Romania Day 6

Chad's e-mail about his 5th day in Romania was only moderately interesting so I decided not to post it. Day 6, however, is a different story. This is a VERY long one, so I will just post part of it. It will be enough to give you a picture of what he is experiencing.

The orphanage is actually located in a Castle. The castles here don’t look like those I have seen pictures of in western Europe, they aren’t made with large grey rock, but otherwise they look like castles. Unfortunately I was not allowed to take and pictures, the Romanian government got burned a few years back by people showing the worst pictures and got tired of the bad publicity. I was tempted to snap away, but restrained to not cause a riff.

Okay, let me tell you what I saw and then I will share my feelings. We pulled up a dirt road with greenery almost tunneling the road. We passed through a gate and I could then see the castle clearly. It was painted a soft Spanish orange color with white trim. It looked pretty good from a distance. Gorgeous trees surround the property and there is plenty of grass everywhere. I could see children ahead playing on swings and sitting on concrete. We were forewarned that the kids would be much more affectionate and likely treat us like celebrities. As we open the doors to the cars they came running. These kids ranged in age from 6-22 years. 22 doesn’t seem like a kid, but unfortunately the system hasn’t served them well enough to act like adults. I saw clumps of older kids sitting reluctantly under some trees. The younger ones reconnected quickly with the team that they already knew and then moved on to us newbies. It seemed they all wanted to speak all of the English words they knew but they were as limited in their English as I am in Romanian. They did apparently watch enough TV to pick up on ALL of the WWE wrestlers name. They all wanted to be called “Big Show”. It made me laugh and I decided I would often refer to myself as “Big Show”. We settled in after 20 minutes of standing in the parking lot meeting 40+ kids and then decided to get on with the games, crafts and stories.

The kids were obviously not the kids at the CDC. I thought the CDC had “rough” kids, but this place was the real deal. We had 2 deaf girls, 1 girl had a broken arm but just had some heavy gauze wrapping it, plenty of the kids were obviously larger than they were educated, the older girls that huddled were dressed like street girls in the 1980’s, one boy was the obvious wild child. He honestly resembled a kid that was raised by animals, often running while flailing his arms. He was likely 13ish but behaved as a 3 or 4 year old. There were kids in dire need of dental care as well. One girl’s front teeth and gums jutted ½ an inch forward making her look tragically awkward. Many of the youth were dressed carelessly. Girls needing bras but were not aware and boys were wearing shirts that were made for girls. It was sad.

The inside of the building was also described to me. The kids abuse everything. They have broken any remote controls for tv’s and dvd players. The furniture is a wreck. The rooms sleep 15+ kids when fully loaded and no less than 12. They do have some belongings, but the other kids constantly steal anything of value. They can’t even keep silverware in the kitchen due to the kids taking it. It is a mess.

The rest of our conversation was mostly about trying to find some silver lining. There isn’t much silver in it, but hope can be found. If they didn’t have any interaction with outsiders, they would be in orphan prison. Something is better than nothing. Playing rock-paper-scissors with me is better than not. Hugging one of us is safer than 30 seconds away from us. Someone looking them in the eyes and talking with them is better than 10 minutes inside fighting over the remote control. God bless these kids, they have it more difficult than you and I can ever comprehend. They are victims of life in a broken world.