Soccor & Street Kids

Since we couldn’t get train tickets to Transylvania until tomorrow, we didn’t really have anything to do today, we kind of just had the whole day to kick back and relax. We walked to the internet café in the midmorning to email and update our blogs. The café is not my favorite place in the world. It’s dark and smoky in there and they play really loud and repetitive techno music, so I’m usually in a hurry to get in and get out. The computers are kind of slow though, and today we had a really difficult time uploading pictures and getting the computer to do what we wanted. I wish so bad that we just had internet in our apartment, but I guess it’s a blessing in disguise, because I can’t allow myself to sit and waste half my day on the computer when I can be out interacting with the people.

After going to the café, my roommates and I decided to go for a long walk around the city. It was so nice and sunny out today, and after all the rain the past couple of days, we had to be outside. We walked up past the Hala and decided to go try another pastry, a covrig, which we had heard so many good things about. It is similar to a giant pretzel. Unfortunately, we were a bit disappointed and they were all soggy on the bottoms from sitting too long, so we threw them away.

Continuing our walk, we went past a broken fence and could see two young boys playing soccer on the other side. We stopped for a quick second to watch before continuing on. Moments later, however, one of the boys popped his head through the split in the fence and squealed with delight, “Blondes!” Then he and the other boy climbed through the fence and came over to where we were. They started talking and talking and we told them we spoke very little Romanian. We still managed to make conversation with them though. We couldn’t understand most of what they said, but they kept saying to one another, “Frumoasa!” which means ‘beautiful’. They were so intrigued by us.

They showed off their soccer skills for us and were eager to let us in on their passing game. They would kick it up in the air as many times as they could without letting it hit the ground. Within a matter of seconds, about ten other street children appeared out of nowhere, and pretty soon, we were completely bombarded with little street kids all trying to win our attention. They all watched as I kick the ball as many times as I could, and laughed when I mess up after just a couple of times.
After a few minutes of playing, I saw one of their mothers watching us and smiling. She came over and talked to us a little too. She seemed surprised when I told her we were from the U.S. I asked her if it would be ok if we took a picture and she nodded, but then when I tried to get her to be in it, she shyly backed away and pointed to the kids.

Taking a picture sparked a whole new level of excitement in all the kids. Before we knew it, they were all posing and smiling so we’d take their picture. The little leader of the group, Roberto, began flexing his muscles and started a trend that caught on quickly with all the boys. My favorite moment though, was when one of the smallest boys had been having trouble getting in any of the group pictures with the older boys. When I glanced over, he was standing frozen in a pose, frantically grabbing at another boy to join him, all without breaking his pose, so we would know to take his picture.