Thought you might want to know some random day to day things as of May 10.
It is spring in GalaĊ£i. The trees are blooming and filling out with green, the flowers are up (the tulips have bloomed), and it is getting warmer. The grape vines have leaves and all the trees have a fresh coat of whitewash at the base of their trunks. There are some bushes right infront of my apartment building that smell like summer in Hueytown, Alabama. I walk by them and am reminded of sitting in the back of my grandparent's house in the A-frame porch swing. The city is really pretty when green.
Robin, Rachel, and Vali have begun working in the garden. I have helped Robin plant and transplant flowers and helped Vali plant tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. I like gardening, just need someone to tell me what to do. (Last year I planted pots of tomato plants...at least 3 pots with at least 3 plants each...um, they didn't fare too well under my sole supervision...I got a few small tomatoes and then the plants pretty much died.)
Kids have been spending a lot more time outside. That's been really fun. May 1st is a holiday in Romania. So we took the kids to a woods/park and cooked out and played games. It was awesome! We played soccer (which we don't do at the center because of space) with them, as well as a few organized games/relays. It was fun to have all the kids there at the same time. They loved it. Also, a few of our boys (as in kids) took on some older boys (that happened to be in the same park) in a game of soccer. The random older kids won--but only in a shoot-out that went through like 5 people from each side. Anyway, our boys represented really well. Please. It was awesome.
Valentin (one of the kids) and I cleaned out the shed that houses all the garden tools. I told him I was afraid of spiders and he did most of the "reaching into dark crevices that may house scary creatures". Vali approved of our work, but Valentin gets most of the credit, as he made sure we took EVERYTHING out and swept the area really good. I was just moving stuff around, but he was like, "No! Not beautiful!" and made me move a whole stack of these thin strips of wood in order to clean. Valentin also knows quite a bit of english.
ST girls organized a "Girls Night" for the staff one Friday. It consisted of doing a Latin Dance workout video...and then eating pizza right afterwards. Then board games and more dancing. It was fun.
Recard, one of the 1st graders, has invented a new game using rollerblades and a random servant team member. He puts on these much-too-big pair of rollerblades, takes a hand, and then we pull him around (he would prefer using a jumprope, but I deem that a bit unsafe, so we hold hands). He and I start about 25 yards away from the gate (the cement slopes down infront of the gate to the center) and then after saying "uno, doi, tre, si!" we bolt towards the gate. I run like crazy, thinking that I need to stay ahead of him in order to not pull him over backwards by the hand. As soon as we hit the slope, he tries to spin around, using my hand to balance, and then throws his hand out to finish with a flourish. My role in this escapade is to keep him from falling and breaking himself. Recard doesn't know this. Our goal together is to get him to spin around (as in 180 degrees) only using one of my hands to balance. Most of the time it is me grabbing an appendige (sp) so that he will not hit his head on the ground. But he loves it. Once we tried it with two servant team members (myself and Mary Margaret). Halfway to the gate he slipped and we dragged him for about a foot on his knees before I realized he was down. So, we went back to one ST member at a time. Once he and Mary Margaret didn't quite make it 180 degrees, and as she was catching him I saw his little hand turn out as though to say "Ta-Da!". It was so cute.
My host mom is so cute, please. I think Doamna Dabija thinks I know more Romanian than I do, but oh well. I took Caitlin and Laura to meet her seperately within the last couple of weeks. They think she is cute, too. And funny. I think she is hilarious, but unfortunately can't really understand any of the stories. She seems to have great timing when it comes to telling stories.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
an orphanage
This post is a bit late...but I wanted to give some more detail about why I thought the orphanage in a nearby village was so appalling when we were in Moldova. Here's some of what I wrote after visiting:
"We went to a village on Sunday to see an orphanage and play with some kids there. We took a 20 minutes bus ride to there. On the way, Rachel told us that we'd be working with a 100-ish kids, and [admittedly] I was stressed out because I feld we weren't ready for it. We had a list of games, but I was trying not to panic. I remember praying on the way to the orphanage.
It was appalling.
First of all, we walked into the gates, and the yard was full of kids--all ages. The grounds around the buildings were barren and unkept. No grass or much of anything green growing. There were grown men (most in their late teens/early twenties) playing soccer in the field. These guys had no real connection to the orphanage, but were from the town and just using the grounds. Gave me an uneasy feeling for the kids--all these guys and little/no adult supervision with the kids around. At first I was completely overwhelmed by the number of kids outside, especially as I thought we were going to have to organize games with all of them.
The buildings were Soviet-era looking: grey, concrete blocks, run down. Adriana talked to some of the kids who then took us to a main office, but as the main person wasn't there we want up into one of the dorms. It had cracked floors, old doors, grey, dirty, chipped paint, broken light bulbs. Dingy is the word that comes to mind.
We followed Adriana and the kids into a room where one of the orphanage workers was located. She and another worker told us about the orphanage while John and Rachel translated. Currently, 400 kids live at this place, but over the last year 400 others had been moved/"re-integrated" back into families. So the kids that were left didn't have parents. Evidently there is a government intitiative in Moldova to close down all the orphanages by 2012. That means getting all those kids into families by that time--or sending them back to thier own families, which could include only grandparents or a guardian who is an alcoholic or can't provide basic needs.
She explained that the kids who are still on the grounds on a Sunday afternoon really have no one to care for them--as most of the kids who have parents around will spend Sundays with them. And she was telling us all this while kids were in the room, in such a matter-of-fact manner while the kids were right there. The 5 or 6 kids in the room could hear the stories of their lives compacted and abridged for some random foreigners. I felt like thier stories were being treated so impersonally. There we were, 12 foriegners just watching and listening like the kids were just objects to be observed. I hope we didn't give off that vibe, but I felt like it.
I thought about how each one of those kids needed so much one-on-one healthy interactions with an adult to help the healing process. And that each of them had their individual chasm of life hurt, experience, wounding. And a mere couple of hours wouldn't or couldn't change that.
The main room where we gathered to listen was a hodge-podge of carpets and chairs and curtains hanging. It was not warm or inviding or orderly for the kids. The rooms that the children sleep in are bare. Beds against the wall with sheets and 1 blanket. The decorations were of pictures colored with crayon, or make-up or skin-cream ads. It was sad to me that these young girls would compare themselves to an unrealistic "beauty" as defined by a company wanting to sell a product. It was so stark and a bit disgusting to me, that the kids have to live like this.
We walked to a whole other building, where there were only primary school-aged kids: kindergarden and 1st graders that lived there. Their rooms were little different, and we played games with these children in a large room with a piano. All of these kids are little ones who don't have anyone to come and get them or spend time with them on a Sunday afternoon. We played red light/green light, hot potato, Steal the Bacon, etc. The kids seemed to love it. It was hard to reconcile coming in for such a short time and then leaving with pictures. I am grateful to have pictures of the children, but difficult to think that any difference was made in their lives during that time. Angelique (ST member) said that at least it provided a distraction for a while, an opportunity for them to just be children for a bit.
Walking out was overwhelming--to see the kids, each with their own stories and to know or think about the hours needed by a caring adult to love each child. Someone to walk alongside each kid, to live life and provide support and love and guidance for each one. It was that same feeling that I had watching the DCG all-grade band concert last year: all these kids--who will love them and see them and remind them they are valuable?
"We went to a village on Sunday to see an orphanage and play with some kids there. We took a 20 minutes bus ride to there. On the way, Rachel told us that we'd be working with a 100-ish kids, and [admittedly] I was stressed out because I feld we weren't ready for it. We had a list of games, but I was trying not to panic. I remember praying on the way to the orphanage.
It was appalling.
First of all, we walked into the gates, and the yard was full of kids--all ages. The grounds around the buildings were barren and unkept. No grass or much of anything green growing. There were grown men (most in their late teens/early twenties) playing soccer in the field. These guys had no real connection to the orphanage, but were from the town and just using the grounds. Gave me an uneasy feeling for the kids--all these guys and little/no adult supervision with the kids around. At first I was completely overwhelmed by the number of kids outside, especially as I thought we were going to have to organize games with all of them.
The buildings were Soviet-era looking: grey, concrete blocks, run down. Adriana talked to some of the kids who then took us to a main office, but as the main person wasn't there we want up into one of the dorms. It had cracked floors, old doors, grey, dirty, chipped paint, broken light bulbs. Dingy is the word that comes to mind.
We followed Adriana and the kids into a room where one of the orphanage workers was located. She and another worker told us about the orphanage while John and Rachel translated. Currently, 400 kids live at this place, but over the last year 400 others had been moved/"re-integrated" back into families. So the kids that were left didn't have parents. Evidently there is a government intitiative in Moldova to close down all the orphanages by 2012. That means getting all those kids into families by that time--or sending them back to thier own families, which could include only grandparents or a guardian who is an alcoholic or can't provide basic needs.
She explained that the kids who are still on the grounds on a Sunday afternoon really have no one to care for them--as most of the kids who have parents around will spend Sundays with them. And she was telling us all this while kids were in the room, in such a matter-of-fact manner while the kids were right there. The 5 or 6 kids in the room could hear the stories of their lives compacted and abridged for some random foreigners. I felt like thier stories were being treated so impersonally. There we were, 12 foriegners just watching and listening like the kids were just objects to be observed. I hope we didn't give off that vibe, but I felt like it.
I thought about how each one of those kids needed so much one-on-one healthy interactions with an adult to help the healing process. And that each of them had their individual chasm of life hurt, experience, wounding. And a mere couple of hours wouldn't or couldn't change that.
The main room where we gathered to listen was a hodge-podge of carpets and chairs and curtains hanging. It was not warm or inviding or orderly for the kids. The rooms that the children sleep in are bare. Beds against the wall with sheets and 1 blanket. The decorations were of pictures colored with crayon, or make-up or skin-cream ads. It was sad to me that these young girls would compare themselves to an unrealistic "beauty" as defined by a company wanting to sell a product. It was so stark and a bit disgusting to me, that the kids have to live like this.
We walked to a whole other building, where there were only primary school-aged kids: kindergarden and 1st graders that lived there. Their rooms were little different, and we played games with these children in a large room with a piano. All of these kids are little ones who don't have anyone to come and get them or spend time with them on a Sunday afternoon. We played red light/green light, hot potato, Steal the Bacon, etc. The kids seemed to love it. It was hard to reconcile coming in for such a short time and then leaving with pictures. I am grateful to have pictures of the children, but difficult to think that any difference was made in their lives during that time. Angelique (ST member) said that at least it provided a distraction for a while, an opportunity for them to just be children for a bit.
Walking out was overwhelming--to see the kids, each with their own stories and to know or think about the hours needed by a caring adult to love each child. Someone to walk alongside each kid, to live life and provide support and love and guidance for each one. It was that same feeling that I had watching the DCG all-grade band concert last year: all these kids--who will love them and see them and remind them they are valuable?
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