It's the real thing from here on out.

Today was very different than yesterday. Reality started to sink in. Yesterday, we had the orphanage coordinator as well as our own coordinator with us, but today we were on our own in the rooms for an hour each.

It was the real thing. The workers talking to you in Romanian, talking to the kids in Romanian, you are never sure whether you can pick up a child or not, a child cries when you leave and the worker comes in frustrated.  The kids who can talk to you, want so badly to communicate with you, but all you can say is “I’m sorry, I don’t understand..” You want so badly to engage in conversation, but you can’t.

Yesterday was a rush – walk into one room, see a few kids, walk into the next. Today, I was able to see all of the kids. In some of the rooms, I would look over to a couch bench and see two more kids - laying there unable to move themselves. I hadn’t noticed them before. Or see a child in one of the corner cribs that hadn’t been noticed for some time.  There were so many. How would I ever even make a difference?

It could have been the switching around that was so overwhelming . Seeing so many kids and trying to keep their names straight, trying to remember where the next room was, and trying to figure out where you would be the best fit. It’s going to be tough., a lot tougher than I thought. But, I’m going to do my best. One of the first things, is to try and conquer this language! Overcoming that barrier will be the most helpful in connecting with the workers and seeing things from their perspectives, and then be able to know how to best work with these kids.

Tonight is a weekend. Mario was right, I will need a few days to take it all in. We will decide tonight where we will be going and we will start on Monday or Tuesday. Monday, we also have our first day at the hospital working with the abandoned children.  I hope I will be able to handle that as well.

Sorry for no pictures. We are not allowed to take pictures of the kids at the orphanage, even though I wish you could see how beautiful each of them is.