News and Events
Summer 2010 Adventures
On June 29 an eager party of adults and children welcomed six tired children as they stepped off the plane from Bucharest: Sergiu (age 15), Michelle and Andreea (age 14), and Calin, Ionut, and Robert (age 12). For most, it was their first time traveling out of Romania; for all, it was their first airplane ride. Within a day or two, they had rested and began their summer adventure in earnest. Thanks to the generosity of the Derby Academy Summer Arts Program and the College Academy, the children learned about website design, hip-hop dance, hands-on ecology in a salt marsh, Shakespeare drama, fashion design, and sculpture, to name just a few. Another camp, the Newton Environmental Science Camp attended by Sergiu, took campers on a different ecological excursion each day - canoeing, hiking, and mountain climbing - culminating in a three-day hike up Mt. Washington in New Hampshire. Ask any of the children what was their favorite part of their camp and you typically received the response, "all of it!"
On July 10, the Floru family hosted a welcoming party for the children at their home. Approximately 50 of us from all walks of life joined to welcome our young guests, who each movingly introduced themselves and said a few words about what this means to them. After the warm words and speeches, the backyard pool was the great unifier for the several dozen children present, transcending both culture and language! The following day, our six guests joined a jovial group of Romanian-Americans at a sports bar to watch Spain win the World Cup (another great unifier!). The children soaked it all in like sponges, from minor differences like breakfast foods to deeper ones like how people behave to each other at camp, in traffic, and within families.
Among the children's experiences were .... seeing the ocean for the first time, the Museum of Science, a baseball game, local town parades for the Fourth of July, urban redevelopment at Harborwalk, hip-hop dancers and street musicians, the mountains of New Hampshire, learning about the wind turbine at Hull, viewing Boston from the 57th floor of the Hancock Tower, trying Asian/Mexican/Indian food -- and even a Wampanoag Indian pow-wow on Cape Cod! One of the highlights was the opportunity to meet (and sing Happy Birthday to) the Governor of the State of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick. That ordinary citizens can submit an request online to meet the Governor - and have it actually come true! - was a wonderful teaching moment about civic engagement and transparent governance. And of course, there were the quieter but no less important moments of gradually becoming a part of a new family and of making new friends.
What struck the children most about their experience? "Americans are so open, so friendly, so welcoming ... they accept me just for who I am, without any preconceptions." "America seems to be not so much one single culture, but the intersection of many different cultures. The whole world is here." "Americans are so easy-going. People smile so much here, and they are so friendly even to people they don't know."
These are impressions that last a lifetime. We thank our wonderful EERC community – the host families, the camps and our program supporters – for making these the children's enduring impressions of America.
The children have left Boston to return home but, true to the age we live in, the parting goodbyes were, "See you on Facebook!"
It is our credo that if you open a door, you open a mind as well.
