SAD STORY

Had to add one quick sad story that I found out about last week. One of the little boys at Ludus Hospital fell to his death from an open window from the 3rd (?) floor. Apparently there were some wedding festivities outside, and being an inquisitive 4 year old as he was, he climbed up on a chair that had been left near an open window and fell out. He lived for an hour or so after the fall, but then passed away. Poor little guy. His name was Vasile, or (his nickname) "The Boss". He was the oldest of the kids being kept at this babies' ward, so he was pretty bossy with the other kids -- hence the nickname! I know accidents do happen, but also the ladies responsible for the care of these kids are pretty negligent. This happened on July 1st. I'm sure Vasile is in heaven, and I hope that God can bring some good out of this tragedy!

F.A.Q.s

Quite a few people have asked me the same questions about my trip since I've been back, so I thought I would put a F.A.Q. section. Here goes: 1) Would you go back to Romania again? I would go back in a heartbeat! I loved it!
2) What was your favorite part of the trip? It's hard to pick just one particular thing, but I loved meeting the kids that I sponsor (Adi and Simona) through Livada Orphan Care. That was one of the main reasons I went, and that was definitely a highlight! I enjoyed interacting with the abandoned babies too.
3) Would this be a good possibility for a church mission trip? I think it would be a great opportunity to introduce some different people to the joys of a mission trip. We mainly offer medical and construction trips through my church, and I think a trip to work with the abandoned babies would appeal to a totally different group of people. This is not something that Livada is currently doing, but I hope it might become an option in the future. I could see doing that plus spending time at the Livada houses (Casa Nadia, Casa Ana, Casa Rebeca) as a fun mission trip.
4) What did you think of the sightseeing? Wow! There is some genuine first class sightseeing in Romania. I would definitely go back to Peles Castle in Sinaia, and I would love to go to Sighisoara again. Besides these places, there are painted monasteries, and I would hope to see Bucharest some day too. Romania is very unique that in spite of being the size of the state of Pennsylvania, I believe it has 7 UNESCO World Heritage sites, which is really a lot. One drawback is that they don't really seem to be set up for easily offering day tours. I was hoping to be able to do something like a Grayline tour, but that didn't seem to be available. Maybe I was just not finding it!
5) How did you find the prices? The prices for different things such as hotel, cabs, food, and internet were very reasonable.The biggest expense of the trip was the plane fare.
6) What did you think of the food? Romania is a meat and potatoes kind of place to me. I thought the food was exceptional. The meat of choice seems to be pork, but there were plenty of other things to be had. There were lots of salads, veggies, soups, and for the less adventuresome there's always pizza and McDonald's.
7) Did you have any language difficulties? As always, you have a much more interesting experience when you can speak the language (sounds like a former foreign language teacher, right?), but there was always someone around who spoke English. The young people learn English in school, and most of them seemed to be able to speak and/or understand English fairly well. A few phrases and knowing the numbers always seems like a good idea. A couple times I tried Spanish or Italian and that helped a little!
8) When you refer to the place where you visited with the babies, you have referred to it as "babies' hospital", "babies' home", etc. What exactly is this place? I probably should not call it either one of these terms. It is the upper floor of a regular hospital. Since it is illegal to put a child under the age of 2 years in an orphanage, they have to put the abandoned babies somewhere, so they put them in a hospital. They're in a bit of a "pickle" though, because I don't know what they'll do with these kids. The idea is that they are hoping for domestic adoptions, since international adoptions are banned and they are supposed to be trying to close the orphanages down, not put more kids in them. So where these kids are supposed to go is beyond me. Already there are several kids there who are almost 3 years old, and there is a 4 year old in a crib that is showing the signs of minimal interaction with other people...You are probably thinking that this doesn't make much sense, and you're right! I have no idea what the solution is, but I think the first thing they have to do is make it a criminal act to abandon a baby, if they haven't already done so.

FLYING HOME -- LA REVEDERE ROMANIA

So here it was May 22nd and time to go home already. That time sure did go fast! Left my hotel in Cluj VERY early to get to the airport for my 7 a.m. flight -- do NOT picture O'Hare. There were 2 departure gates. And in case you find yourself in the Cluj airport -- there's no food to purchase, just so you know. Didn't feel like eating so early anyway. So we boarded our prop plane for the Cluj to Milan flight. I'm still trying to understand why it takes so long to go such a short distance. Two and a half hours?! These planes are safer than they look, but many people had very reluctant looking faces. Or maybe they were more afraid of the Tarom flight attendants. They are pretty scary looking too! They still think it's the Communist days, and their service (or lack thereof) was really dreadful. Also towards the end of the flight, I think one of them was in the bathroom smoking which I thought was pretty interesting -- considering they're the ones that are supposed to keep us from smoking! But then I guess smoking is a Romanian hobby! Not much time between planes in Milan, so on to the Alitalia 9 hour flight. Some day I want to fly 1st class!!!...Immigration and customs very crowded at O'Hare. Plus when they saw I'd been to Romania, I had to go through the U.S. Agriculture line. My guess was that it had to do with the bird flu!...I'm glad to put my feet on the ground! My mom and sister were there to meet me. Thank you God for giving me this vacation and for bringing me safely home.

SIGHTSEEING IN CLUJ

Sunday (May 21) I spent the better part of the day walking around Cluj and enjoying the sights. I wandered into an incredibly beautiful Catholic Church called St. Michael's. Mass was in progress, and it was so peaceful and the singing was so beautiful that I stayed until the Mass ended...Down the street the Orthodox Church was so full that not everyone could get in, and the service was piped to the outside so everyone standing outside could hear. Did some window shopping, had a little lunch, and took quite a few pictures. Most interesting statue was of a Hungarian king where the word "Hungarian" was removed. There's a bit of tension between the Hungarians and Romanians. Nothing terrible but just a subtle thing. Too complicated to go into here, but nonetheless it was very obvious that the word had been removed from this statue...Cluj definitely doesn't have the smaller town atmosphere of Targu Mures, but it seems like a nice city with a lot of cool cultural things to do.

GOOD BYE TO TARGU MURES--HELLO CLUJ!

All good things must come to an end, and it was hard to believe that the week flew by so quickly. Saturday is just kind of a blur -- went to Anca's mom's work and she gave me a wonderful facial. What a treat! Went by their apt. and had a lunch before we were off and on the way to Cluj. I had originally hoped to be able to spend some time with some Habitat for Humanity people who are working in Cluj, but things didn't work out. I was pretty tired from our long day Friday and didn't do too much for the rest of the day.

BIRD FLU?

One quick digression -- on the way back to Targu Mures from Sinaia, after we got beyond Brasov, there was a place where we had to slow down to about 5 miles per hour so they could spray something on our car that will supposedly help combat bird flu. They sprayed the tires. We also drove over some big thing that looked like a piece of fabric and was soaked with something. The bird flu is in the news a lot there right now, and I think there were some cases reported near Brasov...I don't think I have any strange disease yet. At least not that I'm aware of!

VILLA HELVETIA

So after talking with the girls while they messed around with their hair, we were off to the restaurant Villa Helvetia. For some reason I was thinking it was a casual place, but it was actually rather fancy with beautiful tablecloths and tableware. They have quite an extensive menu. Bethany and Jannes had big beautiful salads, and I had four cheese pasta that was really great. So I had three restaurants in mind that I wanted to try while in Romania, and I was able to make it to all three -- China Blue, Pizza Mix, and Villa Helvetia. All three were great and reasonably priced.

GIRLS WILL BE GIRLS!

On returning to Targu Mures after our long day, we stopped at Bethany and Angela's apt. for a minute. We had the pleasure of finding Simona, Maria, and Elis coloring their hair. They were SO funny and just being typical teenage girls. And you could just sense what a great relationship they have with Angela. Simona is such a sweetheart and was hugging and kissing me and pinching my cheeks. These three girls are just blossoming under the care of Livada. I hope they realize how blessed and how fortunate they are.

SIGHISOARA IS NEXT!

You would think after the long drive to Sinaia we would head straight back to Targu Mures. But wait! First a quick stop in Sighisoara. It was getting pretty late by the time we got to Sighisoara, but we made a gallant effort to do some (uphill) walking and checked out the clock tower. I have to check my guidebook, but I think most of the stuff in Sighi is from the 16th century. It also attracts a lot of Dracula fans, as it is the birthplace of the Vlad Tepes, whom I believe is the real Dracula.

Anyway, we did Sighisoara in 45 minutes, but I will go back again! I'm not sure that this is the kind of place where you would spend 2 or 3 days, but it is definitely worthy of at least a day visit. There were some interesting looking little shops, and I think there is an open air market one or two days a week.

Thank you to Jannes and Bethany for making the effort to stop when we were all very tired!

GOING TO SINAIA

Next thing Friday -- After picking up a few things to snack on (well, maybe more than a few! :-) ), we were headed off to Sinaia to see Peles Castle. What a treat to have the opportunity to do this! I would never be able to do something like this myself, but thanks to the kind invitation of Bethany and the expert driving of a Dutch friend (Jannes), we were off and running! Sinaia is approx. a 3 hour drive from Targu Mures, if I remember correctly. Oh and what a drive! I was sitting in the back seat occasionally doing some of my own braking, and I think I only screamed once. Almost the entire way is a two lane road with traffic coming directly at you whenever you pass. The only really scary part is through the mountains where it is nothing but one hairpin turn after another. Whew! I've always been very thankful that I don't get motion sickness, and I was especially thankful this time that I don't!...After much driving, we arrived only to find that we were a few minutes too late to get into the Castle. As luck would have it, a very nice security guard gave us a private tour of the outer grounds but could not allow us into the Castle. The good side of this is that I will now definitely have an excuse to go back again! Seriously though, what a beautiful, peaceful place. And the setting is incredible. I'm not sure that I realized previously that Romania had a King and Queen. So we know their King and Queen definitely had good taste when they built this place!

I really enjoyed this and hope I will see the inside on a future visit...Time to head back to Targu Mures. What a nice day though to see some of the most beautiful scenery in Romania. Also had a chance to see some of Brasov.

BACK TO THE BABIES' HOSPITAL

Friday started off with another visit to the babies' hospital. It was fun to interact with them again, but also very hard knowing that there is so much more that could be done for them to relieve their boredom. You can see by some of the cribs where paint is peeled off the walls where the babies are scratching. Just hope they're not eating any of that! We put a blanket down on the floor and were playing with a bunch of them. They don't have too many toys, but they have a few things. They were feeding the toddlers, and we were all trying to fathom a guess as to what on earth they were feeding them. It looked like bread that had maybe soaked in something. We can tell though that they don't like us to see them feeding them. Maybe if they'd tell us what they need we could help them a little bit...One bright note was that one little girl's mom came to pick her up and take her home. So there's a constant change in the number of babies who are there. We said they need a few strollers to walk the kids around in, even if it's only done inside. They never go outside which doesn't seem like a good thing. Already some of them are scared to death when you even take them out of their rooms. We did it anyway just to kind of acclimate them to something other than their rooms.

Hopefully Livada will eventually have mission teams scheduled to go in the hospital frequently to interact with the babies. I know they could do so much good there. This place we've visited is in Ludus which is about 45 minutes from Targu Mures, but I think there's another place closer to Targu Mures that they could possibly visit too.

If you have a prayer list, please add these possibilities to your prayer list. The kids definitely need interaction, and there's nothing at all hard about doing it. It's fun!

AMERICAN DIPLOMAT

Well, as I was waiting for my ride to the baby hospital on Friday, the director of Livada pulled up in his car. He was meeting the American diplomat who was here in Targu Mures. (Found out his name is Bob Gilchrist) He was not the ambassador but was someone from the ambassador's office. Bruce (Livada director) introduced me to him, and we were all talking for a few minutes. I understand that this gentleman went to the same baby hospital we've gone to, and he went to the orphanage in the same town. (Interestingly enough, found out about a week later that when they came out of the orphanage, Bruce's car had been "keyed" all the way around!!) One of the things Bob wanted to know at the baby hospital was if the babies lie on their backs all day.

Apparently this gentleman's specialty is Human Rights, so we'll see what happens in the future. At least Livada is getting some people to listen to them. So I guess they didn't get to talk to the Ambassador, but maybe this guy was second best!

CULTURAL PALACE

Enjoyed wandering around the Cultural Palace in Targu Mures. I happened to luck out and go in there when an orchestra was practicing. I started to listen with the intention of just staying for a few minutes, and I ended up listening for almost 45 minutes. It was fun to hear them practicing and to hear the conductor correcting them, etc. There were other things I should have looked at in that building, but for some reason I just couldn't figure out how to buy a ticket, and I really didn't see anyone selling tickets...Oh well, next time!

INTERESTING MENU ITEMS

Soup (ciorba) is a big part of the diet here. I noticed that the restaurant at my hotel has 7 kinds of soup on the menu. I tried chicken sour soup w/ vegetables, and it was really delicious. I'm not quite sure what makes it sour, but it sure is tasty.Of course I've seen the dreaded "ciorba de burta" on the menu. It is tripe soup, or as my guidebook describes it "cow innards soup". I love the rest of what my guidebook says. It has "the idea alone is enough to send some running". I consider myself one of the running. Tried goulash too -- what better place to try goulash than a place that used to be part of Hungary! Very delicious with a great mixture of meat, gravy, carrots, potatoes, little noodles, etc. Couldn't even fathom a guess at what "saramura de crap" was. I just don't know that I could go in a restaurant and ask someone to bring me crap. Turns out crap is the word for carp, and this term is grilled carp. I think maybe I won't try that.

AMERICAN AMBASSADOR

Several of the Livada Orphan Care people are having lunch today with the American ambassador to Romania. He is in town from Bucharest. They will no doubt be talking about the orphanage conditions, especially the conditions at one particular notorious orphanage.

Livada's director recently spoke at a European Union session to call attention to and create an awareness of some of the sexual abuse and abuse in general that has been going on in the orphanages.

Livada really loves these kids and is willing to fight for them! Wish I could attend the luncheon myself. Alas, no such luck!

CHECK OUT A FEW PICTURES

If you'd like to see a few pictures taken by Bethany with the babies -- go to
www.acrownofbeauty.blogspot.com She got a couple of very good shots!

ZORRO'S BACK PACK

Zorro is a child who lives at Casa Ana. I had a gift from his sponsor to give to him, and I finally had a chance to deliver it yesterday. It was (drum roll please!!!) a Cubs back pack. It was SO cool! In each pocket, there was a little note or something for him to read. His 12th birthday was last weekend. He put on the Cubs cap that was inside right away, and he looked so cute! Until he came into Livada's care, he had never gone to school. So his mom will help him read the little notes and birthday card later. You could tell that he REALLY liked it and loved the attention. I can't get over how small he is for 12 years old, but then that's how all the kids are. I think years and years of poor nutrition haven't allowed them to grow much. I think the best word for them is "puny".

Zorro has finished the first grade and is already working on second grade materials. I think he's actually a smart little guy but just never had the opportunity before.

La multi ani Zorro!!! (Happy Birthday!)

CHINA BLUE

Finally had the opportunity to try the Chinese restaurant I've heard (and read) so much about. China Blue was delicious! I had some kind of pork with vegetables. I loved it! I was even able to figure out the money!

BIG BLUE

Had a chance to visit a place yesterday in Targu Mures that used to be called Big Blue. Don't know what it's called now. Awhile ago, this place housed (warehoused?) as many as 400 handicapped kids. Since these large places are being closed down, this is now a school for the handicapped. I enjoyed seeing their classrooms and learning about some of the activities they have for the kids. It's a VERY nice school and is nothing like the jail it used to be. I understand they used to just turn the kids loose in the big courtyard and it was quite a wild place.

They now have very caring people working with these kids -- some of them have Downs syndrome, some of them have AIDS (SIDA in Romanian), some have physical disabilities. What an improvement from the bad old days! The kids come and play sports, have classes, and are given a nice lunch everyday. We went into the cafeteria area, and the cooks were preparing some kind of soup that smelled delicious!

Little by little -- step by step. You can't fix everything overnight, but I give them A+ for effort.

MY NEW CAMERA

I'm doing ok with my new camera and finally learned how to display the pictures. I needed to figure it out, because I wanted to be sure the baby pictures were coming out ok. There are a lot of bells and whistles that I'll probably never even use, but it's a pretty decent camera.