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