Thursday, May 15, 2008

May 13, 2008 (Tuesday)

Today we picked a couple of children to work with in each room. In Mickey Mouse Room #1 I have Valentina, Constantine and Irina. Valentina is a tiny little string bean who runs around everywhere – she is a workout and she likes to blow raspberries constantly so you can’t get too close to her face or she will spit all over you. Lovely – but she’s a cutie. The other two are older, and they are basically in their chairs all day. Constantine has blonde hair and blue eyes, and he gets the biggest smile when you touch his face and talk to him. Irina is a sweetie, but she barely responds to much of anything. I’m going to try and have to think about what I can do to help her. When I was sitting in Mickey Mouse Room #1 with the other kids all of a sudden Andrei came running in as fast as he could and jumped into my arms and gave me a big hug. He had escaped from Mickey Mouse Room #2…haha. He is absolutely adorable!
After Room #1 we went to Room #2, and took all the kids outside to play on the swing set. I followed Andrei around most of the time. He is seriously so stinkin cute but boy does he have a ton of energy. He will run as fast as he can, but his feet can’t always catch up with him and he will fall. The only disability he has is that he is deaf – he smiles and makes noises and points to things he wants to do and is a very energetic little boy. Whitney Scott is going to try and teach me some sign so I can work with him. I need to teach him how to let me know yes, no, up and down. Whenever Andrei is done swinging he will just jump off the swing all of a sudden, but he’s just a little guy so I have a heart attack almost every time. Then if I try playing with the other kids he will come over and sit in my lap, because he wants my full attention. I think if I were able to adopt him I probably would. He is such a stinker, but he instantly had my heart. He wants love so bad, and that’s what I’m here for!
We took our little break for lunch, and then six of us headed to the hospital. Today with Melissa I hung out with Marius (the boy who was badly burned) and his roommate Florine. The rest of the girls went to the other floors which are primarily filled with babies. However, starting Wednesday they are going to have two of the same girls come every day to visit him so there isn’t a different girl everyday for him to get to know. I think Melissa and Elisa are going to do that. I’m okay with that – but I’m still going to drop by and say hi every once in a while.
Marius’s aunt was there today so that was really nice. She speaks English so it was a lot easier to understand him. She would translate for us when we didn’t understand what the boys were saying – which was most of the time. His aunt was a sweetheart and she showed Melissa and I pictures of his parents, brothers and sisters and what he looked like before the fire. He was a handsome little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. It’s amazing the damage that a fire can do to someone physically. Marius had a picture and video of his mom on his cell phone. He showed us it and listened to his mom’s voice. He played it a few times…I couldn’t really tell what he was thinking because he can’t make many physical facial expressions, but he just stayed real still and listened. We also blew bubbles and let him watch a movie on our lab top since I’m pretty sure they don’t have one television in the entire hospital to watch a movie. You have to be very creative in that hospital in order to find something to do. Then I gave Marius and Florine some toy cars my mom helped me buy before I came. I let them pick their two favorite ones. They seemed to really enjoy them.
I went to talk to Florine, and the poor thing had just gotten out of surgery. They had to take some skin off of his backside and put it around his knee area. He was in and out of sleeping and in a lot of pain. Apparently his mom works in Europe somewhere far away and his dad tries to come visit him once a week – but he doesn’t very often. That is a regular situation around Romania – the mom will leave the country to find work and send money home. Very foreign to the mormon way of doing things, but I guess whatever has to be done. I don’t understand it. Anyways, I just stroked his head for a while to help him go to sleep and to let him know someone was there and someone cared. I kept saying “im para rau” which means “I’m sorry.” Then I gave him some Spiderman stickers before I left. He seemed very grateful. Right before we left we took a picture. We told him we would print one out for him and bring it…he’s a little ladies man haha…
After that we all left and went to the internet cafĂ© for a while to catch up on some things we needed to do. I’m already feeling worn out and it’s only the second day, but I LOVE being here. I love making other people happy…I’ve needed to get myself focused off myself and being here has definitely worked! I love it!

2 comments:

boxing auntie said...

Hey Whit!
I love the pictures of the children! Can you find out about adoption there? See what you have to do? Carlos and I are interested on finding out. E-mail me at courtney84088@yahoo.com Okay? Thanks! Love you,
Courtney

boxing auntie said...

Hey Whit!
I love those pictures of the children. Can you find out anything about adoption? And how they go about it? Carlos & I would be interested. E-mail me at "courtney84088@yahoo.com" Okay? Love you,
Courtney