Friday, October 20, 2006

Today was a good day! Starting off with Dancu, the kids were just great. We decided there’s a love triangle thing going on because Mihai loves Iuliana and Iuliana loves Petrica (and Petrica, of course, loves me). Mihai loving Iuliana has always been a known fact. Like, it was in all the writeups and the workers tell us all the times and it’s really true. Like, even though this boy really can’t move very easily, he’ll move all the way across the room just to give Iuliana a toy. And apparently they’ve always been together, like ever since before they were in the apartment too. Iuliana, however, has never shown any partiiiicular affection for Mihai. Well, today, all of a sudden she starts trying to interact with Petrica! This is a big thing because these kids just usually don’t interact with each other at all. They’ll interact with us or just play by themselves and that’s it. But all of a sudden, she starts trying to pull Petrica toward her and starts trying to tickle him and she just keeps saying “ticka ticka ticka.” It was so cute! And we could tell she was showing affection because that’s how we show affection for her and at one point she stopped and just put her arms around him and rested there cuddling with him for a little while. It was so sweet! Also, this whole time she’s just giggling uncontrollably. This went on for a good 15 minutes by the way. Petrica, however, as out of it as he is (poor innocent boy), was still kind of trying to get away, but was failing miserably because every time he’d start to crawl away she’d just pull him right back. It was great fun and I just sat my self down and watched. Also, I felt better there today because I was actively working with Petrica on standing and crawling. It wasn’t working too well, but just the fact that we were trying things and thinking of ideas really helped me feel better. I tried getting him in all these productive positions, but it was really hard because he has no desire to be bent that way and I really don’t think he gets the concept. Actually, I’m positive he doesn’t so I’m not sure how we’re going to get him to do it. I really hope we start going to physical therapy soon though, because I think they have things at the orphanage that would really help him, like a standing ladder or something. Anyway, my last Dancu highlight was swinging the kids in a blanket. At one point I just thought of how much fun it would be to swing the kids on a blanket with Shannon and I each holding one side. So we decided to wait til the end of the day and try it then so they wouldn’t keep wanting to do it the whole day. Well, we did it to all the kids in the order of Petrica, Costica, Mihai, then Iuliana and they all absolutely looooved it. Petrica had a half smile on his face the whole time and was just mesmerized. Costica just did his little laugh the whole time. Mihai started laughing hysterically and we started rolling him too, which he though was even better and yeah, it was just great. Then, Iuliana was cracking up the whole time and we had to stop it gradually and sneakily so she wouldn’t scream. We succeeded though and she didn’t scream at all! Such an accomplishment. The only bad thing was that Ani, who is normally so happy and so nice to us and so interactive with the children was really standoffish and weird today and didn’t feed us. We’re starting to wonder if we did something to offend the workers. As we walked out the door we said bye to bullet. He’s our dog friend who’s always right outside the door and who we really wish we could pet. It’s clear that he’s a really nice dog and he’s got one ear that goes up and one that goes down and he’s really cute. Also on the way to the train I saw an old lay who’d hefted herself up onto one of the trash bins and with legs swinging was digging through the trash. It was an odd and sobering sight to see, but not too surprising either. We didn’t even say anything about it. On the way to the hospital we started talking about yesterday when we’d gotten in our argument and started working it all out. It was, yet again, a really edifying conversation in which I learned a lot about myself. That’s how it always turns out with our conversations. We also figured out more about our relationship, which is very common. I like that around Shannon I feel like I can be frank about myself. It’s been hard and we’ve had to work at it, but we’ve built our relationship into something really fabulous and I love her to death. We’d decided it’s going to be weird being friends in Provo, but I hope we still are. Funnier, even still, because at the beginning I didn’t think I could stand being around her every single day. Now she’s like my saving grace. Anyway, so at the hospital Shannon and I just kind of stuck together. We started off with Mihai who was just a doll. At the beginning we were still having our deep conversation. With Mihai we played with the balloon again and then halfway through this really really nice young cute nurse came in and you could tell she had a lot of affection for him. She brought him this new car toy and played with him a little and tried to get him to smile. The nurses never play with the kids. It was amazing. We were just like, “wow! You care!” I honestly think she must’ve been fairly new and just not hardened yet like the rest of them, but I loved her for it. I love how I feel like Mihai and I have such a bond. I mean, even the very first day I was with him I felt like he was more comfortable with me than most and he shows signs of it all the time, like when he cuddled up to me when I stood him up on the floor and everyone was looking at him, and when he ran to me when we were giving him a shower. Today he would just randomly cuddle up to me and lie there for a while. He also looks straight into my eyes and gives me one of those smiles that just says “yeah, I know we’re on the same page.” I can’t explain it, but it’s fantastic. These kids are my life right now, so when you feel like you’ve made some kind of good impact on their lives it’s the best feeling in the world. I love them so much. After we left Mihai we went down to see Iulia. Marina was in there already though. She’s such a sad little child. It breaks my heart every time I see her because she never smiles, she has the most heartbreaking expression and silent cry, she seems to be in so much pain, her body is so week, she has so many skin problems and she has such horrible bedsores. It drives me insane that there’s nothing I can do for her. Sometimes I wish she’d either get better quick or die because I can’t stand that she has such a miserable existence. We also discovered another little boy in the room next door. He is tiny and somehow malformed. Like, he just has an unusual little body and I feel so bad for him. To me, all the babies are the same. They’re babies and they need the same things whether they’re normal or not and it breaks my heart when they suffer. As we were walking out of the hospital we saw this poor mother in the middle of such a cry of agony it broke my heart. She was crying and she said something and hit her fist on the wall and walked away down the hall. It was so tragic. All of this made me realize that one of the most important lessons I feel I will learn here is to see the joy in the world even while being surrounded by its tragedies. I mean, every day we see so many unbearably tragic things that we are forced to either just move on and stay happy or fall into a deep depression. After the hospital, Shannon and I, in very high spirits, walked home. On the way, we first stopped at the corner store, then the bread stand, then Hala. In between the bread stand and Hala there’s almost always this little old lady that sits on some steps and begs for money. Well, as we were walking by I made eye contact with her and she asked me for some bread. I decided I might as well, so I ripped off a chunk and handed it to her. Then, strangely enough, as I handed it to her and when she saw that she’d convinced me, she let out the evilest little cackle I’ve ever heard! Shannon and I couldn’t help but just bust out laughing because it was sooo disturbing. It reminded me of the old lady in Hansel and Gretel or something! Once we got home, I got as much done as I could before going to Andrea’s birthday party. The party was good, but really only mediocre. It was more of a chore for me, than anything else. We had a puzzle contest at the beginning and a few of us just played with the puzzles the rest of the time. We had some nasty cake and ice. Since being home we’ve just been doing the usual. Sadly though, we were informed that we will no longer be going to Brasov before going to Budapest! That’s really disappointing because A.) now I have to give a talk and B.) I really wanted to go!