Lack of Internet... Different Kinda Week

The end of this week has been hellish.. on Wednesday right after lunch Gabriela and Mihaela were taken away from the hospital and sent to a placement center. It was heart breaking to have to watch Emily experience this. Emily had come to love Mihaela and Mihaela had definitely come to love Emily. Every time we would walk into the hospital Mihaela would come running and throw herself into Emily’s arms. If someone else happened to get to Mihaela first then as soon as she saw Emily she would lunge toward her with open arms. Even as I sit here typing this I am crying… how can you be strong for someone else when you are so sad yourself? Logically I know that Mihaela is a healthy normal child who needs to be in a loving family environment… emotionally I just want to be the one who is loving her… I am truly at a loss for words on explaining the feelings that go with our experiences.

Wednesday afternoon we were able to visit a placement center for handicapped children. The concept of the center reminds me a lot of TSD (TN School for the Deaf, where I worked from 1992 – 1997). There are several “homes” located on a campus with a playground in the middle. Sadly there are only 2 employees for each home at any given time and numerous children. The atmosphere is one of a home though.. with a living area and several small bedrooms. The first home we went into had so many of our former Tutova kiddos! In the living room there were 2 ladies holding 2 infants (young enough to still be completely swaddled) and 4 older children.. including Miastra and Ion! I was able to hold Miastra and she continued on our tour with us. We walked to the back bedroom and there we found a colorful room filled with cribs and 1 toddler bed (I believe)… there were 2 children I did not know in this room (1 an adorable 8 or 9 year old boy with Down Syndrome who was a doll and gracious host as he showed us the other bedrooms! LOL) and little Alina and Marius! We then saw the 2 remaining bedrooms (1 a room for older children that we truly just peeked into) and the other filled sleeping children in 6 or 7 cribs/toddler beds.. this was Sami’s bedroom. So we saw 18 children plus however many were in the bedroom we only peeked into.. with only 2 workers L So while the facility is very nice and ideally much better than a hospital or clinic setting there need to be more staff! We said goodbye to the children and visited one other home that had only 2 children present.. an older girl and Ana-Maria from Tutova! The older girl became agitated until the social worker explained to her that we were not there to take her we were just visiting. After this short visit we went back outside to wait for the taxi and Mihaela spoke with the social worker who gave us the tour.

Visiting the center and seeing some of the children from my past was a balm for Emily’s (and my) soul. Knowing the environment the children are going into when they leave the hospital to begin the wait for foster parents helps ease the fear of the unknown for us. Then Wednesday evening the 2^nd blow of the day hit… no internet access at the hotel.

Thursday morning at the hospital was sad and lazy. Baby Ana-Maria is getting a cold and doesn’t want to do a whole lot. Paula is Paula, Cleo is Cleo, Nadia is Nadia, Elena is Elena, Carmen is Carmen and baby Valle is a wild man who wants to walk everywhere! Kerry and I went downstairs to help Coca as she changed Raul’s bandages. I had to just keep up a running prayer for this sweet boy who has such an ordeal every moment of his life and dear sweet Coca, who has the patience of a saint and can endure Raul’s cries as she changes his bandages every day. Kerry commented that it reminded her of what a burn unit must be like… it is beyond unimaginable. We muddled through the morning with the silence ringing in our ears.. missing Mihi’s crazy gymnastic stunts and Gabi’s brilliant smile. Then suddenly we were inundated with children.. they brought over 6 kids from the placement center! Alina, Big Ana-Maria, Ion, Ionut, Miastra, and Marius! Let the chaos begin! We practically double our baby numbers in minutes! Except these weren’t “babies” these are big, rambunctious kids who had lots of energy and a very small area in which to burn that energy. The kids literally went wild throwing toys out of toy buckets, digging through drawers and cupboards, running in and out of the rooms. Finally it was time for the kiddos to eat lunch. Mistake number one – bottles were brought out for the babies that usually eat bottles. Ion, Marius, and Miastra immediately began to scream for bottles as well. They tried to take bottles from the kids and volunteers who had the bottles. Miastra apparently was circling Nadia’s crib waiting for a chance to swipe her bottle! So we are trying to bottle feed the kiddos who have bottles and corral the other kids until their food arrives… utter chaos! Finally the soup arrived for the older kids.. thankfully the bottles were finished so we could feed the older kids. Ion is the only one who could feed himself. Just FYI - it is rather difficult to feed soup with pieces of bread to a wiggling 3 year old. I have never been so ready for a lunch break in all my life. Then I saw sweet Coca’s face and realized that she would virtually be alone with these wild things until we returned – and you could see in their eyes that going down for a nap was the farthest thing in their minds! We did get the children situated in cribs or in the playroom and went down for lunch. That may have been the quietest lunch ever in the history of man! We were all feeling rather overwhelmed! Thankfully the afternoon went much smoother… but of course I had already started thinking about how Emily, Jane, and I are going to handle 13 wild ones on our own next week!

Thursday night was our last dinner out before 3 of our team mates continue on their journeys. We invited Lorry (correct spelling of our dear high school volunteer) to dinner with us at the G restaurant. I still cannot begin to pronounce the name of it! After a lovely dinner Dan was kind enough to come back to the hotel with us and work on their internet. Emily was able to go online long enough to send out a couple of emails before the entire network collapsed. Dan worked until after 10:30pm but had no luck. I am assuming that since we are in Romania and working on Romanian time that we will not have internet again until we arrive in Amsterdam. Not having an international cell phone, it is quite hard not to have any way to communicate with our friends and family at home. Krista was so sweet and let Emily borrow her cell phone to text Collin, her boyfriend, just so he would know what was happening.

Friday arrived with exhaustion.. both physical and emotional. Being in a foreign land is a wonderful experience but it is also taxing on the body and the mind. Not being able to speak the language, not being able to jump in a car and go where you want to go, spending time surrounded by people you don’t really know.. it is an adventure but there comes a time when you just want to become a turtle and draw back into your shell. That is the plan for this weekend.. Jane just isn’t feeling well enough to make the trip to Transylvania so we are staying in Barlad… I do look forward to just relaxing at the hotel and exploring the city. However, we have one more day of duty at the hospital before that happens!

The kids were fairly calm Friday morning. There were some potential foster parents visiting the hospital. They tried to interact with Paula but she wasn’t really in an interactive mood! They played with baby Ana-Maria for a while also. Baby Ana-Maria is officially sick.. she has a horribly snotty nose and a cough. Valle is feeling much better and had his IV removed. Ion was calmer today and enjoyed riding in the bottom of the stroller (while another child rode in the top) up and down the hallway. (The weather has been bad all week.. I don’t think I have mentioned that on the blog.. It started raining last Friday and hasn’t gotten pretty since. The temperatures have remained in the 60s all week.. which means – yep, no outdoor playtime. So even though I bought a canopy/tent in Iasi we haven’t been able to set it up and use it… hopefully by Monday we can!) Emily and I went downstairs for her first visit with Raul. He looked so much better.. his color was good and he just seemed happy and peaceful. After lunch everyone except for Emily, Jane, and I walked to the internet hotspot – a gas station halfway between the hospital and the hotel. So glad we didn’t walk with them.. there were no computers at the gas station only free wireless! Luckily Jennea had her ipad so they were able to send off an email or 2. The afternoon was WILD but at least it didn’t allow anyone to get overly emotional about leaving. Busy is good in that respect!

Friday night we had dinner at the hotel – the yummy chicken, potato, and onions in a sour cream and cheese sauce casserole – and said our farewells. Emily and I are truly going to miss the friends we have made during these short 2 weeks. We wish them all well on their journeys through life.

Our new friend Krista gave Emily her copy of Steel Magnolias. After spending some quiet time saying goodbye to Kerry we rearranged our room so we could watch it together on my laptop. Emily fell asleep halfway through the movie so I imagine we will be watching it again tonight.

It is finally Saturday morning… I slept in until 8:30, which was heaven! Emily is still sleeping and it is now 11:45! J I have been able to read for a while today and write this recap of the week. Jane is moving to the 2^nd floor of the hotel with us after noon today. Then we are going to have lunch together and start a journey in search of an internet connection! Even with the sadness expressed in this entry do not be sad for us. We are having the adventure of a lifetime and are embracing the journey for all the ups and the downs!

Please pray for us.. we are encountering challenge after challenge and while they are small challenges when you are out of your comfort zone they become large! It is comforting to know others are praying for us. I would also ask that you pray specifically for Raul who is awaiting permission to travel to the States for treatment… for Coca, his aide, that she be given the strength necessary to continue to care for Raul on a daily basis… for Gabriela and Mihaela who are out of our realm of care.. Thank you friends! We miss you and love each of you!