Day Seven Friday What we are here for delivering the aid

This is it, todays the day where we get down to the real business, the reason we have travelled for five days and crossed six countries, todays the day we deliver the aid. Both Bob & Steve and Ray & I are very lucky to be able to deliver our vital aid directly to the institution where our much needed aid is to be used. We are going to a special needs school in the village of Congaz to the south of Moldova. We know very little about the school other than it is a boarding school for both boys and girls with ages ranging from 8 to 16.

We set off following the car that has arrived to guide us to the village in it is an interpreter who also helps at the school, the director of the school, Ian Young or radio man in the car and the driver of the car who also works at the school. Before we set off we were warned that the roads would be very bumpy but that we should be at the village in about two to three hours.

Part way into the journey we stop over at a roadside café and the director (who speaks no English) with the help of the interpreter begins to tell us a little about her school. She tells us that all the children are either orphans or have only one parent who has alcohol or drug abuse problems. All the children have either learning difficulties or some form of mental of physical disability. All of the children in her school board at the school and were not allowed to go into mainstream schooling because of their specific needs. All together there are 145 children that board at the Congaz School, some stay all the time 7 days a week while some go home to their families at the weekend only. We are told that they have to provide four meals a day for just under a pound. We are told that the children are waiting and are eager to see us (the first tears of the day wells up)

We are off again and the roads get worse, much worse as we near our destination. Then we hear over the radio that the next village along is Congaz where the school is. We pull into the school entrance and there are a group of young children that are there going about their daily routines, they spot us and start to wave and shout spasiba which is Russian for thank you (more tears well up). We quickly park up and jump out eager to meet the children and give them some of our sweets, we offer a huge bag of sweets to these lovely young children and in they reach and very carefully pull one sweet out of the bag and say spasiba. Yes a full bag of sweets is presented to these children who very rarely see or get sweets and all they take is one sweet and every single one thanks you (try that back home).

It doesn’t take long for word of our arrival to spread and very soon it seems like the whole school is milling about us and our vehicles, again sweets are dished out and again only one sweet is taken, even if you mistakenly offer a sweet to a child that has already received one they will very quickly show you that they already have one and reply spasiba.

We start the business of unloading and the older children are used to help to offload the vehicles while the younger ones go back to their classrooms. Bob and Steve’s vehicle is first a curtain sided BT wagon as Bob is reversing the vehicle into position we are shown where the aid will be stored for the time being, I am asked if it will be OK in here and I tell them they have to move things about and stack it high for it to all fit in. Back outside Steve unlocks the padlock on the curtain side, the director and interpreter are amazed to see that the vehicle is entirely full of aid for them; all they can say is WOW. The vehicle is quickly emptied and they are particularly pleased to see new beds and a printer, when we tell them that we have six computers on our vehicle they are totally amazed. Our vehicle followed and again was quickly emptied by an army of willing helpers, we go back into where the aid is stored and it is full to the rafters over 5 tonnes of glorious aid transported and delivered.

After we have unloaded the aid we come to the part that some people both love and hate it is the tour of the establishment. Love it because we get to meet the children for whom the aid that we have just delivered will make major difference to their life hate it because it pulls at your heartstrings and makes grown men cry.

We go to the first class to learn that this is the graduation class and all of the students are 15 or 16 (they all look about 12 because of how small and timid they look). They graduate in May 2011 and in their time at the school will have learnt a great deal of life skills, skills needed for them to live and thrive in the wider community. They learn to read, write and speak Moldovan, Russian and Gagauzian (the local language), they have also been taught both the Latin and Cyrillic alphabet, they learn basic mathematics as well as Moldovan history, they learn basic road safety and about traffic lights (even though there are no traffic lights in the village), they learn some sewing for the girls and some basic agricultural skills for the boys. This is not just about education it is about trying to give these children a chance to thrive. They try to use individual programmes for individuals as their learning needs are very different, they try to help the children as much as they can on a one to one basis. They tell us that some schools have the opportunity to take these 16 year olds for a further two years until they are 18 and teach them vital job skills (woodworking and the use of tools as well as further agricultural training for the boys, further sewing skills as well as cookery classes for the girls). Unfortunately this school does not have the equipment currently to be able to do this so next May 2011 these children will graduate and have to go back to their families and/or try to find jobs for themselves. Some of these children don’t look big enough or capable enough of starting secondary school, never mind being thrust into the adult world (tears in the eyes at the time and as I write this).

It is the same for every class we go in, the children look four or five years younger than they actually are, they all look timid and unconfident in themselves. All these children without the help of the school would be in broken homes with alcohol or drug dependant parents, they would be out on the streets getting up to no good and worse and they would have no education and therefore no education. As we get the tour of the school a misty look comes over the convoy drivers (convoy virgins and experienced convoy drivers alike), I have seen this before, they go quiet and thoughtful, they think about loved ones back home and their own children but most of all they think why is this allowed to happen in this day and age (full tears as I write now). They look at what the children have to put up with, they resolve to make a difference. I am very pessimistic about his I don’t see it as all the children that we haven’t helped, I look at all the children that the CWUHA have helped in the past and will continue to help in the future.

This has been a very person account of the Congaz school that we visited today and I hope to have accounts from the other places that this convoy has visited. I am sure they will tell similar stories and portray similar emotional experiences. It has been difficult to write but I hope that as my other blogs have been it portrays the CWUHA convoy as it really is full of highs and lows.

Today Bob & Steve, Ray & I and the CWUHA charity did a good thing, today we made a difference to 145 children and today we made 145 children smile for a while.

Paul (one half of the big boppers)