Chapter 2

          We landed at the Otopeni airport near Bucharest in the afternoon of December 16^th.  The sky was white, snow covered the ground, and fog filled the air, preventing us from seeing any distance.  I felt like we were in the middle of Siberia.  I had a very clear mental picture of this warehouse serving as an airport, sitting out in the middle of a gigantic field with nothing but snow covered miles all around.

          Mark and I had made a friend on the plane.  He was a nice Polish man who didn’t know what to expect of Romania either, so we three walked together as an unsure but sturdy trio. 

          As we entered the door our bodies were searched.  A big rough woman ran her hands over me questioning the travel pack around my waist, and the chap-stick in my pocket.  After showing her everything, and wondering what she would take away, she pushed me aside to examine the lady behind me.

          We went up stairs and stood in lines to have our passports studied.  The men we waited in line to see made me nervous with their serious faces, fur hats, and stiff uniforms.  I couldn’t relate them to any uniformed men I had seen before, and I decided they looked like communists.  Examining our passports so intently, I was almost surprised when they let us pass.

          At the end of the line, we took five steps and stood in front of the belt on which our luggage would arrive.  We were amazed when the decrepit old belt started moving, and luggage began appearing.  Men in big dark fur hats were everywhere, making me even more certain we were in another Siberia.  Being one of the few females in the building, I couldn’t help but feel like food in a forest of bears.  It was all so foreign.  Nothing was even close to what I was used to, and couldn’t compare to the States or Canada.  One thing I hadn’t anticipated was countless new smells. The culture shock was immediate.   To have called me “green” wouldn’t have come close.

          Our Polish friend received his luggage and left us before ours appeared.  We wished him luck, and I was reminded how lucky I was to have someone traveling with me.  Finally we got everything together and went to the customs lines.  Mark pulled out orphanage volunteer papers and we were waved through.  Good thing, because I wouldn’t have been able to fit everything back in my bags if they had wanted them all opened.

          We made our way to the doorway where dozens of people waited for the arriving passengers.  As we tried to exit we learned half of them were taxi drivers looking for fares.  We didn’t have to search for the people we were meeting, they found us.  Our luggage was loaded into a van, while we climbed into a small Romanian car.  It was just getting dark when we left.

          There had been record snowfall that week, and it was freezing.  I kept wishing my feet would warm up.  I tried sitting on them and rubbing them with my hands, but it didn’t make much difference.

          The night’s thick fog turned our two hour journey into four; a drive that I thought would never end.  I tried not to watch the road as the driver went too fast for conditions.  Since I couldn’t sleep sitting up on the plane, I wanted desperately to sleep now as we drove, but I was too afraid I would wake up upside down or dead.  I’m sure it made the journey even longer as I constantly fought to keep my head up.  When we finally arrived at our hotel in Calarasi and unloaded our things, my feet were so cold it felt as though I wasn’t wearing shoes.

           The next day we went to the orphanage.  With the sun greeting us on our first morning, I enjoyed our walk there.  I thought the old town was quite interesting with its old houses and grungy looking apartment buildings.  I saw the car we had ridden in everywhere around me; almost all cars were identical and Romanian made.  I thought the route to the orphanage was so long I would never be able to find it by myself.

          I was twice as excited once I met the children.  They were all so beautiful!  I don’t know what I expected them to look like, but it was hard to believe they were all abandoned.  I was incredibly anxious for the time when I would know them individually, and they would know me.  I was very happy to be in Romania and excited about the weeks ahead.

          At Leaganul de Copii (Seesaw of Children), volunteers had been helping for nearly a year, so the conditions weren’t as bad as the orphanages I had originally seen on television.  We were told it was worse when the first group of volunteers arrived in early 1991; children were left unchanged, sitting in their own excrement, and the workers did little.  Now the women were doing their jobs, but seemed to hate it.  I was slightly surprised when Mark and I were ignored by many women in the orphanage.  We were happy to be there helping, and I expected they would be happy to have our help.  I’m not saying we were ignored by everyone, but most seemed indifferent; never acknowledging us.  There were only a few women who were friendly to us on our first day.

          In December 1991, the number of volunteers was five, including Mark and me.  I was of course the youngest, and my ‘peers’ were thirty-year-olds.

          Earlier in the year for three months, Mary Thompson volunteered in this orphanage.  She went home after her three month commitment to raise funds and supplies in America for these children she fell in love with.  She returned in January of 1992, committing to stay for one year as president of the Romanian Orphanage Project.  Mary increased our group of volunteers to six, but less than one month later two volunteers returned to America.

          We lived in the hotel for two months.  The hotel was expensive, and almost weekly we were told the price would be going up again.

          This is the back of the hotel.  My balcony was on the top floor, one in from this end.  The view from my balcony was of the apartments across the street, the roof tops next to us, and behind was a park against the Danube and a small reservoir.

           In the Hotel we rarely had hot water, and when we did, it ranged in color from yellowish-green to red.  My very first bath in Romania was in a tub full of rusty liquid.  I bathed in it only because another volunteer said I should take advantage of all available warm water, whatever color.  I filled it to the top of the bath, thinking there would be more water than crud to clean myself with.  This is a picture of a ‘clean’ bath before I got in it.  When living in such a cold room and bathroom, I was really quite pleased to climb into some warm water.  I eventually got used to bath water being dirty before I bathed in it.  We had plenty of cold water, but it was so cold I almost couldn't brush my teeth or wash my hands in it. 
 

  

          In February, we all moved into apartments that had been built to house foreigners working in the local coke and coal factory.  These were near the orphanage and cut our walking distance by more than half.  It was very nice to have a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom and living room.  We also had water heaters and clean water!  Occasionally we didn’t have any water and found it necessary to keep bottled water handy for brushing our teeth and washing.  The electricity failed us as much as the water, but luckily, seldom at the same time.  However small these apartments were by our American standards, they were much bigger than the hotel rooms.  They were comparable in size to that of the Romanians’ apartments, although much more expensive because we were foreign.  We found that being foreign meant that most things cost more.  Romanian’s didn’t have to pay anything close to the $60 we did for a months rent, but we were happy to not have to pay the $100 the hotel wanted.

           My balcony was the one at the top with the semi-circle.  The window in the middle was my kitchen.  To the left, my living room, and to the right, my bedroom.  The windows either side of those are the balcony doors for the apartments next to me.  My balcony was the biggest, so we used it in the summer to have an outdoor dinner.  Just enough room to put tables against the balcony wall and sit with our backs to the building.  A great view for a meal.  This is my kitchen sink, stove, and fridge.