Thursday, September 21, 2006

We had to wake up pretty early and go to the apartments in the morning. We all met together at Tirgu Cucu, where we took a tramvite to the Dacie apartments. I always liked riding in cars just through relatively boring California, so you can imagine that I loved riding in the tramvite through Iasi. When we got off we walked a little bit to where the actual apartment was. The only thing I really remember about the walk to the first one was there was this really weird looking church that was under construction. At the first apartment (Dacie 3rd floor) I played a lot with a little kid named Catalin. He was ADORABLE. Like, I’m pretty sure that the only things he really had wrong with him were that he had a cleft palate (which had gotten surgery on it) and then just had effects from institutionalization. So basically if his parents had taken care of him he’d be fine. We played a lot together and a lot of the time was spent with me just rocking him in my legs. He fit fabulously and it really calmed him down, which was good because he was a really active kid. After we left we went over to Dacie 7th floor which I remember being in an incredibly ghetto area. Like, the wall right next to the door we went in to get into the bloc had “no school, no job, no money” written across it. In the apartment I remember tossing a balloon around that a couple of the kids would hit – one of which was a cute little down syndrome kid. The apartment was right by a gypsy camp, so when we left the apartment we went to the top of a little slope and looked across a little sewage river thing to where there was this huuuge field with trash all over it and saw the gypsy camp in one little corner of it. It was surreal. I want to go there. Then we got back on the tramvite and rode it basically back to Tirgu Cucu before getting off at Dancu. For some reason I don’t remember the ride there or what the surrounding area of Dancu looked like. I do remember though a little boy named Constantine. I was sitting next to Megan on the couch and she was holding him so that his head was right below mine, facing up at me. I played with his hair almost the entire time and it was soft and just this pretty white blond color. Also, Megan was tickling him a lot so he just kept laughing. Sad story though – he was born because his mom was raped by her dad. What would he do with that if he had the mental faculty to comprehend it? After Dancu we came back to the apartment and got ready to go to the hospital. I was reeeeally tired – probably from waking up early. At the hospital I started off with Maria who was just so happy and sweet. I think she’d just been fed and I changed her diaper, so she was incredibly content and just could care less what I did with her and occasionally would even smile at me. Radu, in the next room, however had a horrible day. The poor guy got a urine bag and got a feeding tube with an iv in his head as well. Also, we gathered from what the nurse said to another mom that he’s really not doing well and as a result the nurse was in a really bad mood. She was yelling at Megan and Radu and I and getting mad at us for the stupidest things. For example, she got mad at Megan for turning Radu on his side, even though he has a fever and his back is way sweaty and he was trying to turn on his side on his own but she was just helping him. She almost made Megan cry. Anyway, after a little while I moved down and was with Iulia for the rest of the day. Holly was down there with me and we had a good chat. After a little while Abbi came down as well and we tried to sing Iulia to sleep but ended up singing Holly to sleep instead. Iulia breaks my heart sometimes because she is always soooo distressed and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do to help relieve it. And the thing is, I really don’t blame her! I would hate to be a little baby who is stuck in a crib with a fever, a bunch of IVs and a big ol tube, pumping oxygen stuck into my throat leaving me unable to emit sound! Poor girl – she’d better get better. After the hospital I think I went with Melissa to the grocery store to get a whole bunch of stuff and then instead of going to Outreach I stayed home because Mario’s husband was supposed to come to fix stuff. He didn’t end up coming though. But it was good because apparently outreach was nothing special and one of the new missionaries offended some of the girls and that way I also got a lot done. After they all came home, a few of them were upset and we talked about outreach for a while, then it turned into a funnier conversation and by the end of the night we had soooo many one liners that shouldv’e gone on the quote board. My favorite was when Melissa was trying to show us how to make a nose flute and to do so she had to blow out Jessica’s nose. Oh my gosh, it was one of those things that’s just so awkward you can’t help but laugh your head off. We all laughed soooo hard. Eventually I got to bed, but much later than I should have as usual.