Sorry it’s been so long since my
last post. Don’t worry, I’m still alive! All is well in Romania. Actually, all
is awesome in Romania! Are you ready for an explosion of pictures and videos?
As far as the videos are concerned….sorry that a bunch of them are sideways. I
don’t know how to turn them and I didn’t realize that I was taking them not
right side up. Ah well! Beware, since this post covers two weeks, it’ll be
pretty scatterbrained. Oh, and heads up, I can’t use any of my kids’ names, so
all the names in here are nicknames for the time being. You ready for
craziness? Let’s go!
In the orphanage, each intern has a
set room that they work in, thus a set group of kids. There are 7 potential
rooms that you can be assigned in the orphanage. We got to choose our room
after we had visited each of them (I wrote a bit about that in my last post),
but I was worried that I wouldn’t choose the right one. But I chose Room 4 and
the next day when I went out to the playground with the Room 4 kids, Ana (my
little girl with dark curly hair) and one of the energizer bunny boys ended up
sitting on my lap kissing my cheeks. That was one of many times that I’ve felt that
Room 4 is the place for me!! Goodness, my kids are sweet! I have 13 of them
ranging in age from 3-14. It’s been great to have that set group of kids
because then I’ve gotten to actually work with them. In the past few weeks I’ve
gotten to do some physical therapy with my kids, which has been awesome! At
first it’s really scary because with a few of my kids, they are really stiff. With
one of my boys, I massage his legs to loosen up the muscles and then we’ll try
to extend them. He can’t really use his legs so he is always laying on a bed
and on his own he doesn’t really stretch his legs. So far, I haven’t been able
to get his legs extended past a 90 degree angle from his knee and his muscles
are so tight that it’s makes me nervous sometimes. Another boy I work with made
me nervous at the start, but he’s been doing really well. His left foot
naturally rotates in so I have to hold it in the correct position while working
with him, which I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with. Fortunately if I talk
to him and tell him he’s doing a good job, he’ll help me with the exercises by
not locking his muscles. He’s really fun to work with because he is one smart
cookie. He is nonverbal but man, he can still communicate. That boy has a
really sweet smile and I’ve recently found out that he and Charles, the boy I’m
trying to help to walk, love bubbles! Charles loves to be active, but he can’t
walk right now and he needs to be watched, so he has to sit in his wheelchair a
lot of the time. Sometimes the workers don’t want me to get him out because he
cries when he has to go back in the chair. He knows how to do the motions for
walking and when he’s supported he can stand, but he doesn’t have the muscle
mass right now to support himself. That’s been different for me because I’m
used to babies who just need practice balancing to be able to stand and
eventually walk. I have a section from a book that the PT gave me about the
steps to getting someone to be able to walk, but with Charles, his legs need to
be stronger before any of it could be a possibility. Do you remember that bell
tower in Florence? After I got done with over 800 stairs, my legs were shaking.
Each time I get Charles out of his chair, I’ll help him to stand by a table and
within 20 minutes his little legs start to shake a lot worse than mine did
after the tower.
I’m working on PT with 4 of my
kids. With others, I’m just trying to be a friend. I have two older girls in my
room (11 and 14) and they love doing girly things with me J A lot of time I’ll let
my hair down so they can run their hands through it. Two weeks ago we got to do
something extra girly, which I was so excited about! We painted nails! I
painted Laura’s nails first and afterwards she just sat there in her wheelchair
and giggled! I had four nail polishes with me and Rory decided that she wanted
all four of them! So we painted her nails pink, then added pink sparkles, then
multicolored sparkles (like Laura had on her nails) and finished with green
polka dots! With nails done, it was hair time! All the children at the
orphanage have short hair, so there wasn’t much I could do with their hair, but
I’d painted two bobby pins with pink sparkles so I just pinned back a section
of each girls hair with them. Ah, it was so fun! These two girls also love
dancing. That’s probably my favorite thing to do with the two of them. Laura is
in a wheelchair and Rory has a hard time walking, but we danced pretty well together
if I may say so myself J Both love spinning under my arm so we do that
a lot. One day I found out that Laura also loves it when I grab both her hands
and run around her chair as fast as possible making her spin. That day I left
the orphanage so dizzy because we just kept spinning in circles! It’s hard to
say no when the spinning makes her laugh as hard as it does, it’s adorable!
These kids really know how to enjoy little things in life and it’s wonderful!
Speaking of the little things….we played with bubbles! I couldn’t seem to blow
them fast enough! They loved it!
There are a few of my kids that
were easy to bond with, but with others it’s been tougher. It’s for that reason
that these next few stories are so fun for me! A lot of the time it seems like
Ionela’s in her own world. It can be hard to communicate with her and I often
find it hard to make her happy. But each semester after the interns leave, they
write about each child. In Ionela’s write up, an intern had mentioned that she
likes music. So a week ago, I just sat with her and spent 10 minutes just
singing. It was so great! She was smiling and laughing and I loved it! So my
plan is to keep singing with her each day. Ha, speaking of singing, I’m
learning two songs in Romanian! Up to this point I’ve only known an elephant
counting songs in Romanian, my poor little kids! But now I’m learning two other
songs so variety is comin’!
So
remember my little elephant I was talking about above? His nickname will be
Tantor (the elephant from Tarzan). I call him this cause one of the other girls
on the internship taught me how to make an awesome elephant sound! So I taught
Tantor and now each day I’ll say “elefant?” Then he’ll say “da!” (yes) and we’ll
both start making elephant sounds! He’s also the one who love that elephant
song I know the most. He’ll come sit on my lap and say “du du du” which is his
way of asking for me to sing. Then I’ll bounce him up and down on my knee and
sing the song J
Oh man he’s a sweetheart. I say goodbye to each of my kids when I leave at noon
and Tantor will blow me kisses or kiss me on my cheeks J
K, so we’ll do a story sandwich. We’ve
done kid stories, now I’ll tell you some Romanian adventures and then back to
the lovely little ones!
There are a million and one dogs in
Romanian and I’m not supposed to pet any of them! I did really well until last
week when I saw a puppy outside of the hospital. We’re not supposed to pet them
because if they bit us, we may end up in the hospital for 3 days being treated
for rabies (this has happened to a girl on a previous trip). But you see, I
figured that a puppy wouldn’t break the skin, so I petted him and I was SOOO
happy!
Adorable sleeping dog outside where I buy my produce! Typical Romania
Another happy/ funny moment… I met
a Romanian celebrity! We got into an elevator with him…didn’t know who he was
and was kinda creeped out by him! The elevators here are really small and we
had a foot perimeter around this man, causing the 7 of us to be smooshed up
against the walls. We later found out that his name is Smiley and he’s a HUGE
star here. He’s as famous here at Justin Beiber is in the states….woops!
Us with Smiley
More stories coming soon! I don't have enough time to write everything today! I'll add it in next time, but here are pictures as a sneak peek!
All of the interns with the wonderful Claudia! This was at her baptism
Sorry, just had to show you another sunset!
So I don't quite know why, but there was an outdoor symphony/opera one night! The park in front of the opera house five minutes from my apartment was packed with people! It was such a neat experience! When the symphony played their first song, I was so excited it took my breath away!
Outside symphony! In this picture you can see the choir and the opera house in the back!
FIREWORKS!!! Best way to end an outdoor symphony
Me and Heidi+Random symphony/opera =Awesome!!
This is the opera house lit up like the Romanian flag
So by the orphanage there is a city park. I took my kids there one day and then took my friends there the next! I think we had more fun playing on the playground then my kids did :)
Me and Britta on the creepy duck see saw!
Carousel!!
Moriah and Debra on the see saw!
As part of this giant festival that's happening this week, there is lots and lots of food! Not all healthy...but hey, it was good!
Gogos! (pronounced gogosh) Deep fried donuts covered in chocolate!
Gulash! The giant pot was the reason I got it :)
We're gonna make a 80's workout video in these for a roommate project :) Haha gotta love livin' with these two!
Roommate matching outfits!
Finally made a successful pyramid!
Iasi days!
Success at Iasi days!
First rainy day...we got soaked!
After playing a game with kids at the hospital! My hair was even crazier during the game :)
Giant snail!!
The country :)
I love Iasi!
Can't wait til these leaves are yellow and red!
Before I petted a Romanian dog, I pet this Romanian goat!
P.S. That concert was amazing - what a treat! And your 80's aerobic wear is stunning. Such fashionistas. Love the score ya'll have lined up from Iasi days. Not having much fun there, are you?
Hooray for more pictures! Thank you for the update, Jenna. : ) Love you!
ReplyDeleteP.S. That concert was amazing - what a treat! And your 80's aerobic wear is stunning. Such fashionistas. Love the score ya'll have lined up from Iasi days. Not having much fun there, are you?
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