A Redneck in Europe - Romania - the Last Chapter

Thursday

I worked at the clinic again with Sunni, Pepper and Debbie. It has been a busy day. We saw about 32 patients in the clinic. Sunni said this is what she sees in a full day, we did it 4.5 hours. More to go.

We had several pastors wives come through. One was the Pentecostal pastor’s wife. She was very nice.We had a Jewish lady. She was very sweet. Debbie and a translator talked to her for about 30 minutes. She had never heard that Jesus could be the messiah they are waiting for. It was incredible. She took a new testament to read.

One lady came in. She was very beautiful, dressed like a fashion model. Jewelry the whole nine yards....when I came in to do her blood pressure and triage, she went in to shock......she told the translator that she thought the dr was a woman!!!! It was funny. (I am wearing scrubs and have a stethoscope) I am the only man here so....

Whew....we just got down with clinic. 51 ladies. I think if we add them up these ladies we saw today had about 130 abortions total. One lady had 37!!!!!!!!! There were several with 10, 6....I just wanted to sit down and cry. One lady got saved with our group. The one that had 37 abortions is now saved and is married to a pastor. Over just these 2 days, we saw women who had had a combined 209 abortions.

This morning we had a traditional Romanian breakfast. It was sliced ham and salami, cheese, hard bread, mayonnaise and tomatoes. They don’t make sandwich with it, they eat it separate. When they eat this for lunch, they only use one slice of bread. odd....Last night we ate chicken fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cabbage salad. They do not use ice here, so everything is warm or cool when you drink it. I would choke someone for a glass of ice tea. They don’t have that either.

Friday

After breakfast Pastor Peter gave his testimony. He Romanian Army during the revolution in 1989. Up until a year ago, boys were required to serve 1 year in the army or 2 years in the navy. He took and showed us the building he was defending during the revolution. The bullet holes were still in the building.

I got to go in some really cool churches today. I did here some English in the market from a guy i would not give a dollar too, he told me to go home and have relations with my mother. How nice.....

For lunch today we were in an open air cafe next to this old house that was just beautiful. It was like an antebellum mansion. A waitress served us. The diet cokes are in the tiny bottles like you used to get in the old soda machines. They are glass and you cannot keep them. When you order one they bring it, pour it in a glass and take the bottle. Prior to lunch we were in town and needed to use a bathroom. Alex, our interpreter and guide new the owner of a bar who let us use his bathroom. To pay him we got a fanta in the little bottle, but had to drink it quick because he wanted the bottle back for the deposit. When Wayne and I walked out, Johnny and John E were there with cameras taking pictures of us leaving a beer joint. They said they will use it as black mail.Any way back to lunch. Alex sat next to me; we had a lot of great talks. He is 22 and works with his parents and works with the youth of the church. He is single. The waitress was a beautiful girl. I kept offering to get her phone number form him. We bugged him about it. Wayne and I finally asked her if she had a boyfriend and that we wanted to hook her up with Alex. Alex got upset a bit. He said she is not a Christian and that he is courting a girl who lives in the mountains of Romania. I felt bad that I had embarrassed him. (Incidentally the waitress said she had a boyfriend already). Alex forgave me.

Any way I had a dish all it said was "pork with garlic and bacon" with "king potatoes" I figured why not...It was this giant pork loin with diced garlic and had pieces of garlic put in to it in the meat with fried potatoes. It was awesome.

We went and had supper on a river boat that had been used in the days of the communist to transport tanks up and down the Danube River. The river boat supper tonight was good. I had pizza. Other people had fish. We really had a great time fellowshipping and telling stories.After dinner, I got the bill to pay for every one's meal. The bill was 680 in Romanian dollars (330 US about) not bad for 22 people. (Our group plus interpreters and pastors) any way I was going to leave 800 Romanian for the bill. Our 2 interpreters and the pastors got upset and said it was illegal to tip that much. They said that only 5% is expected and that for exceptional service you could leave up to 10%. They said that I could get in trouble for doing this and that they (pastor and interpreters) would have problems as well. So I only left 10%. They said in some towns, tip is not allowed at all. Odd huh?

On the boat I had to go to the bathroom. I found it. You open this door and their is a sink and mirror, no toilet. On the left is a half door (like at chucky cheese) you have to open it and crawl in to get to the toilet. You could sort of stand up when you got in but you had to lean to the left because the wall was tilted.

Also on the toilets here you have 2 options to flush. If you go 1, you can do a half flush. If you do 2, you do a full flush.

Traveling Home

We left Braila at midnight and got on the bus to Bucharest. The drive took about 3 hours. I could not sleep on the bus. The roads are so ruff that sleep was not an option. We got to the Bucharest Airport about 3. We had to hang out in the front lobby until about 4 am when the ticket counter opened. When I went through security, I was amazed by the female officers. They were armed as were all the officers, but they wore high heeled shoes with the uniforms. I just thought that was odd.

We got on the plane about 530 and took off at 6. The flight to Amsterdam took about 3 hours. We had to kill about 2 hours in the airport. I wondered around and got a coke and a news paper and just looked. I found a coke with ice!!! Here was the thing….I only had a 20 in US. They said no problem. The coke was 3.90 in Dutch money, was converted to us dollars to over 5. I gave them the 20 and got back a 5 Euro and some coins. In essence that coke cost me 20 BUCKS!!!! I drank it very slowly.

Went back through security, again I set off the alarm and got another rub down by the Dutch boy.

10 hours later we landed in DFW. Texas our Texas, all hail the mighty state!