Romania Days 3 and 4

Here are some excerpts from the past two e-mails from Chad. He is having a great experience and amazingly, and thanks to great friends, I am not to stressed out either...

Romania Day 3

Today started by waking up at 6am, not because I had to be anywhere but because I simply couldn't’t fall back to sleep. I still had plenty of sleep and didn’t really feel tired throughout the day. I ate breakfast at the hotel. Breakfast in Romania is very weird. This is no joke; I honestly at some fresh salami, a piece of bread, a few pickles, cheese and a hard boiled egg. It is more like lunch than breakfast, which is fine with me because I really don’t like sweets in the morning.

Throughout the morning I was reminded how cute children are. During the games you could spot the jokesters, the dumb kids, the smart kids, the prissy girls and the tomboys. They are simply children when they are in this environment. But just as soon as I was getting comfortable with these kids I looked out the window at the kids that are not in the CDC and I saw where these children come from. Outside in the fenced in area in front of the CDC children had jumped the 8ft fence and 40 kids were literally running wild. There was NO supervision from ANY adult. The kids at first glance just looked like they were on recess, but after watching for 10 seconds you could see kids beating one another with their feet and fists. There were boys wrestling each other to the ground and punching, kids chasing each other and shoving the victim into walls. I saw one child lying on the ground writhing in pain for 4 minutes before a group surrounded him. Once the group arrived they did NOTHING to console the kid, they just continued to pummel him. When they got bored they would move on to the next victim. At one point a man in his 20’s who was obviously mentally delayed (at best) knocking kids down by the dozen. He would then drag the child by their feet for 20 feet and then move on the next kid. The child would often hit their head in the process of being drug and lay their holding their head while crying. After a minute they would pick themselves up and start running around as if nothing happened.

I have never actually seen such a display of human chaos in my life. Come to find out that many of the kids that were out front were the kids we were to be working with in the afternoon. I was worried to say the least. The younger kids in that we worked with in the morning have older siblings who attend public schools. School was out so all of the kids in the community gathered outside the CDC to hopefully get in for the afternoon activities. What the kids didn’t know is that unless they had a younger brother or sister in the CDC they would have to leave and watch the activities through the fence (which a few dozen did for 3 hours). So here I am with 10 of these kids being asked to run 30 minutes of games. Believe it or not they were awesome. Once they were given some order and structure they were fine. They felt safe enough to behave civilly. They want that kind of structure, but cannot find it outside the fence. I was literally watching Lord of the Flies before my eyes.

Romania Day 4

Alright, last nights email was a long one and tonights will not follow suit. I had a great day today, but it was VERY similar to yesterday (and tomorrow for that matter). I will share a bit more about the food and some about the children.

Okay, priorities…the food. ; )

I ate the normal breakfast of salami, pickles, boiled egg, bread and coke. It was good. Lunch today at the CDC was good too! It was another chicken soup but with rice instead of noodles. The main course was mashed potatoes, and fried chicken. The fried part doesn’t really do it justice though. It was fried in a light breading and the chicken was pretty thin. It was tasty. I skipped the peas and corn mix, but ate some sort of cabbage and vinegar. I loved it. I had two servings and the gas to prove it. Dessert were these awesome cookies. They are simple, vanilla sugar wafer things dipped in chocolate. I ate too many to count. Fat Chad is back! Dinner was okay. I had a grilled white fish (one I have never heard of). It was a tad overcooked, which is better than undercooked, but didn’t do much for me. I also had some fries with salty cheese shredded on them. They were good but nothing to write home about…

A few kids stand out in my mind after today. Their names are not important it is more there beautiful faces. One of the boys has the most amazing smile. He will be handsome as an adult and has the personality to match. One of the girls is also blessed with a beautiful set of blue eyes (not very common here) and pretty dark brown hair. You can pick them out of a crowd because they are both striking. Other kids may not look as “pretty” but are cute and ornery. Alex is one that makes me smile because he has such a mischievous grin. He often puts his arm around me like we are buddies and always sits next to me during the games (even when there isn’t room or reason to). His head is shaved close, just a bit shorter than Collin’s after a short cut. He is dark skinned and skinny as a rail. I will try to get some pictures of these kids in particular. Many of the other kids crack me up too. One fat kid with a mullet type of mess for hair always laughs when he runs. One kids can’t run for shit because he moves like he is covered in body builder muscles (he is skinny as a rail too). One of the girls is blond (1 of 2 blond kids) and she look so AMERICAN that I sometimes get freaked out when she doesn’t speak our language.

Sorry these postings are so long. I am not even posting everything he writes to me about...just the highlights.