Leaving a bit early…

We’ve made a pretty tough decision to leave our volunteering placement a bit early. We were due to finish on Friday and fly out Saturday, but with Glen sick (again, different this time) and Deb feeling a bit similar, we think this is the best option.

The thinking is that at the bear sanctuary, there’s no relief from the bitter cold. For much of the day, you’re sitting outside in < 10 degree weather opening frozen or near frozen meat/ice-cream/dairy or whatever with bare hands and whilst the job itself is enjoyable and very rewarding, it's far from ideal for getting over a sickness. Deb is much the same except she's in a warm place surrounded by sick babies and mothers. It's disappointing, no question. Having said that, it's not a bad time to do it as from Tuesday onwards, we're both the only volunteers at our placements and therefore working alone which for Deb could be quite daunting with all the babies/mothers to look after whilst for Glen it'd be tough doing the job alone with no one to talk to & in reality, there's nothing "new" to learn. This is very much just us convincing ourselves its the right decision. We had intended to stay the full time, but we've very much achieved what we wanted to and have certainly lived the life. We feel it's been a pretty authentic experience, much more so than the other volunteers. We actually live with our family, who we've grown close to, in a pretty tough environment with the shower not really working for much of it; no hot water other than the shower; living in the suburbs and heating only for some nights. So the plan is we'll be driven to Bucharest on Monday evening with Lora, spend the night in the country's capital and hopefully see a bit in the morning before flying out. Where to - we're not sure but most likely Rome. At the end of the day, we're happy with the decision. Bring on the rest of the holiday!