actually i am going to lay it all out right now because people keep asking me what i am doing here, so break it down now:
monday through friday 9:00 - 12:00: i work in the mickey mouse rooms of section two orphanage
we split up the kids in each room, so i have three kids in both rooms. i spend a half hour with each child working towards specific developmental goals that i have made for each one. o and we play, and laugh and have fun too :)
room one = ana maria, christina, and iliuta... all three of them are super low functioning and are often ignored by the careworkers, and sadly, by the past byu girls - they admitted it in their end of the semester write ups... but don't worry, they will be well played with this summer... none of them can talk, but they can all laugh and smile and cry, so my goals with them are simple: make sure ana maria smiles at least six times each session, or for christina, i am going to help strengthen her muscles enough so she can sit upright for an extended period of time, maybe five minutes? she's at about 30 seconds right now... anyways, that's that about those little angels... i am sure i will write more as time goes on
o and iliuta has the best laugh! he loves it when i hold him in my arms like superman and have him fly around the room... unfortunately, he is too big, and my arms are too weak to do that for an extended amount of time, but i'll get stronger
room two: this room is full of spitfire toddlers... so fun! i am over vlad, florina, and ghiorcel. i think i have mentioned that vlad has a mom.. she has an interesting story, she went out of the country and came back to her husband cheating on her so she left him and started working... vlad has a twin sister that is totally normal, but she brought vlad to section 2 because she couldn't support him. he's only been there a few months and is still adjusting. he has the prettiest eyes that light up when you talk to him... o if i could take one home it would be him... he's the one that i am going to teach how to walk... whitney and i worked with him yesterday and he seemed to have lots of fun walking between us and getting hugs and kisses every time he walked to one of us... florina is a little mystery, no one knows what's wrong with her, but we do know she loves bubbles, and being touched.. she has awesome curly hair and freckles... and last but not least, ghiorcel! he is two and just learned to walk, so he is obsessed with walking around everywhere! he hasn't really figured out the balance thing so he walks with his head tilted in the direction he wants to go and his feet try and follow, needless to say, i say opa asa alot to him, meaning oopsie daisy (remember how you were going to start saying that josh?)... he is cute, but definitely hard to please... he will not pretend he is happy, so when he smiles or laughs i know that it is sincere, which makes all the running around and wrestling worth it..
okay so that is the orphanage
on tuesday thursday evenings, 3:30-6: elyse and i go to the dacia apartments: they are run by the same people as section 2, but they live in normal bloc apartments... they are pretty far away so we have to ride the tram... there are two of them, and they are super fun... the caretakers there are amazing, so so sweet. the seventh floor has two "normal" girls who are really fun because we can talk with them and joke with them... we taught them how to play duck, duck, goose, which was quite the accomplishment because it was taught like charades... the first time we tried to play, i goosed elyse and she got up to chase me, and all of the kids followed, and the caretaker yelled at us from the other room, whoops... it was really fun, i am excited to be working with them
monday, wednesday, friday 2:00-5:00: st. maria's children's hospital. every monday we go to all the nurses and ask them where the babies without moms are and they show us, and we go and play with them, and change them and try and get them to fall back asleep before we have to move on to the next baby...
p.s. my rocking skills are going to be worth at least five stars by the time i get home... they have already improved immensely.
this piture is of the whitneys with alex.. he is ten and is so happy even though he is totally aware of his mom abandoning him... there is another boy in his room that speaks english so he translates for us and in return we bring him lord of the ring books in romanian...um marius update: we have been spending three hours with him everyday, at first we were rotating through but he requested that the same two girls come everyday, understandable, anyways because of the apartment situation and other things, i am not one of those girls, but i know that melissa is really involved, so are mindy, and elisa... and i live with all three of them, so i hear a lot about him... we are keeping in contact with the team on that website i posted earlier, and we are trying our best to prepare him for surgery and for living in america - even though more complications have come up and it may be taking longer than everyone thought to get him there...
my blue baby has a name! georghitz! i was holding him yesterday, friday, because it is saturday morning for me now.. and there was a new lady in the room with him who told me that she was friends with him mom... ooo that made me so mad! i asked her where his mom was and she said at home, not far from there.. i asked why she doesn't come visit her baby and all she said was because she was crazy? huh? ugh... it really hit home to me then, and made me so frustrated... they don't understand the mistake they are making... i am not very good at explaining emotions, so i'm not going to try, but it was definitely a downer, but at the same time, made me really excited to be a mom one day (no day soon) and cherish my kids, and know how precious and special they are... haha that sounds really mfhd-y of me, but it is true...
i often find myself thinking, what am i doing here? so far away from everyone i know and love... or i question my motivation behind signing up and paying so much money to come walk around a dirty unfamiliar city, getting weird looks, cat-called at, or yelled at in the hot humid smelly air? but when i think about being only person to hug and kiss the babies at the hospital, or when i make one of my kids snort from laughter, i remember why. one of my favorite talks is "forget yourself" by president hinckley. i am going to make that my personal theme of this summer.
all right on another note, but kind of similar: thursday night we were set apart by elder mielke... what an awesome experience that was... president popovici called mielke and made him come give us blessings in english, because president popovici wanted us to understand what what being said... so they had all of us come into a room and he set each of us apart, and it was really cool how different each blessing was from another... i think that you can learn a lot about a person from listening to their blessings, anyways... it was really motivating and definitely a testimony builder... the things he said were not from him... poor guy, i know he was nervous, but i am soo grateful that he is worthy enough to use his priesthood to bless us... how lucky are we???? fuerte mult!
friday night was our rs activity! o wow... i don't think i could even describe what happened... here is a blow by blow: there was a fashion show of homemade clothes they were teaching how to make - sooo immodest by the way, but so funny... umm a talent show: soras reciting poems, doing kick boxing, mindy and elyse having a gogosi eating race... and then we had a dance contest.. they turned on music and said now you all dance and we will judge who is the best dancer?! what?! so we danced and danced and danced for what felt like forever. at one point we were all doing the macarana, and the elders were in the hall laughing... great! i heart romania
after the activity we all came back to our apartment and had a sleepover, whats four more people in our beds? i slept fine, but woke up to girls all over the place because they weren't "comfortable sleeping that close to that many people", understandable. good thing i can sleep anywhere especially if the newsies is on, sorry dirty, ten minutes is all i can stay awake for... it was a fun night though
now it is saturday morning and we have discovered that our hot water heater is broken... i might be taking cold showers after all... bummer deal
well.. i need to get going, have lots more to do today! hope you are all sleeping well and having better dreams than i have been lately...
cu mult drag!!!
p.s. did i mention that one of the soras has a handicapped son, who is in his late twenties, and is super functional, but she brought him to our rs activity and he was the model for the mini skirts and belly shirts they taught us to make!!! hilarious!
p.p.s check out sister ashby's blog, the mission president's wife: we are celebrities! http://light-stones.blogspot.com/2008/05/couples-conference-in-brasov.html
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