Nu-va suparat. Aveti copii fara momma?

(Don't be angry/excuse me. Do you have any children without mothers?)

Today we went to the "spital" for the first time. Even if I took the prep class a second time, nothing can prepare you for what you see when you walk in those doors. Before I make this post a complete downer, please allow me to share some things I did like about the hospital
1) A lot of parents come and stay with their children until they can leave. Parents and children were walking all over the hospital in jammies together going for walks, getting food etc.
2) The nurses were a lot nicer than I expected. They know what we are looking for and often we don't even have to use the above phrase. They tell us "nu am copii fara mommy" (we don't have children without moms) or they will show us where they are.

Despite this though, I was unprepared (mentally and physically) to see all of this. We waited for an hour and a half before Rachel (our field facilitator) came down to get me and Ashley who waited while the other two got settled in a room first. We walked around explored the exterior and interior. There is a nice wood-sy area outside with a path that is nice and quiet. While walking inside, I saw a tiny baby in an incubator being transferred by ambulance to an intensive care unit somewhere else in Iasi. Another mother walked by with a baby who's left cheek was either swollen severely or out of place. I saw another young child on a bed who was missing a leg, being wheeled into surgery.

The main hallways smelled like smoke but the upstairs hallways near patients were clean and freshly mopped. Clean floors definitely help as the floors themselves are very old and worn in some places where you can see concrete underneath. The bedrooms are in long corridors much like any hospital room. In this hospital, each one has a window a few feet wide in which you can look down and see several rooms on each side. It provides us with the consistent blessing of being stared at by others :) The cribs that the children and young infants have white metal vertical bars. The beds are old and some of the paint is chipping away from wear and tear. The older children have flat beds that are a thin mattress with sheets. They believe that if there is ANY kind of draft, a child can catch a cold. Many of kids were clammy as they were dressed in sweatsuits.

We only saw two children before it was time to go. The first was a tiny infant who had an NG tube. She was also warm from wearing long sleeves, a hat, and swaddled in a blanket while it ws about 75 degrees or so in the room. She was crying and stopped once we had picked her up. She ended up falling asleep in my arms and I thought "yes. this is what I came here for"...my happiness was shortlived as I began to feel dizzy and nauseated by the heat and lack of water and food in my system

We then went down to floor three and were shown into a room that held a little boy with bandages over a large portion of his body wearing a diaper. He was sleeping and when we whispered hello (buna) to him, he told us he was hungry. He wasn't very responsive so we just held his little hands and sang song to him as he slept. We began to sing I am a Child of God in English. After the second verse, I had to leave. The room was too warm and emotionally I was drained. I went ad sat in a cooler hallway until they finished. I couldn't understand how I could feel so happy in one room and yet so sad in another. I'm certainly grateful we only stayed a short while. I'm not sure how much more I could handle seeing on a first visit.

Tomorrow we will get a tour of Section II (Saint Andrews Placement Center). I am a little worried it will be just as difficult if not harder to see even more children. At the same time, I am trying to remember that that's why I am here. I am here to try and give these children a source of hope. To not only try and teach them but most importantly, to learn from them. It's hard to explain but I felt my heart naturally go out to these children and want to love them the minute I see them. I try to see them in a nonjudgemental way-- the same way God would. Each of them has a divine spirit and despite the tubing, disability and bangages, underneath is a special soul reaching out and wanting to be loved.