The Team is Here and We've Landed in Beius
It feels good to be back to my summer home.
07.08.2011
It feels good to be back in Beius, my summer home for the last nine years. But first, I must tell of our adventures in Budapest.
The team arrived on Saturday 6 August 2011 without any major hassles along the way. They were all checked into the hotel by 3:00pm and only one team member had missing luggage. To our joy, it came to our hotel that night! We had our first team meeting on the upper deck of our hotel. It was great to put faces to all the people I have talked with and emailed for the last several months. The conversation flowed easily during our meeting and we all shared something we brought from home. Most of the team is very well traveled. I almost feel like a new traveler compared to them! Several have done Habitat trips, either Collegiate Challenge or Global Village trips. After our meeting we walked over to our restaurant for dinner. L.A. Bodegita was a new choice of restaurant for me - it was funny because as I looked closely, it was a Cuban inspired restaurant in Budapest. The food was great and the atmosphere was perfect. We had our own room so that we could get to know each other and enjoy the dinner.
On Sunday morning, our team boarded our bus to Beius. Along the way, we stopped at a gas station for sandwiches and snacks. It was rather interesting, and we'll just leave it at that. My ham sandwich with eggs tasted okay and we started on our way again.
Our next stop was Caminul Felix where we picked up our final team member Joel. As mentioned before, Joel visits the orphanage there and spends time with the families. Habitat has combined with the organization to build houses for the orphans when they are phased out of the system - when they are too old to be in the group home. Last year, for two days Miranda, Manuela, Joel and I worked at Caminul Felix. We were able to take some pictures of our finished houses (we only did foundations and rebar while in Oradea so it was neat to see them completed and the families moved in).
Manuela said, "I think it's very rewarding that you can start a project and feel very confident that another team just as dedicated will see it to the end. It was amazing to see how much that tiny spot of land in just one year. There weren't only houses there now, there were cornfields, new projects, and a new road."
Finally after six hours in the van, we finally made it to Beius. It was wonderful driving into town again. I felt right at home. We had dinner at our favorite restaurant (our home base for the week) and then made our way to the Garva house. The roommates all found their rooms, three on the first floor and four on the second floor and settled in.
And now we are having a quiet night before our workday begins tomorrow. We are framing the exterior walls tomorrow and building the trusses for the roof. Our arms should be nice and soar from all the hammering tomorrow.
To catch us on the live webcam, head to Habitat Beius and look for the "Katie Boland team". Just remember, we are seven hours ahead of eastern standard time.
Noapte Buna! (good night!)
Looks great so far, katie! Can't wait to hear more.
07.08.2011 by whitney