Leaving for Moldova, we were a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect from the country and Keystone, the organization we were gonna work for. Two weeks later we can wholeheartedly say that it was an amazing experience. We were welcomed into Moldova with open arms and we met the most hospitable people. More importantly we could work in an organization which is doing an amazing job in a field where there is
still a long way to go.
We started working in the Community home in Nisporeni, where we met the first boys.
Being a project administrator, person who sits behind a desk all day, I did not know what to expect. I felt lucky I had Marjan with me, since she has more experience in the field being a physiotherapist. But to be honest, we were both nervous when we met the boys we were gonna work with that week.
We first met Alexandru, whom we picked up from Orhei institution and went with us to Nisporeni Community home. For him was the first day in a new home… We met Anton, the sweet sixteen year old boy and Vasile, sitting on his regular spot on the couch. Then we were guided to the room of three other guys, Slavic, Pavel and Marius. Our first impression was that it might be harder to have a connection with them, since they had to lay in bed all day due to some muscle-disease. At the end of the week, we would be proven to be absolutely wrong in this first impression.
Each day we tried to have some diverse activities with the first three boys, focusing the first half of the day on their fine motor skills and later during the day on their gross motor skills. Being so close to Easter, we decided to do some things in the spirit of this holiday :-). Besides doing these activities, we also worked on the muscle tension with the other three boys.
The second week we moved to other Community home from Chirca/ Anenii Noi, where we met very different guys. To begin with, they were adults so we would have to focus more on functional activities while having fun as well. We had Victor, the most independent guy; Efim, with the mischievous twinkle in his eye and we had Petru saying our names in the most beautiful way (boyfriends: listen and learn :-)). Then we had our two guys in a wheelchair, Ion being all muscle and Mihai being all laughs, and Gabriel.
They were as enthusiastic as we were and everything would work out itself after the first day. We followed a different routine to the one in Nisporeni. In the morning we focused on doing physical and relaxation activities with Ion, Mihai and Gabriel. With the three other guys we mainly focused on fun physical activities and working in the kitchen.
We hope everyone we met had as good a time as we had! We also hope we could contribute to what Keystone wants to achieve. We learned a lot and we‘d love it if the children and people from Keystone also learned something from us.
We would like to thank everybody who helped to make our two weeks in Moldova so memorable!
Special thanks go to Parascovia and her family who learned us a lot about Moldova, Keystone and for her hospitality. We can truly say we will never forget you!
To the homes of Nisporeni and Anenii Noi; thank you for being so friendly and patient with us, you are doing a great job.
Thank you Elisa and your family for the funny mornings, evenings and nights and your delicious food! Staying at your house is unforgettable to us!
Sergiu, thank you for driving us to the homes, all the explanation and of course all the translation… And Tucano!
We also want to thank Keystone Moldova for the chance they gave us and Eliza who spend a lot of time with mailing us.
Multumim tuturor!
Marjan and Nele, Volunteers from Belgium
Keystone Moldova 
Great work Marjan and Nele.