Well everyone, school is winding down...I'm finishing up mid-terms this week and then only 5 more weeks to go! I'm getting pretty excited!

Kids in Romania are truly no different than kids anywhere in the world when you get down to the basics: they smile easily, they cry easily, they anger easily, they calm easily, they argue easily, they forgive easily, they believe easily, they trust easily, they support and protect easily, they discover easily, they risk easily, they love easily, they laugh easily...

Well, this summer our team had planned an afternoon of laughter and fun for the kids and the adults: a water day!!! Matt and Pam had brought a bunch of little water guns and a ton of water balloons! Now, I was taking a nap and only made it down for the end of the water-balloon filling adventure, but let me say that I think the adults had more fun filling the balloons than the kids did throwing them.

I came down to the dining room to shreiks, giggles, and a lot of water all over the floor. It seemed that Mama Gabi and some of the others had used this time to start a little water battle of their own. Well, it turned out to be the first battle of an all-out war! The sides: the kids versus the adults...and it was pretty clear at the end who emerged victorious. The adults were all drenched, dripping wet, but all laughter and smiles.

The water balloons lasted about 5 minutes...I think it took like an hour to fill them all up. So Tata Visu, Ruben, Adi, and Rodi found large buckets. They went down to the stream which was conveniently right nearby and would fill up their buckets to chase or surprise some poor, unsuspecting victim. Well, at the end, we concluded that the more the kids loved you, the wetter you became. Poor Pam got it like 4 or 5 times! Most of the adults were attacked at least twice. They even got Jen, who was wearing normal clothes (jeans and a nice shirt) and had managed to remain relatively dry up until that point.

I was also pretty dry through the water balloon battle, then Radu grabbed a water bottle and filled it up. I backed away to the edge of the battle field, but he said he would just stand there all day until I came back down. So I figured, "Okay, might as well get it over with and then I'll be wet and they'll leave me alone". So I sacrificed myself and surrendered willingly. Radu, true to his word promptly dumped the whole bottle over my head and back. I thought this would be the worst of it...I was wrong. A few minutes later Tata Visu got me with a whole bucket of water. Then Ruben also got me with a bucket of water! The water from the stream was very cold, but it was pretty warm that day so it actually felt pretty refreshing. I was dripping along with all of the other adults present, but that was probably one of the most enjoyable, fun-filled afternoons at camp!


The battlefield!