Stories

Sorry it's been awhile since I wrote something, I got sick!!! :( 

Thursday we worked the morning shift again, and I got to work with the same little boy!! The best part was: when I showed him the ducky, he started making the kissy noise! He remembered! That warmed my heart a lot. It is the little things like that, that can change your whole day around. We are not allowed to post pictures of the children on the internet, but we are allowed to take them. So Jenna has been taking some pictures, and I will be able to show everyone when I get home. Some of the pictures will break your heart just by looking at them, and some will instantly bring a smile to your face. The children are so sweet and so innocent, and yet when you learn some of their stories it is hard to hear. 

Jenna has been working with this one little girl, Roxy. She is about two and a half and has dark hair and dark eyes. She is really cute. She has no parents, and was left to just wander around the village. Apparently some men got ahold of her. She was brought in and they said that she had been raped, burned (down there) and other places, and badly beaten. Even through all of those terrible things that have happened to her at such a young age, she still has a smile on her face and just wants to be held and played with. Jenna is with Roxy in the room right next to me and we share a giant glass window. Roxy likes to go up to the window and tap on it to get my attention. Then we make silly faces at each other back and forth. She is so sweet. When I think about what happened to her, and so many others that we must not even know about, it is painful. But thankfully, they do have child protective services here, and Sarah has asked Jenna to take photos of Roxy so that they can send them to her and hopefully she won't be sent back to that village. 

Sarah was telling us about how her goal is to create some sort of half-way house/foster care home that they could run so that they could help find some of these children a home. The main problem right now is that adoption has been closed here due to abuse of the system. Many of the gypsy women (from the villages where most of these children come from), started to sell their children for the most random of things. Sarah told us that one time she heard that a women traded her child for a color tv, and others for money. And then the people that were getting the children were selling them into a sex trade. So the Romanian government now because of that has closed ALL adoptions. Which means that even the good families that were willing to give these children a happy and healthy life, have been cut off too. So Sarah and the girls at FFR are working to become accredited with the government, and have all the paperwork already filled out, so that when they decide to open it back up (which there has been talk about), they will be ready. I really hope that this works out, because that would be so amazing for these children to have a place where they can feel safe and have that "homey" feeling. 

One of the biggest problems here is the fact that you can basically make money by having children and then sending them to this hospital. Maternity leave here is for 2 years. And if you do not make enough to support your child, the government will give you money to help you out. But it is not done in the sense of food stamps or anything, so there is no real way to track or manage what it is being spent on. So some of these women are almost making a living off of having babies and abandoning them. It is so sad. A lot of the girls start having children as young as 13 and 14. So Sarah and the team at FFR have started a teen outreach program where they bring some of the teen girls in from the gypsy villages and just hang out with them and do fun things like scrapbooking, play games, etc. They just try to provide them with a positive environment and then talk to them about the importance of staying in school and staying safe. 

What they are doing really is making a difference. And I'm excited to have gotten the opportunity, thanks to so many of you, to get to be a part of it. 

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Now for some stories- 

So before I got here, I wasn't sure what type of environment I was really getting myself into. I knew nothing about the culture or what the living situations were like, all I knew was that it was going to be cold and I would be helping out orphans. Which, call me crazy, sounds like a not so fun place to go right? Well, I don't like being cold, and I was trying to do everything in my power to be fully prepared and bring with me anything that I wouldn't be able to have or get while here. So I started emailing with the lady of the place where we are staying asking her what seemed like very obvious questions in my mind, but apparently were very dumb. 

I asked things like: 

- If I'm cold at night, do you have an extra blanket? 

Her response: umm.. there's a heater in the room and a heating blanket on each of the beds. 

- Is there shampoo/conditioner and soap?

Her response: Yes... there is all of that in the room, or if you need some you can go buy some at pretty much any store on the corner...

- Do we have any way of heating water?

Her response: Cissy.. yes.. we have everything that you need, this isn't a third world country. 

Boy did I feel pretty lame after that one! Haha. They have Mcdonalds, KFC, tons of restaurants, markets, grocery stores, malls, etc. And it all just came about within the past 5 years or so. Brasov, where we are staying, has become a bit of a tourist spot, so this part of the country is doing pretty well. The capital, where we flew into about 2 hours from here, is a populated city with high rise buildings and feels like you are in LA. After hearing that this wasn't a third world country, and only focusing on the two populated cities, I just assumed that this is how the whole country was. 

All of that knowledge led to, yet again, another blonde moment:

Sitting outside the hospital one morning before going in to work. Jenna and I were talking about how they were saying that this wasn't considered a third world country. Which made us start wondering, what makes a place considered that? Because obviously this place isn't doing great, but it does have a lot. 

Cissy: So then what is it here if it's not a third world country?

Jenna: I don't know what the qualifications for third world country means, because they do have some stuff. 

Cissy: Yeah, maybe it's like...second world or something. 

Jenna: Would that make the US first world?

We then realized that we needed to go home and figure out what this all means. SO for those of you who ALSO don't fully know. Here is a bit of a history lesson for you: (thanks to good old google)

"Third World' refers to the economically underdeveloped countries particularly in the Middle East, South Asia, Latin America, Africa, and Oceania, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. French demographer, anthropologist and historian Alfred Sauvy, in an article published in the French magazine L'Observateur, August 14, 1952, coined the term Third World, referring to countries that were unaligned with either the Communist Soviet bloc or the Capitalist NATO bloc during the Cold War. His usage was a reference to the Third Estate, the commoners of France who, before and during the French Revolution, opposed priests and nobles, who composed the First Estate and Second Estate, respectively. Sauvy wrote, "Like the third estate, the Third World is nothing, and wants to be something," He conveyed the concept of political non-alignment with either the capitalist or communist bloc. 

So there you are. Now you all can feel as smart as I do!

Anyways, after going to lunch with Sanzi the other day, who is from here, she informed us that most of the county can be considered and is a third world country. The places that most tourists go to, are not. 

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Some other interesting information:

- When you go to Mcdonalds, you have to PAY for KETSUP, and they only give you one packet!!

- You are allowed to smoke anywhere and everywhere here= gross!!

- Jenna bet me 5 Lei (about 1.50$) that I couldn't catch a snowflake............... I am 5 Lei richer :)

- You can pretty much start drinking at any age. 

- Our Romanian is getting better; I know how to say the important things-

... apa plata= flat water

... apa calda= hot water

...multumesc= thank you

... da= yes

Haha.. basically you don't really need to know how to speak Romanian because there is always someone somewhere who knows English!

- You can't start school until you are 7. 

- My heating pad on my bed is the best thing ever invented

- Spaghetti & Pizza have become my go-to food, along with the granola bars I packed. 

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I was pretty sick and was running a fever on Thursday night, and slept all day Friday. I didn't go in to the hospital. I was sad to miss out on spending time with the kids but I knew that I needed to get myself better first. So a day of rest was nice and needed. I watched some tv here. And they had Friends on!! In English!!! It was very exciting. Made me feel right at home! I'm feeling better, just still a little weak and tired. 

Tomorrow we are going to try to go with some of the girls and ride the Gondola that goes up the mountain. At the top of the mountain there is a sign that lights up at night that says Brasov, just like the Hollywood sign. It's pretty cool. Then we might go and see a movie. I think they wanted to see 127 Hours, which has James Franco in it so I am all for that one!

I love you and I miss you all. I'm not sure what's going on with the commenting on here, some of them go through and post and some of them don't. But you can always send me a message on facebook if it is not working. Thank you for reading and caring about what is going on in my life. 

-Cis