A Week of Progress

As always a big hello is in order! This past week has been a good but very crazy one. It is most definitely mid semester and I think everyone is feeling it. Being the facilitator has helped me to see just how important a mid semester retreat is for group moral. The girls are all still doing an amazing job but they are getting tired so I think the trip we have planned for Budapest and Krakow will be a perfect way to get our strength back. I for one am super excited not only because get to get my sister, Kristen, a gift from where she served her mission (Budapest) but because I get to go to Krakow which has been a life time dream of mine. So yes I hope you are all ready for a great traveling email next week.

I have really enjoyed my time at the hospital as of late. We have broken up the floors so Melissa and I take Marius along with the floor below while the other girls take the other 6 floors. As a result while Marius plays the DS, which he is getting better at all the time, I have gotten to know some other kids a little better. There is a very amazing girl Alexandria that I have been spending a lot of time with. She is such an amazing kid but like all of the kids there she is dealing with some pretty hard things. Alexandria was born with clubbed feet and as a result has spent a lot of time in hospitals as they do surgery after surgery in an effort to correct the problem. I think somewhere along the way she has developed some pretty sever attachment problems because every time I go see her she asks me over and over again not to leave. I have tried to create a routine with her so she knows I won’t leave for a while. Every time I go in we change her diaper, give her a bed bath with my vast supply of hand sanitizer, and then put on good smelling Lotion. As a finishing touch we put on Chap Stick and paint our nails. She loves that part best of all. But more then that she loves to paint my nails. Needless to say my toes and toes nails have never been covered with more red polish. I also have been reading an animal book with her that my dear friend Ashley made me before I left. It has a bunch of animals with the Romanian word below. She is getting great at making the animal noises. My favorite is her fish face. Although things were going really well with her she was moved to the fifth floor so I don’t get to see her anymore which has made me really sad. I am not sure if our routine made a difference to her but I was surprised by how quickly it made me attach to her.

Thursday was Marian’s funeral and it could not have been more perfect. He was buried in a small city called Andréa Shawn about an hour towards the Moldova border. I was so happy to see that he came from a beautiful town with a great priest and people who made sure his funeral was done correctly. Meeting the priest and seeing the care he took of his town really changed the way I think of the Orthodox Church. I fear I had developed some small prejudices. I was glad I went for many reasons. Personally it was good for me to see that he was physically taken care of. Second seeing his family was a very enlightening experience. His mom was not there because she lives in a different city and simply did not care enough to come, but his grandma, two uncles and little brother came. They were super poor along with just about everyone in the town and one of the social workers told me that his little brother used to live with his mom but ran away because his dad beat him so much. Seeing them made me realize that the Orphanage really was a blessing in his life. He got more care and love there then he could have from his family. I found myself being grateful that the Orphanage existed. Third in the Orthodox Church part of the funeral service is that all of the person’s things are given away to the guests. All of the poor little kids in attendance walked away with Marian’s things. It was beautiful to know that Marian was able to make a difference in the lives of the people in his city and in that way he lives on.

Well just really quickly I know my time is up but two of the best things happened this week! 1. After the funeral I went upstairs to say high to my kids at the orphanage. When I got there and looked over there was Alex asleep in his bed. It was amazing to see him so calm. I just sat there looking at him with my eyes filling up with tears. One of the works Lumi saw me and came over and tickled his hand. Alex eyes immediately opened and he looked right at me and smiled. I think being there for him woke up could not have been more amazing. 2. Marion went outside and wore a shirt this week for the first time is 7 months! He is making so much progress.

-elisa

This is for Marion

Hello dear friends and family! I hope that you are more then happy and are feeling very blessed. As for me I am Ok…

Every time when I began writing these emails I look through my weekly journal entries and pick out the highlights I think you will be most interested in. Today in particular I am grateful for that routine. Before beginning this email/blog entry, there was a huge part of me that wished I was a Wii character so a huge arrow could come pick me up and take me out of this place and put me somewhere else. For those of you that have never played Wii this might be hard to understand but do try. Today has been one of the worst I have known in a long time for various reasons, which my mom knows far too well about because I called her at 4:00 A.M. her time crying about them. (Thank you mom you are amazing). The whole morning had just gone poorly. It seemed like one thing after another went wrong acuminating in Mindy telling me that Marion who has been in the hospital died. I guess one of her workers had come in and told her sometime throughout the day. It broke my heart, not that he died because I know it is for the best, but that I was not there for him when it happened. I think dying alone like that would be one of the scariest things in the world. When I got home I phoned Mario, our caretaker here, and asked her to call the director of the orphanage to see if we could help. I think Mario knew I was in a panic because she said she would call immediately. I wanted to call and ask if we could help because I knew the director would ask us to help and I did not want Marion to be a project like that. I guess tomorrow I will be going with a caseworker to pick out his casket and other such things. I am sorry this email is not going very well but I fear I am pretty emotionally spent at the moment. So back to why I was happy I looked through my journal first… While I was looking through my journal I saw that I recorded an experience about Marion that happened earlier this week, which helped me to realize just how good of a thing his passing is. On Monday when I was cleaning his face and putting lotion on his arms I moved one of his little arms to find that the sheet was soaked with blood. Marion had a huge bedsore that left his bone completely exposed on the elbow. It made me sick thinking how bad his sores must be on his back if his arm is that bad. For this reason and many others I am glad that Marion has moved on to better things yet I cannot help but missing him. I know I should not be sad but no matter how many times I tell myself it is a good thing, which it is, I feel sad inside.

On another more consistently happy note some of the field study students in Moldova stopped by to say hello as they were passing through Iasi. It was so great to see them and talk about the different projects we are working on. (Truly Ashley B.T. I think one of your field studies dreams was realized through our interaction). They are helping with an NGO that is focused on stopping trafficking which is a huge problem in Moldova. It was amazing to hear what they are doing and where they find their motivation. It was also great to share with them what we are doing here. To do this we took them with us to the hospital and I am pretty sure I can safely say they loved it and so did the kids. It was pretty exciting for the kids to see boys, which is something they don’t see very often. They kept calling them giants. But what was more wonderful was see how these boys were effect by this amazing little kids. I of course cannot speak for them but I am pretty sure that they left that hospital a little different then when they came which is saying something because they were already A+ individuals.

So as for now it is good bye and good night. Be good and I hope this next week is a good one for all.

-elisa

Pictures... Read them and Weep

Iasi Relief Society

Hot BYU Ladies

Chilling with the Branch Pres! He is truly amazing!

A True Animal Lady!

Hot Dudes and Hot Bands

I am not sure if it is even possible but I believe that I have just finished my fifth week here. This whole concept of time is absolutely mind boggling to me. Despite this I will do my best to describe what I have done with time.

So Fluorine, Marius’s roommate, went home on Friday morning. As a result Thursday was our last day with him. All week long Melissa, Mindy, and I planned what we could do for him so he would always remember just how much we loved him. We thought of a lot of things but we could not think of the perfect gift. We ended up getting him a basketball, ice cream, and pictures with us. When we walked in with the basketball he just lit up and we knew we had gotten the right gift. He ran over to get the ball, which he immediately began to dribble. But the fun did not last that long. Marius who is supper polite made Fluorine stop so the nurses would not get mad. Marius has really become good at working the system. He knows just what we are allowed to do and not do and he makes sure we do them because if we don’t then we have to go home early, which Marius does not like. The rest of the day we just sat there and enjoyed our boys. The nurses started moping early so we had to leave but we all quickly gave Fluorine a kiss goodbye. Marci, Marius’s aunt, told us that when Fluorine’s dad came for him the next day he said he did not want to leave because he want to see the girls again. Of course his dad said no so Fluorine gave Marci and extra kiss for each of us and left. It as crazy to go to the hospital without him but I guess that is just life and I am glad that he is at home where he can run around. Oh one last story about Fluorine… One day Mindy was talking to Fluorine about how he was burnt and she told him she way sorry. He quickly told her not to be sorry because he was glad he was burnt because he got to meet us. What an amazing little boy.

Now on a completely non-service note the girls and I went to a concert hosted by one of the many local politicians. At the moment Iasi is crowed with kids campaigning for various politicians. I can honestly say that every time we go out we get bombarded with fliers about people promising to make Iasi a more spectacular place. I think that this politician thought that by bring the most popular bands to Iasi he would show the young adult population just how great Iasi could be. Needless to say we were sold; good thing we cannot vote. I happened to have my nice camera with me so Whitney Scott and I went up to the front to get some good pictures, but it did not workout very well because the front was blocked off for campaigners. One of our friends did his best to get us in but the local Iasi police force was not having it. We wandered around the back of the stage to get some shots from that angle and the next thing we knew we had walked right into the fenced off area where our friend was. It was great not only did I get some good shots but we also got to meet some local politicians and have our picture taken with a Legendary Moody Blues like Romanian band called Holograph. While all of this was happening a younger yet very popular band called Voltaj was playing. According to their website they were voted the best performing group in Europe last year. Anyways what happened next was very funny. As they ended one of the band members walked up to Whitney and I and struck up conversation. He talked to me about my camera and about his band. Pretty soon he was asking Whitney and I if we wanted to go to the disco-tech with him. Although this was tempting due to the great story it would provide I could not say yes because our sweet branch president had asked us not to. So Whitney and I just walked away knowing that regardless we had a pretty good story about a Romanian celebrity hitting on us. I told Marius about it at the hospital and he just about died he could not believe I did not go to the Disco-tech. So I guess in the end it was a great story regardless and it made me that much cooler in Marius’s eyes which is everything.

Much love!

Eisa