"Drum Bun" (meaning Good Journey) in Romania

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We have been in Romania for almost a week now and feel like we have seen much of the country and its people. It was arranged for us that Dawn Elenbaas would take us on an orientation and sight-seeing trip to various places in Romania. So by Wednesday we were on the road again and driving through Romania on bumpy, narrow roads with Dawn as our fearless driver and very capable tour guide. Had I been the driver, we’d still be trying to get to the first destination as driving in Romania involves much passing of slower vehicles. These could be big truck or horse-drawn farm wagons. The scary thing is that the roads are one lane in either direction and the opportunities for passing are few, so when they arise, it’s like a pile of cards being re-shuffled. A long line of cars and trucks jockey for a new position in the line up of traffic. The goal is to get as far in the line as possible before on-coming traffic makes you pull back into your lane. Dawn did it expertly without any apparent stress, but for as for me Russian roulette would have been a safer bet!

During the three days of traveling through Romania we saw scenes so much different than what we had seen in Timisoara, which is a fairly large city of ugly communist blocks of apartments, bad roads, and little beauty. In Hunedoara, Bran and Sinaia we saw wonderful castles ranging from the early medieval to the early 1900’s. What a splendid way to study the history of Romania! In Sighisoara, we stayed overnight in a quaint pension in the medieval citadel of this beautiful old-world town. Climbing the old clock tower the next morning afforded us not only a beautiful view of the town and valley below us, but also an interesting studying of how far we were from many of our destinations of this world trip. We found out, for example, that we were 1680 km away from Paris, but only 660 km away from Istanbul! Eight of our destination cities had the distance from the clock tower noted!

The countryside of Romania is beautiful. We drove through plains, rolling hills and even mountains. Little villages abound; many looking very poor and reminding us of the villages of Cuba. Horse-drawn carts filled with hay or firewood were passed often, as well as storks nests atop telephone poles or chimneys. Many nests had families of 4 storks standing in them. Storks are big birds even when young, and I guess the only way of fitting a whole family in one nest is by standing room only.

Back in Timisoara on Saturday, David and Karsten spent the day doing household chores such as laundry and grocery shopping, while Stephanie and I had our first day at the baby hospital. Our duties there include helping to change babies, feeding them (who knows what’s in the bottles; sometimes it’s probably formula, but often it is some kind of a brownish mixture of carrots and cheese), and most importantly, taking the babes out of their cribs and playing with them. There are 51 babies under the age of 2 in this long term care facility. Most seem fairly well nourished, but it is often hard to guess their age because they are all so developmentally delayed. We spent the day in one room with babies between the Ages of 4 months and perhaps 14 months, but most could not sit on their own. Many could not even roll over. They are all so cute, however, and full of smiles for anyone who looks in their direction. Past teams of volunteers had left mats and toys for the babies and we spent time rotating the children for time lying on their tummies and socializing and playing. They loved it and were not at all happy to be put back in their cribs. By the end of our shift at 6:30 that evening, Steph and I were exhausted ourselves. You just wanted to hold them all and delay them going back to their cribs where they will lie on their backs in loneliness until the next feeding time. Without enough volunteers to hold and feed them all, the hospital aide and nurse responsible for the 20 or so babies in her ward simply props the bottles with blankets for many of the babies. I didn’t see one baby hold their own bottle. Even this is developmentally too difficult. Yet many of these babies are so bright and cheerful, you know that they could learn if they had the opportunity. Their best hope is for their family to be able to resume care of them sometime, or failing this, that they may be placed in a loving foster or adoptive family. The sooner, the better! In the meantime, we hope that we can be of help to the understaffed nurses and provide some socialization and love to these beautiful babes.