Day 56

So lets see lets see.. Today is Tuesday! The orphanage was very good (when is it not). Diana was there but today were able to talk quite a bit! The kids were not as rowdy today so I think that is why. We talked a lot about relationships, Romania, jobs, the economy, our families.. it was good! I told her I was going to visit Brasov next week and I guess that is where she had her honeymoon! She gave me a link to her website where all of her photoalbums are (kind of like a flickr or photobucket account). She was telling me how her husband and her traveled around visiting different friends around western Europe last year. They went to Paris, Germany, Venice, the Black Sea. She was saying that her husband was a city engineer and it was so interesting hearing her opinion on how Romania and Romania’s economy is handled. I find a lot of satisfaction in building relationships so this was a really good day for me.

I was not able to go to the hospital because by the time Mario left after our language class, it was very late. I had to go to Carrefour (Romania style costco) with the girls around 5:30pm anyways. At Carrefour, Dani and I were getting ingredients to make cupcakes for the branch Halloween activity and man was it interesting. We thought it would be really easy to find things but it was a little hectic. The powdered sugar was in these little boxes (everything here is little!) and we had to get like 5 boxes. The vanilla was in a tiny bottle too.. forget the food coloring. Extra forget cupcake liners! It all worked out though. We were thinking of having the branch members decorate their own cupcakes but instead we are going to do chocolate frosting with dirt and worms! Chocolate cookies and gummy worms. I really hope it works out with an oven the size of a shoebox a 6 cupcake tin (we have to make 50) and no cupcake liners. Pray for us!

Tonight I was able to speak to Robby on the phone and it was so incredibly helpful. He said that I could maybe start going back to work with AU at 3pm. I think this would be so great as I think that Alex is one of the most important reasons that I am here. I told Robby a couple stories about AU and Robby would bust up. I could tell just how much he loves AU. This was so inspiring to me. AU is such a special boy, not just in the serious sense. He is such a smart boy and he also has such a sense of humor. I love learning more about him, and talking to Robby really opened the doors in just how I can better aid AU’s development and also how to become better friends with him. A big thing that Robby talked about was helping build AU’s trust and ability to choose. Helping increase his agency and have him be capable of choosing for himself. I have so many ideas now in ways that I can help give AU options while ensuring he stays on task and on course. How to approach the times that AU gives me the puppy dog face because he wants to play ‘Canta cu noi’ haha and how to actually use this to encourage learning.

I learned some helpful phrases!

‘you found it’: ai gasito (feminine), il ai gasit (lai gasit) (masculine)

‘you did it’ ai facuto (feminine), lai facut (masculine)

‘clever’: Este destept

‘count’ : numera

I have also been developing an addiction to cashews. Help!