possible. My thanks to all of you who contributed in any way to enabling my Team to once again reproduce the so-called “Miracle of Zamostea”.
Roy Lennie
Camp Chief
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