Communism began crumbling in 1989 when the people in Eastern Europe found strength and hope. Everyday average people were ready for freedom and risking their lives for it. Poland, Hungary, East Germany, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, and Romania were the countries in which communism toppled that year.
On December 21, 1989 an uprising began against the president of Romania, Nicolae Ceauşescu (chou shes’ ku). While Ceauşescu spoke to thousands from the balcony of the Central Committee building, angry crowds booed him incessantly, ending his speech. He and his wife Elena (second in command) couldn’t leave the building due to the riotous mass. Defense Minister Vasile Milea committed suicide rather than obey the order Ceauşescu gave to open fire on the crowd and its demonstrators. Regardless, shots were fired, and many were killed. This marked the beginning of a revolution in which the people, the military, and top government officials brought about the end of Nicolae Ceauşescus rule. The Ceauşescus were executed after a short trial on December 25th, just four days after the uprising began. This revolution led to the fall of communism in Romania. After this the country opened and people all over the world saw what the prison known as Romania, held within.
Journal entry:
“Thousands of orphans are living in the saddest situation I think I have ever seen. While sitting comfortably in the living room, watching one of my favorite news programs; I saw pictures of a world full of pain and unhappiness. Tragic stories always make me sad, but never before have I been this affected; to feel such despair.
How could something so appalling and torturous be happening in 1990? It reminds me of the Holocaust films we saw in school. These orphanages in Romania have children of all ages living in them that seem to be on the verge of death. Many little bodies looked like skeletons covered with skin; their coloring pale, looking already dead and drained of blood. They don’t even seem to be aware.
I saw older children scooting along a cement floor, naked and sitting in what was said to be urine. All of them had short dark hair, making them look like boys. It was apparent all weren’t, but I saw nothing in their faces showing personality, only pain.
Some children were deformed; one child’s leg was so out of place it was bent up and around her shoulder. Still she made her way across the cement floor and down some stairs. I questioned how a child could be left to remain so crippled for what appeared to be a life of around seven years.
Little children that looked two and three years old, sat in cribs rocking from side to side, seeming oblivious to the presence of a news camera or the people behind it. Other little faces stared into the camera’s eye penetrating my eyes thousands of miles away. So many innocent children are suffering terribly. Many are starving to death and dying of AIDS.”
I was overwhelmed by the thought ‘This is really happening!’ Children are living like this at this very moment. The pain and emptiness in their little faces is real, and impossible to look away from. The report said that these orphanages are overflowing with unwanted and unloved children numbering 150,000.
It’s hard to believe the reasons for this mass abandonment are due to the laws of Romania’s now executed ruler. Is it possible for one man to have so much power that this disgusting state could be the result of his rule?
He outlawed birth control and abortion, requiring married women to have at least five children that would increase Romania’s work force and create loyal soldiers for his armies. Having children was almost unpreventable, creating an abundance of unwanted children. With this lack of control, many parents abandoned their children. For some poverty was the issue. Others simply didn’t want them. Some children were abandoned because of illnesses or deformities.
This sounded strange, but confused me more. How could children be SO unwanted? Mothers give their children up for adoption to be part of a family that can love and care for them, but this wasn’t ‘up for adoption,’ it was abandonment by the thousands.
The number of births was far greater than the supply of milk and food for them. In desperate attempts to save small babies, hospitals performed the age-old practice of transfusing babies with blood to boost their immune systems. HIV-contaminated blood and the reuse of needles caused a hideous outbreak of AIDS. During Ceauşescus leadership, he refused to acknowledge the AIDS problem spreading throughout the country’s orphanages, and did nothing to prevent it.
Oddly, the number of children in orphanages only increased with Ceauşescus death and liberation of the country. This liberation meant changes including government subsidies on basic things like sugar, flour, rice and gasoline. Prices began to rise at alarming rates, while wages only increased slightly. People chose to give up that which would bring new, unwanted, and inevitable expenses, while seeming to forget the importance of that precious child.
Orphanages and hospital rooms were full of children in cribs, but empty of color, toys, affection, or stimulation. With their senses so deprived, many of them seemed almost comatose with no desire to thrive. Children in this sensory silence were turning themselves off, hitting and rocking themselves for stimulation, and understandably dying in a world totally devoid of love.
It was impossible to see these little faces and then tell myself to move on as though it were just another part of the world. I saw the babies bundled and lying in rows with no one holding them, and thought to myself, if nothing else, I can hold babies that need to be touched and feel love. I was a senior in high school, and decided that after I graduated I would go to Romania and do whatever I could to help.
Once I had made this decision, everything inside me said it was right, and I knew I had to go. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. I told my mother I had prayed about it, knew I had to go, and asked her to pray too.
I tried to find a way to Romania for months. I looked for anything helpful at the library, but there was almost nothing. The couple books I found were old enough to have the old spelling RUMANIA on the cover. With no such thing as the internet, I had to keep looking on my own.
Almost accidentally, I found an organization working in Romania. I happened to turn on the television just as Romanian orphans were being discussed. They showed an orphanage, introduced the organization working in it, and volunteers were briefly mentioned. I excitedly wrote to the address they gave, telling them I was serious about becoming a volunteer. I said that I had love to give, the desire to help, and decided I had better mention that I was eighteen. I worried that although I sounded serious, they may laugh at my letter.
After a few months of anxiously waiting for a response, I received a phone call asking if I would like to go to Romania with a team of volunteers leaving in two months, on December 15, 1991 for a three month commitment. The orphanage I would be going to was in Calaraşi, a city in the most southern part of the country.
I was told that I needed to cover all costs myself, $2,500 plus any food I would like to bring, as many previous volunteers found Romanian food unpleasant. The $2,500 would take care of the flight expenses, visa, and three months in a hotel. They gave me fund-raising ideas, and supplied me with a video to show possible contributors.
I immediately received $500 from a friend’s mother who was very supportive. After that, I had a hard time getting any further. My family gave me as much support as they could, and so did a few good friends, but generally I wasn’t taken seriously. I placed a short article in the local university’s paper stating my desire, and asking that if everyone reading it could send me one dollar, I would make it to Romania. I didn’t receive one response.
My mother supported me and never once told me I should stay home to work or go to school because it was more practical. Others did, but not my mom. She could see I was serious and believed my conviction.
It was very difficult to come up with everything I needed so quickly. I got on my knees many times, asking for help to find the next hundred dollars. I had never wanted anything so badly. I was so sure this was what I had to do, but extremely frustrated, I worked daily on reaching my goal.
Fortunately my mother worked with some incredible people, and when they heard what I was doing, many donated. Even small donations added up and became a very significant help. Somehow money always came just as I needed it to pay for the next expense.
I turned nineteen the month before I left, and was often reminded I was still younger than I felt. When people heard what I was trying to do, most had the same response. A half smile would cross their faces, and I could see their doubt in me. Some asked why I needed to travel half-way around the world to help children, when there were needy people in my own back yard. My response was rarely good enough; what could I say to make them feel my conviction? It was only when I was days from leaving, that people started to listen and believe what I was saying as real.
I boarded my plane, surprised at how unafraid I was to be going alone. I’d only flown on a plane once before, and I’ve always been uneasy doing things by myself and going to unknown places. This made my whole trip a contradiction of the Natalie everyone knew, including me. All my shyness and fear had to be put aside so I could reach my destination.
Leaving my family wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I knew, as surely as I knew everything else, they would be there for me when I returned in just three months. I also knew I was about to be with the children I was so anxious to meet.
As a naive and apprehensive little girl, I landed in New York. New York was supposed to be a terrible and dangerous place; I’d seen it in the movies and was sure of it. Almost positive I would get mugged, I began to search for the meeting place of my “team”. As it turned out, my team was one person -Mark Riley.
I didn’t know how airports worked, and this one refused to work with me. Nobody could help me find the “Delta Dash” desk where I was supposed to be, and I was near tears trying to maneuver my giant luggage. In all my frustration and obvious lack of control over my bags, a man approached me asking if he could help. I was so upset, embarrassed, and nervous that I said no. He told me to stay where I was, and I didn’t know TWA from TAROM anyway, so I did. After I spent a few painful minutes of feeling stupid and trying to look casual, the man returned with a luggage cart for me. I then realized he worked there. I stumbled with my words trying to say thank you, but wanted to hurry away.
After asking numerous people how to reach my meeting point, I finally learned it was “down those stairs”. There seemed to be no other way down, so pushing my heavy load, I approached the stairs and decided to risk having something stolen while I carried my luggage down one piece at a time. It was difficult to hold in my burning tears of frustration, but I did. Luckily there was a landing half way down the stairs. As I got three pieces down to it, a very friendly looking man offered to help me, and I couldn’t refuse help that would get me out of looking ridiculous sooner. I thanked him too, but had a hard time coming across as sincere, despite my honest sincerity, while feeing so dumb.
At the bottom of the stairs, all organized again, I pushed my way to one of the only places it could be. I clumsily got my cart through the door, and wanted desperately to hear a yes to the question I had been waiting to ask. "Is this Delta Dash?" I wonder what face I made, and what they thought as I pulled my cart next to a chair and collapsed in it to wait. Now that I had found it, I wanted more than anything to cry. Just a slight release of what had been building up in me would have helped immensely. I was forced to be calm knowing how strange I would look covered in tears, and that I would be meeting Mark any moment.
Everyone who walked through the doors, I eyed with a silent question of “Are you Mark?”. Finally Mark came in, and I had to ask it aloud. It was him, but without luggage and looking very organized. How annoying! I don’t remember saying much, only following him with full confidence that he would finally take me where I needed to be. Just an hour later, we were patiently waiting for our flight and I had calmed down enough to be looking forward with excitement again.
December 15, 1991; flight from New York to Romania, part of my journal entry:
“. . . He’s thirty one, a sign-language interpreter, and an Alcoholics Anonymous counselor. He’s very friendly, and easy to talk to because he’s so nice. He has made me feel less nervous about the journey ahead. It’s quite a relief to find he appears to be a regular guy!”
I had no idea at the time how much I would grow to appreciate Mark and his unending strength.
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