The language of love...

You will learn a very important language here even though these children cannot speak. You will learn a language that is not spoken but that you feel with the heart" -Marionella V (this was quote from Mario today)

This morning, we met Mario at the gate of the orphanage. It is an intimidating sight to take in. It is on a small street lined with broken sidewalks and small alleyways. The surrounding yards as well as the front entrance to the orphanage is overgrown with weeds and shrubs of all sizes. The crowding plants only allow the door and a small portion of the roof to be seen from the walkway. Upon entering the gate, the wall to the left is painted with fantasy or fairy tale like murals. At first, it smelled because there was a small sewer runway adjacent to the walkway.

We walked into the building with her and were told to go into a large conference room. Not knowing what to expect, we all just sat there anxiously awaiting our next set of directions. Occasionally you would hear some Romanians out. The building smelled like baby powder. Not a bad smell, just unique.  I don’t know if it was my nerves or the fact that I wasn’t able to sleep last night due to the anticipation I was feeling, but I had so many mixed emotions. 

Finally, Mario and Teo (who is in charge while Dr. Ciobanu is on vacation) came in to tell us more about section 2 (the actual name of the facility) and how it operates.

The whole bottom floor is for a daycare/preschool for children who are at a normative developmental level. The second floor is where all of the disabled children (I hate calling them orphans) live.

We took a tour through the place. I was very surprised at how well kept up it was. The walls were painted different colors and there were so many toys. They had stimulation rooms, sensory rooms, art rooms, physical therapy rooms and then the actual living areas for kids. Although, I will tell you this is nothing top of the line. It’s not a grey-walled cement building with children screaming in cribs like I expected. We walked through the bottom floor first, although we won’t really spend time here. Then, we went upstairs.

First we saw the emergency/crisis room – where if children are taken directly out of a dangerous situation (even in the middle of the night), this is where they are kept until they can be integrated with the other kids.

Then, we went on to the other rooms. The different areas are isolation, mickey mouse 1, mickey mouse 2, bambi 1 and bambi 2. They vary depending on age. Isolation is for infants and small toddlers. Mickey mouse groups are the next ones, then bambi groups are for the oldest ones. 

We spent about 5 minutes in each one. I can’t tell you how amazing it was to see these kids, see the challenges they have, but immediately feel love for them. In return, their capacity to love was unimaginable. As soon as we would enter a room, it was as if these kids just brightened up.  From Maria who has downsyndrome who came and put her arms around me, to Cosmina who was enthralled at my watch, to the baby boy strapped down in a chair who would not stop giggling when I smiled at him, and from the older boy with cerebral palsy who immediately grabbed my hand and swung it back and forth and asked me if I would be coming back tomorrow -  I could have spent hours there.  There is an amazing amount of love that radiates from these kids. As intimidated as I was about the language barrier – I realized today that kids will be kids. They don’t care where I came from, or if my hair looks gross in a bun everyday, or anything else, they just want to be loved. It made me never want to come home.

Next, we took a bus to the apartments in Tomesti, which is about 10 km outside of Iasi. Originally, these kids were at the orphanage, but they have tried to put them in “families”, basically in an apartment with only 5-6 kids max varying in age and disability and have them live together with a few workers who also live there. These kids have either improved through the help of the staff/workers at the orphanage, or they are at a more normative development, so much so that Section two is hoping to someday be able to integrate them into society either through adoption or through a foster program. Even then, these kids still have their challenges.

We visited both of the apartments today. Again, I can’t even tell you how easy it was to fall in love with these kids and never want to leave.

Completely different than I expected, my day was a new and wonderful one.  Tomorrow, we will spend atleast an hour in each one. Then, after a weekend to take it all in, we will all decide where to be assigned and will stay in that room for the remainder of the semester.

The hardest thing about today - the thought that in 3 months I will have to say goodbye.