We have officially been here for an entire month now! It’s crazy how quickly time is flying. We have been working in the hospital and orphanage for about 3 weeks now. As quickly as time is passing, it just means the sooner we go home. I have tried to get ahead on my homework, but haven’t been as successful as I would have liked. I am doing fairly well at staying on top of things.
I feel like I’m in the routine of things now and it’s pretty much the same everyday – we do a lot of the same activities and games, and now I know all of my workers by name. Some days are better than others, but for the most part, it’s about the same. It’s hard working with V when he throws toys. He doesn’t do it to be mean or to hurt the other kids, it’s more of a response. If something scares him, he will chuck whatever is in his hand. If another child comes and acts like they want the toy, instead of grabbing it and holding it away from the child like most kids, he just chucks it – sometimes right at them. I’m not sure exactly how to work on this with him. It’s hard because G knows he is not supposed to throw toys, but he sees V do it all the time, and I think the workers have just gotten used to it.
We are starting to get into cooler weather now. Thank goodness I bought a hoodie yesterday. It rained the entire way to the bus stop this morning. I had V and G today. The worker had asked me about my family and to bring some pictures – so I brought my photo album. She absolutely loved it. I went through and explained to her everyone in Romanian. I have a picture of my mom and myself in a photo booth making funny faces from a long time ago. I don’t if Romanians just aren’t as crazy, but I’m pretty sure she almost peed her pants looking at it. She couldn’t stop laughing and she yelled at the other working to come take a look! I also had a picture with one of my guy friends and she is convinced it is my boyfriend. I think she also asked me if he was from here and I think I said yes because I misunderstood her. Then, I tried to explain that it wasn’t my boyfriend and he wasn’t Romanian, but I don’t think she understood. Oh well! I guess I have a Romanian boyfriend!
Today at the hospital, we were working with our little boy “Jacob”. The physical therapist came in and we were asking about our boy. He told us his name might be Mariocelan or something like that. We also heard Dennis last week, so for now it is officially Jacob.
He should be at the age where he can crawl, sit up by himself and even roll over. Instead, hours of sitting in both a hospital bed and probably an orphanage bed has made him unable to do any of this. His bones in his legs have grown slightly crooked and he has the “frog legs” that are common for kids here who just sit in a crib all day.
I hate to see this and everyday when we are helping him roll over, sit up, etc. I feel angry and frustrated that he has to suffer the consequences of other’s poor choices. Sometimes working with these kids who have disabilities, I understand that it was something they were born with and cannot be changed. Others however, are the results of poor parenting, negligence, poor choices or lifestyles. For kids like Jacob though – he could have had a normal life and I keep hoping and praying that somehow someday he will continue to have the help necessary for him to do so. Based on the situations I have seen though, I think my hopes are set too high. I need to realize that I can’t change the world, I can’t adopt this precious little boy and take him home, I can’t stay here for years and work with him everyday. I only can help him every single day until he is sent back to the orphanage or until I leave in December – whichever comes first.
Today, we worked on having him situp by himself and trying to strengthen those muscles. Then, I turned on my ipod and put the earbuds on his pillow and turned the volume up so he could hear and we listened to children’s songs and I would move his arms and legs to the rhythm. I couldn’t believe how calm he was. He is improving day by day. He has not had any major attachment attacks (I’m not sure exactly what you would call them) for a few days and he seems to be much more content when we leave. You can tell he has a bit of a hard time, but I think the consistency is good for him. I love to just watch him smile and giggle when we stand him up to walk and to sit up.
Then, just as we were about to leave, I walked out of the room last and the nurse looked at me and said “pampers?” We bring diapers everyday – which ends up getting expensive, but it’s worth it when you see a baby who hasn’t been changed all day. I told her that we left some in his room. She told me they had one more baby without a mom. Usually they will tell us if there is more than one on our floor, so it was strange that they hadn’t. I’m thinking the baby either just got transferred to our floor or was just barely abandoned by his parents. The nurse led me into a room across the hall. I saw this tiny little thing – I wasn’t sure if it was a boy or a girl because they don’t wear gender specific clothing here. Even if a child has pink ruffles on his shirt, it could very well be a boy. This tiny little boy had to be only a few weeks old or was incredibly malnourished. He was fussing a bit, but then stopped when we came in and looked scared. She asked me if we had a pamper to fit him because they didn’t have any. I motioned down the hall for the other girls to come back to see if they had a diaper. As the nurse left the room, I decided to check and see if he was stinky or not. I lifted up his shirt and his stomach and legs were covered in something that appeared to be a blue stained ink or liquid that had not been washed and was caked on to his skin. There were spots around it. It looked like it had been there for quite some time. His diaper had not been changed for atleast a day and he had rashes all over. It was the most awful thing I had ever seen. This poor little boy! It started to make me nauseous though. By the time the other girls got there, I had to just sit down on the next bed over while one of them changed the diaper. It made me sick to look at. I had never seen anything like it. I don’t know if it was a terrible infection or some type of acid on his skin? We thought maybe it had come from the diaper not being changed for a while, but then trying to wash it off, we realized it had to be more than that. Still, I can’t get that awful image out of my mind.
I hate that a majority of their cars here are BMW’s, they are updating a historical palace, they have about 4 shopping malls in Iasi alone, and yet children don’t get their diapers changed because pampers are too expensive, they have to wear the same sweaty hospital clothes for 4 days that stink because they can’t get new clothes. The hospital floor alone would call for a serious lawsuit in America because it has holes in it, large cracks and is uneven, not to mention it is not the most sanitary thing I have seen. These are children we are talking about that are in these living situations.
Why? Why does it have to be this way? I have to say “nu inteleg” all day to people, which translates to “I don’t understand.” Right now, I really don’t understand why it is the way it is.
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