Romania, Summer 06

I haven't written in a couple days because I'm not really sure how to put my experiences on the street into words, so I thought I'd start with an adorable picture of one of the kids in the house, I figured start with a success story before I get to the streets. This is Ionut who I think I spoke about in a previous blog. He's such a cutie. He has two sisters in the house Elena who is the girl whose birthday we celebrated and Ana who I will put a picture of up in a second who is one of the youngest girls in the house. Thursday I went on the street for a lot of the day which I will talk about in a second. Yesterday, we tried to go to the park and play football...but as soon as we got there it started down pouring and we had to turn around and come home in the rain. It was quite the adventure. So we ended up playing games inside. And last night a few of the older girls stayed with me at my apartment and tonight a couple more are going to come stay with me. It's a good chance for me to get closer to them and for them to get out of the chaos that comes with a house full of so many kids. They also like getting that much one on one time with me since a lot of times I'm with a lot of them at one time as well, I like it too, it's more personal. This is Ana with my sunglasses on and holding my purse. She's so cute and also won't leave my side easily, so I end up spending a lot of time with her. Speaking of Ana, she just ran in here to say hi and tell me that Mommy Mihaela (the director of the shelter who I 'm quite close with) just gave her candy! She also has no problems with my lack of skills in Romanian! I am definitely getting better at the language, but that's not saying much. It's a pretty difficult language, but I'm trying my hardest to learn as much as I can everyday.
The shelter is for the most part a really happy place and it's easy here to forget these kids backgrounds and the other kids on the street and simply focus on how successful they currently are. On Thursday when I spent my day out on the street I was quickly reminded of the horrors I had seen in years past. After five years of coming here and spending at least a couple days out on the street each day, I still can't put into words what it's like. I don't think I'll ever be able to describe what it's like to climb down a tiny ladder or sometimes climb down with no ladder into the sewers of Bucharest nor will I ever accept the fact that kids live down there. I know they do and I've seen it, but it just seems to terrible to fully comprehend. Unfortunately I didn't get any still pictures because my camera died while down in the sewers, I did however get video of it which I will have to share with you when I return home, but I'm sure I'll be back before I leave and will put pictures up then. I did take a couple pictures however of some kids who live on the street. The kids on the street often find abandoned buildings to stay in and I'm not even sure if building is an appropriate word for the situation. They often are falling apart and are nothing but concrete, no water, no electricity, no heat, absolutely nothing. Sometimes these buildings are so poor structurally that they collapse making them dangerous. The sewers are no safer though as many kids have died from pipes exploding. Often in these concrete rooms live 5-10 kids. Sometimes there is a mother with them, but she's rarely older than 25. In fact Elena, Ionut and Ana's mother was 15 when she had Elena. Fortunately since her kids have come here she's been able to get a job and rent a room in a nicer apartment building. Here are a couple of pictures that I took while on the street of some kids. Below are a couple of kids after I gave them some candy, they live in a small room and all sleep on this one bed. They were so cute and sweet. They also had a mother living with them, which was nice to see. The kids in the sewers were all sniffing shoe glue, this gross silvery powder like liquid that they inhale, and they were therefore a little unpredictable and a little scary unlike these kids. I'm never in danger as I go with great workers from the shelter who would never let anything happen to me, but when you're around kids who are really high, it's a little scary.
Below is another picture on the street. A mother with her two babies. Also a really cute picture and like the other kids they were very nice and sweet, but the place where they live makes it quite sad. I give them candy and at times when the foundation has enough money we bring food to these families as well, but you wonder how often these growing kids are getting meals, its sad to think about. Anything in these rooms is stolen, so they end up filled with junk and trash. The street also makes the kids look a lot older. Often the mothers look 10 or 15 years older than they really are because of the streets. They are dirty and warn out and look old and run down. I'll have to take more still pictures to upload next time I go out on the street so that I can better describe the streets. It's not an easy task. It's time to take a couple of the girls back to my place and then tomorrow I think we're going to try and go to the pool since last week was unsuccessful. Hopefully I'll have time to add more tomorrow. Please send me emails! Pa!

posted by Jen @ 7:56 PM