Turing Scheme & Arts Lab 5.0: Raphaelle Kent, UK - Month 4

After I returned home it was strange at first to leave my friends in Romania and the bubble of Arts Lab 5.0, but I enjoyed my time seeing family, I made sarmale for them to try at home and it was nice to share the Romanian culture in my country. I was equally glad to come back to Târgu Frumos and begin the next chapter of the project.

I returned from home early January and it felt good to be back in Târgu Frumos and hear about everyone's holidays. Going home made me realize how it will be hard at the end of the project to leave everyone after spending so much time together these past few months. So far this month, which is already the 4th month of the project… we have finished the residency at Moldova high school and had a caravan of Cucuteni in a nearby village. I was pleased with the song the students created together at the end of the residency at Moldova school and we hope to perform it in the JEMOM museum next week. I turned 25 this month and my friends surprised me with a lovely birthday celebration joint with Violeta who also had a birthday in December. It was so sweet and I will not forget this birthday and the effort they put in. Thank you all <3!

Also this month we had a Romanian lesson in the kindergarten which was a very cute experience, the children were very sweet and I loved drawing princess and mermaid castles with them, the Romanian words I learnt ‘casa Sirena’ and ‘casa Prințesa’ I’m sure will come in useful…

We had a lot of snow this month and had our first experience of bringing the logs in together, a true team building exercise which was followed by a fun snowball fight outside our house. The final thing I want to mention is the beautiful winter sun we have had for a few weeks, it makes my mornings better! Aliye and I also took our cat friend Haşmet to the vets and spent the day nursing him back to health. Arts Lab seems to have a constant 4 legged friend in the house.

 Raphaelle Kent is from United Kingdom and she is participating in a six-month volunteering program within Arts Lab 5.0, a project co-funded by the Turing Scheme UK and by European Union through the European Solidarity Corps.