Monday week 2

We were back with our babies today and so excited to see them. Some of ourselves had to restrain ourselves from leaping of the buss and running into the clinic to see them. We had a nice day today. The babies were in pretty good spirits, although a bit tired -both Alexandra and Alexandru fell asleep in the bouncy chairs. Alina took forever to eat her second bottle (or more precisely about 1-1 1/2 hours) but was in a good mood for the rest of the day. We all sat outside on blankets in the warm weather.

Friday was also a good day. Beatrice (pictured at bottom), Marian, and Mirella got into a mud puddle and had a lot of fun. Beatrice really got the most out of the puddle and was covered head to toe in mud and she did not enjoy being bathed down when we were finished. This was a lot of fun and a nice end to the week. I was so glad she didn't leave over the weekend. I want to be able to get a chance to say goodbye. I'm hoping her grandparents or her aunt (we weren't really clear on which was taking her home) pick her up while we're there so we get to see her off.

And in response to Caitlins comments I will post pictures of the twins soon and but unfortuneatly not of Crina because she has fortunately been placed in a foster family. It's not the same family her older sister Andrea was placed with but they live in the same village so hopefully, they get to see each other. It probably doesn't matter much to them now as Andrea is only 4 and Crina 2 but soemday I think they will appreciate having a relationship.

Our weekend

Hello everyone. Well we had a wonderful weekend. We toured Transylvania and saw A few castles and did a bit of shopping. We stayed in Brasov the first night which is a beautiful city with the most gorgeus park. It was filled with so many roses you could smell them just walking down the path. It also had the most amazing playground with swings slides, bumpe-boats, an inflateable slide, a train, and clowns doing face paint and ballon animals. The picture is of Peles -the most beautiful castle ever. It cost 30 lei to take pictures (with no flash) inside so I skipped that but regretted the decision once I was inside. a DVD though on the way out that gives a video tour of all 3 floors, so that will be fun to watch when I get home. The weekend trip was fun but all weekend log we were missing the babies. I kept thinking "beatrice would love it here" or "mirella would have so much fun with us". It's too bad we couldn't bring them along for a field trip. We had a really funny tour guide for the weekend. His name was Daniel though we secretim the sheepdog because he kept hearding us aroungd like sheep. Their were 14 of us so when we walked down the street the person in fornt was about 20 feet or so from the people in back. This seemed to worry Dani and he kept stopping us every few minutes to let everyone "catch-up". Over time this got a little annoying and as afterall we are capable human beings not mindless sheep. Other than his controll issues over a group of women who would prefere to be more independent he was very nice. He told jokes and translated endlessly long menus and showed us interesting places. However, I would certainly not sign up for another tour with him. I'm not the type who likes to be bossed and hearded.

Pictures!

I've downloaded some pictures today. This is Alexandra, Beautiful as ever. I was so happy she looked at the camera; she usually plays it coy and ignores the fact of your existance whenever you pull out a camera.

The last few days at the clinic have been so nice. The weather has been great, though Ironically right as I typed those words I heard thunder outside. It was lovely out a few minutes ago. We've been taking the kids outside a lot. Ionela likes the swings. The toddlers like to roam free. All the kids were fascinated by the workmen who were doing some gardening and repairs outside the clinic.

We had a new baby arrive at the clinic today. His name is Andrei and he is trhee months old. He is very pretty and has the tiniest nose and lips. We also had visitors today. Beatrice's granparents came to see her and brought her some fruit (which she was very excited about). Dan told us that they are planning to take Beatrice Home soon and that either they, or Beatrices aunt is going to adopt her as they have no idea where her mother is. I don't know when they will take her home but they are in the process of filling out all the necessary forms and such. I'm glad she is going to go home but I will miss her if she leaves before I do. She is one of my very favorites.

Ionela has been eating well. She drank a whole bottle this morning and all her yogurt at lunch. Quite a bit of yogurt came back out her nose but she's making progress. Alina also ate well. She finished every one of her bottles today -which she has never done for us.

Tomorrow afternoon we wil leave for a weekend trip to Transylvania, which unfortunately means we will have to leave the clinic early. I would be ok with not going -I'd love to spend more time with the babies - but transylvania will be fun. I'd love to see Peles again and I was sick last time we went and didn't get to see Bran Castle (Dracula's castle). So that will be fun.

I'm going to try and upload a slide show of a few of my photos. Hop[efully it will work and you can see more of my cute babies.

TTFN

-Mela

Second day

Today they let Ionela and Maiastra out of the isolation room. Ionela was in their because she had just ben to the hospital to have a procedure for her cleft lip. Maiastra had also just ben to the hospital, I'm not sure what for. Maiastra is part of the mobile group although she is 4 years old now -older than most the toddlers. However, she is not walking much yet and she is not verbal like the toddlers. She suffered oxygen deprivation during birth and has some mental retardation. She was the secnd born of a set of triplets. Her birth parents kept the boy (Maiastro) who was born after her and her sister Maia, who was born first was at the clinic too until recently; Maia is now placed with a foster family but unfortunately they were not able to take Maiastra too. Maia was a very normal toddler -very friendly and interactive and the most talkative of her bunch. It's really sad that they couldn't be placed together. I wanted to bring the two of them (as well as about 6 others who became my favorites) home with me last time.

I played with Beatrice (one of the others I wanted to bring home last time) some more today. I took her outside and she played very nicely with Marion and Julian. They dug with a small rake and played with some rocks. They wanted nothing to do with the play area full of slides and swings and plastic toys. Beattie had on the cutest outfit today -a white onesie with red ginham bloomers and a pink sun hat. unfortunately my camera battery died before I got a picture of her today (I forgot to charge the battery this morning). There will be plenty of other chances but she did look so cute today I'm sorry I didn't get it on film -or on disk rather. I just bought myself a new digital camera as my lovely film one isn't working and I didn't have time to get it fixed before my trip. I think it's the flash that's broken on it so it might take fine pictures on a nice day outside; that's the best time to photograph anyway.

Tiny little Alina was dressed in a size 0-3 month outfit today and she was swimming in it. We're going to have to look for some newborn size clothing for her. She is taking her bottle a little better today. She only take about 2 to 2 1/2 ounces at each feeding and then fusses heartily untill the bottle is removed. I think she must get hungry in between feedings. If she was mine I would be feeding her more often and back in the states she would porbably be getting nutrients intervieiously or through a G-tube or something. She keeps amazing me with her strength. She sat for a few seconds on her own today and she holds her head up so well. I took her outside today and she slept out there in my arms. There was a warm breeze blowing and we sat with Hali, Rebecca, Elizabeth, and Bree (fellow volunteers) and watched the toddlers play. It was lovely.

It started to rain as we left today which felt so nice in the hot humidity. Hopefully it will clear up by tomorrow though so we can bring the kids outside again.

First day at the clinic

we just finished our first day at the clinic. There are a surprisingly small amount of kids there right now -only 23 compared to nearly 40 on both of my previous trips. This is very strange. Before the babies always outnumbered us by quite a lot; now in the non mobile group we have 6 volunteers and only 7 babies compared to 2-4 volunteers and 8 to 12 babies previously.
We have Alina who I was assigned to (although we all switched around frequently). She is 7 months old but weighs only 7 or 8 pounds. She was only 3 pounds at birth and was diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome and third degree malnutrition among other things. She is remarkably strong for her tiny sixe though. She and support her body in a standing postion when you hold her under her arms. She can hold up her own head and can sit with support but will fall over. She can also roll from back to front. pretty remarkbale considering she is smaller than I was when I was born.

In our group we also have:
Miruna who is is about a year but looks more like 6 months.
Cristi who has Downs Syndrome, not sure of his age, looks about 9 months but is probably older
Daniel who looks about 7 or 8 months, again not sure of real age, he's doing very well ans is probably the most "normal" of the group
Emma who is 5 months, looks like 3
Paula who is about a year and a half old. She can crawl but is overwhelmed by all the stimulation in the mobile group so she stays with us.
And Andrea who must be about 2 1/2 now but is still in the nonmobile group and doesn't seems to have made any progress since my last trip.

With so few kids we ended up kind of mixing our groups today and swapping back and forth as we saw fit. Our group is very easy so we'd often visit the other groups who are more rambunctios. Luckily the weather is nice so we were able to take the babies outside several times throughout the day. I spent some time with beatirice today who was in my group last time and is now in the toddler group. She was apparently the last oone to move up to that group and is still not quite as comfortable there as the other toddlers who have spent more time together. I also got to see Adrian who had his surgery since my last visit (to correct a cleft palate) and is looking great.

Our day seemed to go by too quickly and I can't wait to go back tomorrow.

First days in Romania

Hello Everyone.

We arrived in Barlad at about 10:00 yesterday (Sat.) evening. Quite a long time spent in Transit as we left our house at 4 am friday morning. Even with all the time changes (a few hours in New York then London and finally Bucharest) you really can't tell how much time has passed or when you should be eating again and whether it should be breakfast or dinner. Usually we stay in Bucharest the first night and take the 4-5 hour bus ride to Barlad the next morning but this time we boarded the bus about an hour after landing in Romania and headed straight there. This means that we had all day today (Sun.) free for orientation which is what we've been doing all morning.

The new hotel is very nice. It is only a block from the main street in town which is so nice. Right now I am at an internet cafe a few blocks from the hotel while we take a break from orientation. We spent the morning on introductions, GV (Blobal Volunteers) philosphy, info about our worksite, etc. This was a bit boring (especially since this is my third trip) and a few us, being still tired, were nearly nodding off. I've adjusted pretty well to the new time zone already but some of the other volunteers haven't made that internal shift yet. We're also all very anxious to actually go to the clinic and see the babies, which, unfortunately we don't get to do untill tommorrow. Our Team leaders name is Ciprian (Chip for short), and he's perfactly nice but a little quiet. I still miss my first Team leader Ramona who was firendly, talkative, well orginized, very clear about everything, and always anticipated our needs before we did. She moved out of the country over a year ago though and so she was only with us on my first trip.

Our team this time is made of 16 women all of whom will be volunteering at the clinic instead of the school. This is a younger group than either of my others. There are a few girls in high school and some college age as well as older volunteers. I've heard this is often the case on summer trips. We're all getting along well and trying to remember each others names.

I can't wait untill tommorrow when we get to go to the clinic. I'll post again after I see the babies. For those who've volunteered here before, let me know if you want updates about any particular kids. I'd be happy to let you know how their doing or inquire about where they've been placed if they are no longer at the clinic.

La Revedere.

-Mela

Two days 'till takeoff

There's only 2 days left until we board our plane. Hali and I are doing a bunch of last minute shopping and trying to fit everything we need into the two bags we're allowed to check for free. If there was no weight limit this wouldn't be such an issue but each bag can weigh no more than 50 pounds and it's hard to fit all the clothes and books (of which I'm bringing 12, some of them hard back) and things that I need for a 3 week trip as well as all the donations I'm bringing along for the clinic into a bag that can not exceed 50 pounds. Shopping for baby things brings me great joy and I bought a bunch of donations for the clinic (specifically about a million diaper wipes as they are always running out of them) back before the airlines changed their policy on how many bags you could check. Now I might have to leave them all here. It's not that the $25 charge for an extra bag is that much, it's just that I don't want to pay $25 to schlep a bunch of wipes halfway around the world when I could probably buy them in Romania for less than that. I wish the Airlines had announced their new rules earlier. I would have bought a bunch of smaller, lighter donations and brought money with me to buy the rest in Romania (which probably would have been smarter anyway, but I love to shop for baby things).

Anyhow, today will be filled with packing and errands and hopefully we'll be all set to go. Our plane leaves Seattle at the ungodly hour of 6:30 am Friday morning and, if all goes as scheduled, we'll be landing in Bucharest at 3:10 Saturday afternoon. Not bad considering the 10 hour time difference. last time I left at about the same time from Seattle and didn't arrive in Bucharest until 11:30 at night.

I can't wait to see my babies again. I'll be posting as often as I can but we're staying at a new hotel (right in the city of Barlad!) this year and I don't know how easy it will be to access the Internet this time. At the old Hotel had we had our own Internet room. However, the owner of the old hotel was also an overly "friendly" old Italian, who liked to come chat us up when he'd had a few too many to drink. Also, it took us about 45 minutes to get to and from the clinic from there, so Internet or no, I think the new hotel will be a trade up.

Anyway, I should get back to packing and such.

TTFN
-Mela