My visit to Romania - Blog prettygaywritings

My Visit to Romania

I visited Tirgu Mures, Romania, in November 2006 with one of our local judges, a court psychologist, and a youth services provider on sort of a "legal missionary" trip to talk to local Romanian government officials about our foster care and adoption procedures in Florida. We spent a week in a whirlwind of meetings with their judges, child protection workers, local bar associations, and law school students. We were hosted by an organization called Livada, which means "orchard" in Romanian, which was founded by an American minister who was concerned about the number of orphans in Romanian (mostly Gypsy, or Roma, children) and the horrific state run orphanages. Below is a story about my trip.

I don’t know what to expect as we enter the state run orphanage in Ludus (pronounced “Loo-doosh”), Romania on a chilly November morning. Our American host, Bruce Thomas, explains that we have to leave our cameras in the car, including any cell phones that have picture-taking capabilities. These are the rules – no cameras, and no reporters, in the state run facilities. This gives us a clue as to what we are to find.

Ludus is one of a smattering of remaining large institutions for orphaned children in Romania. It houses about 130 children, ages 6-21. There aren’t adequate words to describe the bleak and hopeless feel of the place. The outside of the building is the poster child for a communist-era government building. It is a drab, concrete block monolith with metal grates on the bottom floor windows that screams “institution.” The interior of the building shares the same stark, cold, style. It brings to mind what an old insane asylum must have looked like in the 1940s in our country.

Our first stop is a “play room” used by the disabled children at the orphanage. There is apparently no such thing as mainstreaming in Romania, so the children, most of whom appear to be autistic, are kept in a bare room all day, supervised by what appears to me to be a teacher in a catatonic state. When the door opens, the children rush out at us, screaming and jumping and spilling some sort of liquid out of a plastic container. We hope it is only water. One child goes immediately for my wrist to determine whether I am wearing a watch, and upon discovering it, promptly tries to bite it off. I say, “Nu, nu!” (“No” in Romania) but the “teacher” just sits there placidly. This, and other similar antics, goes on the entire time we are in the room. All of the children have shaved or closely cropped hair, making it difficult to distinguish gender. Most, despite being 8 years and older, wear diapers.

Next stop, the disabled children’s bedroom. Here we find six tiny beds, roughly the same dimensions as a child’s crib. Even considering that most of the children are small for their age, the beds are so tiny the children must have to sleep curled up. I let my American sarcasm fly by saying, “Looks like the 7 dwarves live here.” Bruce laughs and to my chagrin translates this to the orphanage worker guiding us throughout the facility. She humorlessly replies, “Nu, only six beds.” There definitely isn’t much to laugh about in this place.

We then visit the room of some teenage boys. It reeks of feces and other stale smells. One boy proudly shows us a picture of, and letter from, his father. He, like many other children in the state’s care, are not true orphans. Rather, they are considered “social orphans.” They have parents who may live nearby, but who for whatever reason are unable to care for their children. Apparently it is fairly easy based on Romanian law and policy for parents to leave their children here and in other similar institutions. I try hard not to be judgmental of someone would leave their child in this place.

We ask to see the library but are denied access. Rooms to which no one has a key are a common theme we encounter in Romania! We are also denied access to the kitchen and the dining room, and the reasons why are left to our imaginations.

After we drive away from Ludus, Bruce circles back and gives us a chance to hop out of the car and take a picture of the outside of the building. This is somewhat risky for him because the institution’s officials don’t particularly enjoy his frequent visits as it is, so we have to be quick. Later in the day, when I viewed the shot I had taken, I find that it doesn’t quite capture the dismal feeling of the place. I’m not sure that any photo truly could.

Our next stop is the county baby “hospital” in Ludus for newborns and children up to age 5. Bruce explains that depending on which nurse is in charge that day, we may be able to get our cameras in. We’re in luck; the accommodating head nurse is in, and the duffle bag full of donated baby clothes we bring with us doesn’t hurt, either. We snap pictures at will throughout our visit, some of which appear with this article.

Although rooms for the children in the “hospital” (I’ll explain the quotes later) are a bit brighter and cheerier in appearance than at the institution for older children, I find myself in an even deeper funk. Here we see babies, toddlers, pre-schoolers, and school aged children with shaved heads, in diapers, confined to metal cribs in Spartan rooms for most of the day. They are occasionally able to walk or crawl on the floor of their room if a nurse is available to take them out. The nurses seem to try their best, but they are sorely understaffed. One of my co-travelers is a psychologist, and points out evidence of attachment disorders in some of the children. This includes several of the children who stiffen when they are held, and struggle out of our arms to get back in their cribs where they console themselves by rocking back and forth. One little girl, who is perhaps a year old, has just been found abandoned. All she wants to do is look out the window and cry. I’m not a psychologist, but if I ever saw a depressed baby, it was this little girl. And as for the designation as a “hospital,” this is a joke. There is absolutely no medical care taking place for these children. The nurses barely have time to wipe a child’s nose, let alone provide real medical care. This is a warehouse for these abandoned children, whose parents, as the nurses explain, may or may not pick them up when the weather warms up, when they are better able to afford them, or when the children become old enough to be of use in a market or a field. I am told that conditions here are much better than they were five or ten years ago. That thought makes me shudder.

Depending on with whom you speak, there are many reasons that Romanian orphanages are crowded with children, under-staffed, and over-looked. Some blame Romania’s ban on international adoptions. Others blame the country’s inability to move past the ghosts of the Communist era (the former communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu, created most of the state run institutions, to hold the exploding population after he banned all birth control). Still others blame the Roma (Gypsy) culture which encourages large families and discourages family planning. Whatever the reasons, it is obvious to us that the situation for these children is unbearable and needs to be corrected. To our American way of thinking, someone needs to step up and “just do it.” Unfortunately, this seems to be a foreign concept to our Romanian friends, many of whom only remember living under a dictatorship and who seem to have little confidence that this complex situation can be changed.

We learn that there are many Americans who are stepping up to “just do it” in Romania. One such American is our host, Bruce, a minister from Texas who has been in Romania since 1990, just after the fall of communism. He is the Executive Director of a foundation in Tirgu Mures (pronounced Teergoo Moorish) called Livada Orphan Care which provides assistance to children in the state’s care, many of whom are still in institutions and so-called hospitals. He is also successfully raising money to build several group homes, and has somewhat miraculously cut through the Romanian bureaucracy and transferred some 50 children from the institutions to his smaller group homes and mentor apartments. The difference in the appearance and behavior of the children in Bruce’s group homes is in stark contrast to the children we observed in the state care. The children in Bruce’s care are in clean, home like settings, and are happy and cheerful – one might even say joyful – at each of our visits. We learn that Bruce and his wife, Catherine, gained Romanian citizenship so that they could legally adopt 2 of the children who were rescued from an institution. Coincidentally, we also meet a couple of other American throughout our travels in Romania, one of whom has a foundation similar to Livada but which operates out of the capital city of Bucharest. During our brief conversation on an airplane ride between Bucharest and Frankfurt, I learn that the gentlemen running the foundation in Bucharest has similar concerns for the children of Romania and has been working with the American embassy in Romania to bring attention to the issue. I am both amazed and grateful that these people are willing to live and work in a foreign land, under less than perfect circumstances, to bring some hope and comfort to these children who suffer so.

I would be remiss to end this story without also mentioning some of the positive experiences of our trip, including learning about the country’s rich and colorful history, sampling the flavorful food, and meeting the beautiful Romanian people. I use the term beautiful to describe them in both the colloquial sense as well as in the physical sense. Their diverse ethnic heritage which includes Slavs, Turks, Hungarians, Germans, and Romans makes for some strikingly attractive people. The Romanian language, sometimes called the fifth Romance language, is melodic and flowing, and the people who use it are expressive and passionate. I left Romania with the e-mail address of several new friends, who seemed fascinated with American culture and cherished the opportunity to practice their English skills on us. Sadly, the country still suffers from the effects of a repressive communist dictatorship, but I, with my stereotypical American optimism, hope for a brighter future for the Romanian orphans, and indeed, for all citizens of this beautiful and complex country.

To learn more about Romanian’s orphans, visit www.livada.org.

Postscript: After our visit, we learned that the horrifying institution in Ludush had been shut down, largely through the relentless and selfless efforts of the staff of Livada. The baby hospitals, unfortunately, are still in operation and are as busy as ever. Livada staff continues to visit to bring clothing, toys, and love to these abandoned children.