The girls ( from BYU) came and picked us up at our hotel, (which we later found out is just down the road from their apartment) and we walked to the orphanage and the main girl whose third time it is here showed us around. They have three sections Isolation, Bambi and Micky. I don't remember all the particulars but Isolation is where the the babies are kept. In each section there are different room. It's a pretty big orphanage and very fortunate that its one if the better orphanages. Over all there are 75 children kept there with one full time doctor and two nurses ! They have a three or four other specialist like a speech pathologist and physical therapist. About two to three workers in each section who are very much over worked and are spread thin. They currently have 11 students from BYU 9 of them work at this orphanage and 2 at another place that I have not yet seen. They than split them up two to a room with one having three. Though these children have there needs like food, shelter, clothes, bed and toys met what they really need is love, just somebody to hold them and talk to them and to just give them attention. Many have severe medical problems some are Handicapped, and many developmentally behind .The students are really needed here and are appreciated. It was really hard because you can't really do anything or change there suiation all you could do was provide Love. We only got to really be with each section for a small amount of time and it will be different in the coming days. we did though get to go outside and hold some children, talk to them, and play. As we came outside this adorable little girl named Nicolette came to me and wanted to be held, she was so sweet and really just wanted to be held, we spent at least an hour out there and I got to hold her she has the most adorable smile. I also got to spend some time with Carol who is rarely taken outside because of the wheeled chair the special education children don't get to come outside as much so this was an exciting day for him. I just held his hand and rubbed his arms we laughed a little.
I speck no Romanian as you know but really tried to learn some of the basics, but it is an extremely hard language things don't look like they sound at all. For instance Iasi is pronounced Yosh which is the city were in. I can now say about six words including buna zina which means good morning.
By lunch time the kids take naps so they leave and we went to lunch .
The second half of the day was much harder for many reasons. We were given scrubs which help identify us with byu( in the orphanage they wear the scrubs as well) which we changed into after we walked to the hospital. We all got split up, my mom went with the main girl and they didn't see too many kid and I went with another student named Rachel. I was really worried of how I would take it and I imagined the worse so I feel like I took it well. We first walked up the the 8th floor and were given the right corners on four floors. We started with this adorable baby who was just covered from head to toe in clothing and I thought I was dying from heat ! They wouldn't open a window because the door was open and one big cultural difference was that they believe that if you have the door and the window open at the same time it will cause kerenit which is the bad air and no joke many of the people legitly believe in it, you can even be diagnosed with kerenit. They had two other patient beds( occupied ) and the Crib which the baby was in, Rachel told me that one of the mothers took a liking to him and will hold him and change his dipper which was nice to know he will be held and taken care of before next time we see him tomorrow. Another thing that was like woah what are you doing! This lady decided to Brest feed right there in this small room with like four other people there and didn't even bother to cover up, and that happened in another room as well. Another thing that's odd Was that the people jere are not shy at all they will stare at you and not care that you can see then, some of the rooms have windows in then and there will be like four rooms like that and you will have a lady in your room staring at you two ladies in the next looking at you and one in the last room all just watching you.
At each floor we, you ask where are the children with no mothers and some times the nurses won't tell you their there and just say no or none and you have to leave which was frustrating because most of the children there are from the orphanage and the girls come everyday so they know that there are children that are there. We had that on one floor and that was hard because we're there to change there diaper and spend some time with them which is pretty much there only interaction for the day which is sad. Out of the kids we saw there which was four three were extremely skinny and the other not far behind and it broke my heart. After a few minutes with one boy Rachel realized she had forgotten her baby wipes at the last room she asked me if I would be okey for like two minutes if she ran up a floor to get them and I told her it wouldn't be a problem but it was kinda scary because the boy we were with you couldn't get him excited or he wouldn't breath so I had to stop at a point or two and say breath, but he was so happy and smily it was amazing to see this child in a horrible condition to still be smiling and happy. Another boy we saw was Just dripping with sweat which made me really sad so we talked to him and fanned him. One of the feeding tubes for one of the babies was clogging and needed to be changed, they had just left the syringe in the feeding tube instead of closeing it even though it says one usethey will use them more times. We came home emotional, physically and mentally just drained and even though it is all those things It just made me just really want to help those children. But the hardest part of the day had to be the end when we came back to change we had met up with another two girls and one of the girls had found out that the first baby she held here in Romania who she really loved and was attached to had passed away between yesterday when she held him and today. Which was really hard even for me and my mom, it was really sad and than we found out another one of the babies had passed away that had been at the orphanage and it was really hard to hear these stories because you see the conditions they are at in the hospitals and its awful! And it breaks your heart. When I first saw the building itself it reminded me ,building design way of what used to be St. Marks or Lukes by sugar house in Salt Lake City which has now the granite school district main office however this one is much much much more run down. Some of the wall is missing from the side of the building and in the rooms there are nasty walls that have gash and honestly the first thing I can think of to help you picture it is looks almost like a old haunted hospital and some of the floors were better than others but its just so different because you think this would never fly in the us with all of laws and such it would be shut down in a day.
On the bright side we are in a great location and food is really cheep, just different selection. The money here Leis exchanges for 1 American dollar for 3 Leis. Last night when we got in we went over to the mall food court and got a Kebob ( I believe that's how you spell that,) the meat is shaved off piece of meat ( turned cooked) than they like grill it and served with French Frys, salad, coleslaw ( better here than in US) and some pita bread. It is extremely good, doesn't look like it but it is! Our hotel is in a great location we have a great view of the palace right outside of our room and right next to the palace is the palace mall which is very new, and to our left we have another mall
Our dinner Koboe...yummy!
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