The Kids Stole My Heart

I sat down to start writing about my experiences so far in the orphanage, but I realized that I don't think  there is a way to express my thoughts or feelings in words. It has been wonderful but so emotional. I have only been there a couple days, but I have learned and experienced so much. I don't know how good this is going to sound, but stick with me and I will attempt to tell you what it is like!

Front entrance of the orphanage

Well, we wake up every morning and start getting ready to go. We leave our apartment at about 8:30 and walk to the orphanage. It probably takes 15-20 minutes, so it is really close! We go in a back door and walk up to the second floor where they have a special room for us to change into our scrubs. I absolutely love wearing scrubs and I am so glad we use them! After just two days, mine had snot and food and dirt all over them so I had to bring them home...thank goodness we aren't wearing our normal clothes with the children! Anyways, we all change our clothes and shoes and load up our pockets with hand sanitizer(we definitely need it) and then we all go into our separate rooms.

In my last post I talked about how we saw each room and had to submit our choices. Before coming, I thought I would want to be in the Bambi room, but as we were touring I felt really strongly that I needed to be in Mickey 1. So I put it as my top choice and I am happy to say that it is now my assigned room fore the next four months! It is way out of my comfort zone, but I am so happy to be there! 

Let me tell you about Mickey 1 and all of the wonderful children I get to work with every morning! I wish that I could show pictures and use the kids names, but that isn't allowed. There are about 15 kids in my room! It can get pretty crowded when they are all there! About 11 of them are in wheelchairs, and all the kids have some kind of disability. Three of the kids are completely blind, and about two or three others are visually impaired, but not completely blind. They all have disabilities of some sort. Down syndrome, epilepsy, and mental and physical delays are only a couple of the things we see. Only one of them can talk. The other 14 will make noises but can't really communicate verbally. We got to read a binder with information on all of the children along with their story, and most of mine have identified parents who abandoned them at the orphanage because they couldn't handle or afford to take care of them, but they don't come to visit or anything. A couple were taken from their homes by CPS. Their stories made me cry...they are so young, but have been through so much! 

The actual room is pretty small. There are toys, but most of the kids can't really play with them. On the right and left sides of the room there are doors leading to the bedrooms. There are only two bedrooms, so each has about seven cribs in it. Our room gets very hot and all the kids are practically dressed for winter, so we try to fan them off sometimes. About 10 of the kids get to go outside in the morning, which is nice because it gives us time to work with the blind kids left in the room. When the toddlers are gone, we can take the kids in the wheelchair and spend time holding them and massaging their muscles and trying to stretch them out! The other girl from my group in the room with me is Hannah, and she is amazing with the kids! I am so glad she is there with me! 

Ok so now more about the kids!! I love them so much already!! It has taken a couple days to learn their names, but I know most of them now! I will start with the toddlers and kids not in wheelchairs! One little boy is developmentally delayed but is so cute!! He is blonde and cuddly and just adorable! He will cry when he needs to be picked up, and a lot of times he will just lay his head on my shoulder as I am holding him. He is gentle and will sit in a crib a lot of the time and play with toys by himself. Our other boy toddler is almost the opposite. He loves to run around and constantly needs to be watched! He really makes me laugh sometimes! He has a huge smile and loves to play! He has down syndrome, can't talk yet, but is great at walking! The problem we have with him is that he is very violent...he likes to hit and scratch, but we are teaching him how to be gentle! He is a very happy kid though! Then we have three little girls. Two go to a little school in the morning so we only get a little bit of time with them each day. The one who doesn't is autistic and can walk and is a sweetheart! One is a little delayed, but looks like a normal four year old! She is so cute! She loovveesss attention and has no problem trying to distract us from the other children. She loves to be tickled and her laugh will melt your heart. She can't talk, but she is learning a lot! The other little girl really has a piece of my heart...She doesn't have legs. Well, technically she does, but they are like little twigs and can't be used, so it is as if they are not there. She is really the only one that can talk, so it is nice to have little conversations with her...even if she doesn't speak english! She knows our names, which is really special for us because none of the other kids can say our names. She will come in at about 11:30 in her little wheelchair and she is always so excited to see us!! She reaches up and says a whole sentence to me(it is in Romanian so I don't understand) but I recognize it  when I hear "În brațe" which means "in arms". Teo told me she is just asking to be held, but the english translation is "take me in your arms". She gets so excited when I pick her up and will just hold me and hug me and won't let me put her down. If she is on the ground, she can pull herself using her arms and likes to play! The workers warn us that she is "spoiled"...and being spoiled here is way different from America. They are worried about he being spoiled because she gets held too much...so they told us not to always hold her. I am so happy I get to spend time with her each day though, I always look forward to seeing her!

The rest of the children are in wheelchairs, but I love them just as much!! They are harder to work with sometimes because they can't communicate or tell you what they want, which makes it tricky. The good news is...when we play with them, they are so happy! If we weren't there, some of those kids would do nothing but sit in their wheelchair all morning. The workers are so busy feeding and changing the kids, so all of the play time and extra love comes from us. I spent a lot of my time with one of the blind boys today. He was so happy to have the attention! He loved to be tickled and hearing him actually laugh was such a sweet sound! He was happier than I have ever seen him before! I took him out of his chair and laid him on a mattress sitting in the room so he could stretch out. Hannah was with another kids, but the two of us starting singing "You belong with me" which seems so random and probably a little weird, but it was such a tender moment. We just sat and sang to the kids and they were both smiling and laughing and those moment are when I remember why I am here and why these kids need us. It was so sweet!

There is also a blind girl who I worked with today! She loves to hold our hands! If we grab both her hands and kind of dance around a little, she gets this huge smile! She was laughing a lot today too, which made us very happy! We never know what they are thinking, so if I can get a smile or laugh I feel like I am doing something good. I am hoping to learn ways to help them!

There are so many other children and I am sure you will all hear a lot about them during my time here! In case anyone is curious about their food...I learned a little bit about it today. Our whole room has this distinct smell and I think it is the smell of their food. They all eat this mush stuff...it looks pretty disgusting. I am not sure exactly what is in it, but someone told another girl that it has nutrients and stuff that the kids need. All of the kids in my room who eat well are wheeled to the little dining room and fed their mush. Today I got to go help and the little boy I was feeding ate all of his! The workers were so happy!! The kids who don't go to the dining room are fed their mush with a bottle. The ones that can't use a bottle have a feeding tube and they have a more liquid version of mush that gets put in the tube.

All in all, these kids are amazing! They are so special and make me so happy! I could go on and on forever about them. I am sure all of my blog posts will talk about them, but it is because I am here for them. I am so grateful to be here! These kids need us. They need the love and the help. The workers need us here. I love getting to know each child and worker. It is hard to communicate with the workers because not many of them know any english, but I know I will learn a lot from them. And I also know I will learn from these kids. They have already touched my heart. I cry so much...it is so emotional being around them. Happy tears and sad tears and just everything...it is hard to be around sometimes. To see these children and what their lives are like just breaks my heart on a daily basis. When I talk about them or think about them or even write blog posts about them I can't help but cry. I have so much love for them and it has only been a couple days. It really is not easy to be here...we are always tired and busy and it is rough, but the kids make every second worth it! I am so grateful to be here!!

 In other news...Romania is so great! On Saturday we went on a day trip!! We went to the Cetatea Neamţ(Neamţ Fortress) which was built in the 1300s, the Neamţ Monastery, and the Sihăstria Monastery. They were all so beautiful! I am excited to travel around Romania and to other countries while I am here! 

Our apartment is finally starting to feel a little more homey! Big news: we got a water filter on our sink!!!!! Now we don't have to use bottled water all the time! Yay! We don't have air conditioning, so we bought fans the other day and it was probably the best purchase I have made since being here. Emma and I can now sleep at night! Well...except for the construction. They are redoing the street right outside our apartment and they don't start construction until about 9 pm and they go until about 2 am....it makes for quite a loud evening haha. Also, I am trying hard to learn the language but it is so difficult! A  lot of people here don't speak english, especially people we work with in the orphanage and hospital, so I want to be  able to communicate better. I think my whole group is working on that.

I think that is all for now! I just wanted to say thank you for all the love, support, and prayers that have been sent my way. I am having an amazing time, but it has also been really hard and I really appreciate my friends and family and all the love they show me! I am so happy to be here! Thank you guys for everything! Te iubesc!

Love.
Madeline