Friday, November 17, 2006

One month left. This morning Shannon was too sick for us to go to Penilla, so I went to Donald Duck with Holly. It was really weird because I’m so used to going to Dancu now that it felt totally different. Like, even going to the hospital felt different because I didn’t go with Shannon and I didn’t come from Dancu. When I first walked into Donald Duck, I came in by myself because Holly was talking to someone, most of the kids were gone! Like, there were only 4 kids in the first room, no kids in the second room, 2 kids in the living room and one kid in the back room. In the middle room where there were no kids, they were cleaning all the beds. Well, right when I walked in I saw a kid all the way at the end of the hall (fuzzily, since I can’t wear contacts) and from what I could make out he looked like he had a big grin on his face. So, I called to him saying “hai la mine!” or “come to me!” He ran up to me and help up his arms, so I picked him up and just carried him around as I went to the different kids. Welcome to Romanian orphanages, where random kids that you don’t even know attach to you immediately. Sometimes I feel like a holding machine. At first I just wandered around with him on my hip trying to figure out what I wanted to do first. I walked in the living room and Matteo was sitting in his chair, so I bent down to give him some attention, but as soon as I looked at him he started working up to crying, the way kids do, so I was like “oh shoot!” and just ran out so he’d stop so the workers wouldn’t get mad. Eventually Holly came in and we got to work. I held almost all the kids sometime throughout the day. The little boy I held in the beginning I soon found was named Salim. He’s 2 and a half and his mom just died of AIDS. His dad can’t take care of him or his brother (who also has AIDS) and so he was dropped off at the orphanage about a week ago. Holly says he’s gotten progressively more sober and whereas is the beginning he only ever wanted to play and wasn’t too interested in being held, now all he wants is to be held and loved and it’s hard to get him to play. It’s horrible to see the very beginning of someone getting institutionalized. Like, he’s a perfectly normal adorable little boy and I see him going through all this pain and becoming scarred for life and there’s nothing in the world I can do about it though I’d be happy to do anything in the world to help him. It’s kids like that that I can’t stand to be around unless I keep reminding myself to have an eternal perspective. Well anyway, so most of the time I took care of two babies at once. Sometimes it was Salim and Carlos. Sometimes it was Cosmina and Andreia and sometimes it was Carlos and Emmanuela. As soon as I could get a chance I held Matteo because Holly said that would probably make him happier. At first he would do nothing but cry, but he stopped after a while. When he stopped, I spun him in circles and he actually laughed! Carlos, too, has such an adorable smile. Cosmina, a beauuutiful little girl with Cerebral Palsy, gave the most intense stares I have ever seen. While we were there they moved Emmanuela and Andreia’s cribs into the living room, which was odd. At one point I was really proud of myself because I was able to get Salim to play a little. He was standing with his arms folded, leaning against the table, with his head in his arms, crying. So, I went and got one of those toys, where you have these round plastic doughnut shaped circles that you place in graduated order onto a platform with a thin cylinder coming up from the center of it. I’m sure that makes no sense, but oh well. Anyway, Holly said he liked it, so I went and got it. I started playing with it and acting like it was sooo much fun and being loud and excited and saying I needed help and eventually one time I specifically asked for his help and (he’d been watching me for some time now) he got the biggest smile on his face and tentatively came over and started playing with me! Such a success! Well, eventually he got distracted because one of the workers had chocolate and she saw him watching her and gave him a piece. I didn’t see him for a while after that because he was just behind the wall. Eventually I started wondering where he was so I got up and turned the corner and there he was…with chocolate alllll over. He had it all over his face and his hands too – so cute. At lunchtime I fed little Carlos, who is usually a horrible eater, but actually wasn’t too bad this time. I also stroked Emmanuela at the same time because she was crying in the crib behind me. Holly was feeding Matteo, so neither of us were looking and then one of the workers came in and started exclaiming a bunch of thing because apparently while we weren’t looking, Mihaela and Salim, who were sitting at a little table eating out of bowls, had switched their bowls! It was so cute! Speaking of cute, before that, when Matteo was upset, Salim got this bottle of the table that the workers always give to Matteo when he’s upset and he started trying to give it to him. He had this concerned expression on his face and just kept trying to comfort Matteo. That, right there, is when you know you are dealing with no institutionalized child. Well, anyway, so when feeding time was almost over Holly got a call from Mario saying that Cristi was coming over to fix our drain in like 5 minutes and someone needed to be there. Shannon was there, but was taking a shower, so she didn’t answer the phone, so I went. He’d already been let up by Shannon when I got there though. After a few minutes, all of which were taken up by the drain problem, Melissa came by to pick me up to go to the hospital and she wanted me to just come down. I would’ve, but we had to figure out who was going to give Cristi the key, so we had her come up. She still seemed pretty pissed from yesterday and finally I just decided to not let it affect me. I knew I wasn’t being difficult, so I decided to stop caring what she thought. We decided I’d give my key to Cristi, I made myself a sandwich, and then we left. As we walked out the door, Shannon realized that she need to borrow money, so we had Melissa wait again while we went to the ATM. After a few minutes of walking though, she took out her ipod and wanted me to tell her everything about her that was bothering me. We talked all the way to the hospital and for quite some time at the hospital, in Octavion’s room. It was both good and bad, but I guess on the whole it was good. It’s never going to be completely satisfying to have a conversation like that until you know someone comfortably enough, and I have no idea what she thought about it, but by the end, I was more ok with her. Well, when we were done she left me with Octavion. He was really sleepy, but I was supposed to feed him. At first I tried to get him to wake up and eat, but it would NOT work, so I finally just gave up and put him back in his crib. I sat there and read for a while. Occasionally he’d wake up for a short time and I’d feed him a few gulps of formula and then he’d fall asleep again. After I was tired of reading, I was just sitting there waiting for him to wake up, and I fell asleep for like 45 minutes! I didn’t think I was going to at all and when I woke up I was really surprised. Octavion was still asleep, so I just…got up and left! I’m sure the other mom in the room was like “she came all the way over here just to sleep in the hospital?” Next I went to the 6th floor, to the room with Vasilica, Radu and another newborn whose name I do not know. Jess was with Vasilica, so I took Radu. After a little while, the newborn woke up and started crying. I wanted to hold them both, but although it’s not that hard to hold two babies, it iiis hard to get the other baby into your arms. After awkwardly placing Radu in several positions, making a go for the other baby and realizing it wouldn’t work, quite a few times, I finally just put Radu on my legs and picked the other one up. After a while Vasilica fell asleep, so Jess took Radu. At the end we gave poor Radu a new outfit, since his was in rags and changed their diapers. Seriously, Radu’s skin is the saddest skin I’ve ever seen and I wish I could help it to heal. We walked halfway home with Melissa, Megan, and Bri and then Melissa and Megan went to drop Bri off while Jess and I went straight home. Once we got there, however, we realized that neither of us had keys! We decided to go try and head off Melissa and Megan incase they were going straight to the Palat (we weren’t going). Once we got home, I made the amazing pasta that my mom sent, read from “Each One a Miracle” which I really like, and wrote in my journal while cooking the brownies that Shannon had made. I was so proud of myself because it was the first time I cooked anything like that in our retarded oven and they turned out perfectly even though I can barely cook brownies right at home! Around 7 we all headed off to the Relief Society activity, which ended up being pretty good. By the end I really did feel like I’d had a good experience with the Romanian women and had a stronger connection with them. We did a few activities. For the first one we had a list of attributes and we had to walk around and talk to people and figure out who fit which attributes and write their names next to them. Then, we went around the whole circle and each person told a little about themselves. Cute little old Sora Maria just went off forever about the things she likes and though I was content to just sit there and listen to her, finally Sora Wright cut her off and had Sora Baker go. I wanna take Sora Maria home with me. After that, we just ate the refreshments and made Christmas cards. At one point I went in the kitchen and found Jess talking to the Relief Society president, Sora Maria’s husband. We tried to understand him together and did tolerably well. Then, when we all left, I was right next to a new Sora whose name I don’t know. She talked to me nonstop from the villa to to the gogosi stand where we hand to separate and I had no clue what she’d said the entire time. All I did was just say “Da” in various tones and laughed at appropriate times. I’m not quite sure whether she actually thought I understood her or whether she went home and laughed her head off at me, but I got quite a kick out of it. I sometimes wonder whether people just tell sit there and make fun of us because they know we’ll just be like, “da, da.” After we got home, I did some journals and then we all watched “Sweet Home Alabama” together, the four of us on Shannon and Melissa’s couch bed.