We have had an ambitious itinerary of travel plans and –
perhaps unsurprisingly – we finally missed an important train
connection meaning that we weren’t able to reach Bistrita as
planned on Friday, where we had planned to meet with Marin Mic
(Fundatia de Inocenti) and our Local Partners at Centru de Educatie
Inclusiva Nr.1. However, our mutual disappointment in not managing to meet with them has has created a bond that will hopefully allow our
partnership to develop ‘virtually’ and we hope to see them next
time we are in Romania. We did, however, get to see Romania’s
mountains in all their beauty as we travelled a different train
route.

Targu Mures is a beautiful town which is
welcoming to visitors. Hungarian architecture, often ornate
pastel-coloured buildings, line a wide central boulevard. We
met two Local Partners: One, Alexandra, a Distance Learning
student, brought two individual case studies she wanted to discuss
before introducing music as therapy into her programmes next week.
All she really wanted from us was a bit of encouragement as
she had clearly thought a great deal about using music in her work.
We know she’s going to be great and we’re looking forward to
hearing how her sessions go next week!

The second had travelled for 5 hours to meet
with us, having been introduced to our network following trainning
he received from one of our Local Partners (visited this week by
Cathy and Hannah below!) He is currently working in a school
for teenagers with special needs. He had clearly been hugely
inspired by our Local Partners from Oradea (his trainers) and his
enthusiasm for the potential of music therapy was exciting to
hear.

This is our last stop and our final blog entry. This
evening finished with an exhilerating free concert, part of the
Transiulvania International Film Festival, given by the
internationally renowned, gypsy band ‘Fanfare Ciocarlia’. A
fantastic finale to our week!