Day 13

Today was the big day at the orphanage! I got into the room that I wanted and will be working in Mickey Mouse for the rest of my stay. Teo, the assistant to the head honcho at the orphanage asked us not to use names or post pictures of the children in the orphanage online. Romania has very strict rules to protect the identities of the children, so at least on this blog I will be using pseudo names. I will abbreviate the real names heavily so that they are different, but similar enough for the sake of keeping them straight in my head. Today I worked in Mickey Mouse for the full 3 hours. The workers do not speak english so the language barrier is a bit difficult. I think the main way that they judge your character is watching you with the kids. As I briefly mentioned before, most of the children seem to be in the age range 2-6 years, although there is A.U who is 13 with cerebral palsy. I am not sure why he is in this room. Today I really tried to spend a little bit of time with each child.. even if they were in a wheelchair and did not seem to be cognitively functional. I still think that they are sensitive to touch and can feel love so I do not want to ignore them even though I do not get a visible reaction.

The high of the day would definitely be when Gabby (one of the workers) and I took the children out into the playground to play. We played a bit and then she told me that I could stay outside with one of the kids, Jello. I was so excited! This meant that she must trust me.. which is a big deal because it was my first day and Romanians are not easily trusting people. I played outside with him for a while.. pushing him on a little car ride on toy singing the chitty chitty bang band theme song over and over.. occasionally making reverse sounds when we hit a wall. He loved it the most when he was pushing along with his feet and I let him steer instead of me doing all the work.

The low of the day: We started the hospital and oh my goodness. It looks like something straight out of a horror movie. I could not believe my eyes... I could not believe what I was seeing... I cannot even explain to you the conditions.. the flooring is all ripped up revealing the wood or cement underneath (enough for you to trip over) .. the ceiling tiles are dangling and missing and falling apart.. half of the hall lights are out so the hallways are unlighted.. the plaster is missing in spots all over the walls.. the windows are greasy and have so much sludge/ smoke/pollution stains that you cannot see out of them hardly... Horror movie status. The elevators sometimes work. The only people we really saw were poor people and gypsies so I want to research what the health care system is like in Romania. Even Mario (our Romanian contact) was embarrassed to show us. She was like.. this hospital is not like what you are used to in the states. I really want to know how old it is too. It is only a childrens hospital. We saw a nurse carrying a tray of bottles that did not have nipples.. there were just cotton balls instead... weird. I am really nervous to work there.