Sunday Aug 2 Sinai

Today we started the day with a very confusing breakfast. The bills were all mixed up and then we had a separate bill for the jelly we got at the table. We checked out of the villa and were on our way to Sinai to see Pele's Castle. It is a beautiful castle complete with centralized heat, electricity and central vacuuming. It is decorated up very nicely. Amy, Susan, and I did not go in because we had been in before. While we waited for rest of the group we explored the grounds. We walked down to see the other side of the castle. We then met up with the group and some of the group went up the cable car 2000 M above sea level. The rest of us shopped and people watched. While we were walking we met the bus driver Alin, who "escorted" us around. We then met up with the group and ate lunch at the Sun restaurant, where they have the best "snow" pancakes. Like a crepe made out of eggs and stuffed with mushrooms, cheese and chicken. After lunch we started back home to Tutova. We had to make one more stop at a roadside Kurtos stand. We stopped once again at Onesti and then drove on. I was looking for good shot of sunflowers- they were very unimpressive this year. I had seen a field of them and did not have my camera out in time so I must have made a loud sigh. All of a sudden at the next sunflower field the bus driver pulled over. He did not need to do anything but he was putzing around in the front, long enough for me to get a decent shot of the flowers. We made it back, just barely, the bus driver was a crazy driver LOL. We all sat down to dinner outside the hotel. A dinner of a bowl of peas with a chunk of meat in it- Finally I went a whole day without cooked carrots in my meal! We then all retired to bed to get ready for the babies in the morning.

Pele's castle

Amy and me on the other side of Pele's Castle

Statue at Pele's Castle

Lila and Amy "stretch" sleeping on the bus in the way back to Tutova

Sunflower field on the way back to Tutova

Sunset in Tutova

Saturday August 1 Brasov and Bran

Today we started the day by eating breakfast in the restaurant at the villa. We then got on the bus to Brasov. While in Brasov some of us went in the Black Church, named that when the Turks tried to destroy it by fire. It was not ruined but there was black soot on the walls. It is the biggest church between Istanbul and Venice. There is a very impressive Oriental rug collection brought back by merchants who donated their best rugs as a thanks for a safe journey. One of the pillars has bullet holes from the Revolution of 1989. We then spent some time in the City square to shop or people watch. Amy, Trent, and I got a pre-lunch ice cream cone. We then went to lunch. After lunch we drove to Bran to visit "Dracula's" castle. Since Amy, Susan, and I had already been inside we decided to explore the city and get some Kurtos. Trent decided to join us. We bought our Kurtos and then we walked around to the side of the castle we had never seen. We found a "park" and took some photos. We ended up finding a memorial that turned out to be a resting place for Queen Maria's heart, placed there in 1940. We met up with the rest of the group and stopped at the Kurtos stand again so everyone else could enjoy them. And then we were on our way back to Club Villa Bran.
We had been told the night before there was a zip line on the property. Many of us wanted to try it, so we all lined up to give it a go. As I was climbing the ladder it was starting to rain. The worker just pushed me off the stand and I was off. It was a short line but a lot of fun. It really started to rain and the Amys did not get to go. We all went to wait for dinner and a group of us played card games while we waited. At dinner we were able to have our Sarmale we were promised last night. After dinner we were treated to tradtional Romanian Folk dancers. A few also took part in mulled wine at a bonfire while others got on their computers to catch up on email, and blogs.

Storks in their nest on an electric pole

Both the Amys trying to unlock our door while Alex supervises

View from our villa balcony

Massive giant bug hiding behind our curtains

Black Church

A little girl playing with the pigeons in Brasov

Amy, Me, Susan, and Trent with a view from the other side of the Bran Castle

Kurtos being made- on our second stop there of the day

Me on the zip line (notice how fast I am going LOL)

friday July 31

One week done! I cannot believe it! It has been going so fast. We had a short day today because some of the group were leaving for the weekend to Transylvania. The best part of today was that we got to take of the blasted masks! It made it so much cooler. The kids are growing and getting lots of love. Gabi has been crawling more and more but only likes to do it outside. She almost pulled herself into a sit. I think she can do all of it but is just too stubborn to do it!!! Ionella's mom came and visited her all morning. It was so good to see them bonding. We said goodbye to 5 of the group before we left after lunch because they were one-weekers and then we were on our way. It was a 5 hour bus ride to our hotel Club Villa Bran. It is a cute resort nestled in the mountains. As we were driving into it I was immediately reminded of the resort from Dirty Dancing. Along the way we stopped for 15 minutes in Onesti (the birthplace of Nadia Commanici.) It also houses the world's largest Sanatorium. When we got to the resort we went to the restaurant and ordered off the menu. We were excited to see Sarmale on the menu because it is so good and it takes a whole day to prepare, so we usually need to request it ahead of time. But no luck they has run out. Our waiter promised us he would save some for us the next night. We ate dinner and after listening to some Karaoke we all hiked up the hill to our villa.

Ionella with her mom

Eve playing eensy weensy spider with Maiestra

Me and Alexandra

Gabi almost pulling up into a sit

Scutec scimba (diaper change) time!

the one weekers all together

Shirley, Colleen, Cassie, Erin, and Nicole

Thursday July 30

It is so hard to believe that we have already been at the clinic 4 days. Time has just flown. We have already seen so many milestones obtained and it is so nice to see the smiling faces of the children as we get there in the morning and after nap time to pick them up out of their cribs. To hear sweet Ionela saying Buna, Mama, or 'ello into whatever she can make into a phone! This morning little Andreea was so much closer to crawling and any day now we shall see it occur.

When we got to the clinic this morning the dog that got hit by a car was limping around but still alive. We were afraid it may have met the same fate as the biting dog from last year. Lunch today consisted of a vegetable soup with- you guessed it- cooked carrots. And for the main course we had a plate of beans with a sausage- much like the hot dogs dad picks up from the butcher in New Prague. After I took a few bites of the beans guess what was in it, yup cooked carrots.

We went back to the clinic after naps and Marius and Gabriela we out of sorts. I believe they are both getting their 2 year molars. They are only a week apart in age. We fed them their bottles and then played with them and cuddled them. Trevor one of the young volunteers is so wonderful with all of the kids, but he was able to find a baby to volunteer to be bounced on the bouncy ball with him. Still no word on Paula but hopefully she will be back next week. In the afternoon Mihaela (our country leader) turned on the car and had a mini disco session with Ionela and Anna-Maria, as well as Erin one of the one week volunteers.

We went into Barlad for the last dinner as a group of 19 volunteers because on Saturday 5 will be leaving for home but before that we met with the travel agent to arrange the weekend trip. We then had some free time so Amy and I went to the Plus Market to find the cookies we had been craving for a year! We each bought 4 bags and met up with the group to go to the restaurant. The name of it escapes me but it was wonderful food. We started off with a salad it had tuna on it so I passed on it but got a Bulgarian salad instead, which I split with Nicole who did not care for the tuna either. The rest of the food came out family style and it was really a free for all. There was the mamalegua (polenta) again and three different types of potatoes- fried, mashed and fried with ham. We had a type of Romanian meatballs, Pork and two different pizzas. there was vegetables too (uh huh- cooked carrots amongst them.) And for dessert- finally Crepes with chocolate. it took everything we had to roll ourselves onto the bus back to Tutova. We were sent back into the hotel with a beautiful sunset.

the strollers and walkers all lined up in a row ready for any child to go for a ride

Erin dancing with Anna-Marie

Trevor Bouncing with Ion

Alexandra trying not to look at the camera

Erin with Alina

Cristi-Daniel just hanging out
Ema laughing after Miha jumped on her
Beautiful Smile!
The twins out for a stroll

Amy with Lea-Celene

A man looking out the window in one of the buildings while we waited for our bus.

Wednesday July 29th

Only two more days until the masks come off. Today was a warmer day and so it was a bit more uncomfortable with them. The kids were very cute today. Lea has developed a fondness for Amy so when Amy puts her down or another volunteer takes her she cries. It is a good thing to see because it shows that they are bonding. Today Mihaela was very generous with her pups (kisses). Alina was a kissing fool too! Gabi was crawling a lot more today as well and she actually tolerated sitting up for about a minute without fussing. She sat on the exercise ball and did a little balancing.
We had a bit of drama at the clinic today. One of the workers backed over one of the dogs and it was a bit hurt. All of a sudden they went to get some food to lure it to walk. It would not put weight on it's back leg. We brought the babies in for lunch and when we came back out the dog was not there anymore. The health inspector stopped by the hospital today as well, which was upsetting because at the same time Dr. Delia's father passed away.
Lunch today was a wonderful hungarian gouloush. And the best part if it was that we got Romanian watermelon for dessert. Very exciting because I have been waiting a year to have some again!
After dinner we went back to the clinic and fed the babies the bottles- they were all very hungry and ate them up quickly. Somehow some of the people mixed up their evening shift times and so for the 5:30 to 6:30 time there were only going to be 2 people to feed 19 kids bottles. So some ended up staying longer to help feed. After 4 we had taken the kids out of their cribs that were awake and brought them outside. There was a slight breeze and all of a sudden an aide came out with socks and sweatshirts for the kids. We brought them back in and gave them their 6 o'clock bottles. We got them all settled and as in their cribs. As we were leaving we could hear Ionela yelling out in her sweet airy-nasally voice Noapte Buna (good night) It was definitely worth staying late to hear that. Mihaela is a little stinker and every time someone was sitting on the floor with a baby in their arm she would come running up and plop in their lap too.
We came back for a chicken dinner concoction and for dessert we had doughnuts that tasted like Grandma's Kolbliky(sp?) yummy. It is hard to believe we are almost done with our first week here.

Alina's hand this year

Lea-Celene and Miha playing nicely together

Alexandra with Susan- she is not the same child as last year. Last year she fed herself and this year she hardly eats at all. She is not as interactive as last year as well.

Mihaela- how can you not love those eyes

The cribs the children used to sleep in until about 5 years ago when Global bought new ones for the clinic

.......By the way cooked carrots at dinner again

Tuesday July 28 Happy Birthday MOM

Today we had a bunch of crying babies. No matter what we did it just seemed we could not soothe some of them. As a matter of fact one of the babies (Paula) had to go into Barlad to the hospital because she had been crying and not taking her bottles for the last couple of days. She is non-verbal and it is hard to know what is going on with her. One of the babies spit up inside my shirt and I did not even notice it until I felt something cold. Ish! We had a full day with the kids but no evening shifts because we went into town (Barlad) for dinner. Many of the group decided to stay late because we wanted to keep the kids out of the cribs as long as possible. I am glad I stayed longer because I got to see Gabi crawling. I was so excited because she is so far behind and it is nice to see her reach any milestones. She still does not sit up on her own but we are working on it! She hates it when we try to make her and pitches one big fit. She is one stubborn cookie. Little Alina would walk over to me and give me big kisses on the lips- It was a good thing I was wearing a face mask because they were sloppy kisses.
We went in to Barlad for a tour of the city this evening. The bus driver recognized me from last year. He was eating sunflower seeds right off the plant. I tried a couple and they were good- raw. We took a walking tour and stopped to see some girls at a school practicing dancing they were so cute. We got to the Alona Restaurant and had a wonderful meal and good conversation. We stopped to get cash and then food at the grocery store. Now it is 11 pm here and I am ready for bed.

Alina

Alina cuddling with me- she is almost 2 and the outfit is 0-3 month sized

Miaestra

Marius and Gabi sharing a swing

Ionela being nice to baby Maria(1 Year).

Maria had gone into Bucharest, I think, to see if she would be a candidate for surgery for her Hydrocephalus. She is not because there is no grey matter. So she is now at Tutova for comfort cares. They do not know how much longer she has to live. Such a sweet little girl.

By the way cooked carrots in our soup for lunch and cooked carrots at dinner, but at least the dinner was family style so I could leave them alone!

Monday July 27, 2009

Today was our first full day with the babies and it was good to get back to them, even though a lot of last year's kids are gone. I think there are 14 left from last year. The twins are still here. So that makes me very happy! The first few days are always chaotic but it should settle down. We are doing something new this year because we are within walking distance to the Clinic. We have evening shifts. We start our day at the clinic at 8:30 am and put the babies in the crib for nap at 12pm we come back at 2:30 and play with them and feed them until 4pm and them some stay until 5:30 and then a new group goes at 5:30 until 6:30. We break and the last group goes over at 7:30 and stays for an hour. The walking babies are able to stay out of their cribs until the last group leaves but the non-mobiles are put back in the cribs for that hour. It makes for much less time in the cribs, which makes me much happier leaving them at the end of the night.

Me with the twins I fell in love with last year

Gabi on the left and Mihaela on the right

We have to wear face masks the first week we are here because the swine flu could be devastating to the children if we gave it to them. It is much cooler here this year compared to last so that is a better thing. However it is still warm and humid. I straightened my hair this morning and by noon any effort I put in was gone.

We are also at the remodeled clinic this year as opposed to last year when we were all crammed into the little children's hospital. Much more space but so much harder to keep track of all the babies moving around.

Gabriela (I am "assigned" to her)


Lea-Celine

Petre

Anna-Marie

Miaestra

Little Andreea

Daniela

Ionela(she is "talking" on a rock phone)

Big Andreea (she still loves to be held)

Ion (pronounced yo on)

Alex

By the way we had chicken and rice with cooked carrots in it for dinner.

Sunday night

After an afternoon of team building exercises and lunch we were formally introduced to the babies. I am in awe at how big some of them have gotten. And then it seems as if some have not grown at all (Alina-although I can tell she is bigger). The toddlers of last year have all gone and the new "toddlers" are just barely walking or are special needs. It will be different to not have the kids yelling for us when the bus drove up to the clinic. The chaos of the first day with the group and trying to get all the babies fed was funny to watch. After feeding the babies their bottles (it takes 5 minutesfor some of them to suck them down) and then playing with them for a bit we walked back to the hotel for our Romanian language lesson. We then ate a pasta dinner and ice cream and "picked" our babies we would be working with the next weeks.
Today was a much cooler day which was nice (yesterday got up to 106 and was the hottest day of the year here so far.)
Tomorrow we start our first full day with the kids.

by the way- they are still mananging to sneak cooked carrots into everything here- including our pasta dinner!!! Have no fear I can search them out and remove the offending objects!

Sunday

Today is orientation day so we are learning the rules and developing team goals and getting to know one another as a group. But after breakfast Amy and I (along with Terri) snuck over to the clinic and got to see the babies. It felt so good to be back there and to hold them again. They are getting so big- Most of them that is.

Marius

WE ARE HERE!!

We are here! We are here! We are here! Can you tell I am excited to be here? We just arrived to our hotel and it is within walking distance to the Clinic so I can see it from out my hotel room door. It was a long travel day for us. We got to Bucharest 1.5 hours early, but that didn't mean that every one else was here early too. I also have learned once again that I when I am with Amy I never "just once I would like to see this happen!" We were watching the bags come off the caruosel and I saw a couple of them shrink wrapped . jokingly I said one I day I would love to see one of my bags come off like that. And we watched a bag in plastic bags go by. I saw a jar of peanutbutter in the plastic and said "hmm I wonder if that is my bag of donations that we had to add stuff to because we had over packed. Yep it was. Apparently we had over stuffed the duffle bag and the zipper popped. I am not sure if anything was lost but the peanut butter made it!

So we had to wait 6 hours for the last of the group to get here. There are 20 of us in all. 4 will be teaching at the school so that means 16 people for 19 kids- a very good ratio.

Update: We had a thunderstorm last night so we lost internet at the hotel and now it is back up. apparently we also don't have electricity during the day(the hotel shuts it off) so it should be interesting.

We are almost there. Right now as I write this I am sitting at the airport in New York waiting for or connecting flight to Bucharest, and then it is a 5 hour bus ride to Tutova. I managed to forget my memory card reader so I will have to find a different way to upload photos. Amy and I both managed to over pack our suitcases by 5 pounds each and so at the check-in we had to do some last minute shuffling. Did you know a pair of jeans weighs 2 pounds? we do now! I will post more when we get farther.

Only 14 days and I will be on the plane back to the babies. I have kept so busy, but always in the back of my mind is the thought: it is this time in Romania right now (look at your clock and add 8 hours). I have kept the kids in my thoughts every day since I met them on the first day I was there last year. Now I have the happy anticipation of knowing I am going back there again! I get to hug "my babies" again. I only have 7 more shifts and then I will be going. I have already started to pack and try to think of everything I need to bring with me. But the most important "thing" I will be bring is my love. I cannot wait to come into the clinic and see the happy looks on the kids faces knowing we are going to rescue them from their cribs. And I am excited to be able to help participate in the evening routines. The worst part about last year was leaving the kids in their cribs when we left each day knowing it was going to be a long time before we got back there again. We also will be staying closer to the clinic this year so it will be easier to visit the kids on the weekend- I think I will be staying behind on one of the weekends- as much as I love to see the world- if I have already been to where the group is going I would rather save the money and just love the kids a couple extra days.

As I type this I realize it is only 3 months until I return to Romania. I am getting so excited! I can't wait to get back to the babies. I have already begun preparing. My next step is to get to the fabric store to buy more material to make more sheets for the cribs. I just got an email from Global saying that they need Playtex Bottles with the drop-in liners so my goal is to also check for sales on those items. I also need to get to the medical supply store to see if I can find a cheap child-sized walker for Alex. I think she will really enjoy her independence a whole lot more.