by Catherine Bell
'Play day canceled due to horses and feces!' We arrived at our little gated park in Iasi, Romania, to find it occupied by horses. The owners simply left the horse feces all over the park where the kids play. And this is in addition to all of the glass and debris that already infest the park.
Iasi is not what I expected. I was prepared for the worst by others and despite all, have been pleasantly surprised by the progress that's being made here. Communist influence still lurks just around the corner, though each morning I pass the bank where people are lined up an hour before opening to claim their money. It reminds me of the bread lines typical of the communist era. There's very little community work - stray dogs are left to roam free; most public areas are littered with glass and trash.
During the communist era everyone was given a job and a wage. Emphasis was not placed on providing for yourself, so now people are having a hard time being proactive in earning a living. There's a fear of new ideas and of change. Some are partial to the communist ways saying that times were better back then. In some ways it's true because now, during this transitional period, things are worse as people struggle to get on their feet and create a life out of nothing.
Meet my kids: A bubbly little girl with black bobbed hair came romping out rolling a big exercise ball. She stopped short and started bouncing her head on the ball squealing, 'Uh eh uh eh uh eh!' She looked up to reveal a deformed smile, carrot-shaped nose and an almost nonexistent ear. Alina, my little 'Cindy-Lou Who,' is a victim of a failed abortion. She's a bright little girl and only one of the eight kids that I work with in the Dacia orphanage apartments here in Romania. All of my kids have attachment disorder and many of them practice self-abusive behaviors as Alina does.
Viorel is infamous for his Frankenstein hug holding both arms straight out he charges at you yelling, 'Mama!' Mirell flaps his arms when he gets too excited. Cosmina is my little 3-year-old slug moving ever so slowly and licking everything in her path. Sergiu, who has earned the title, 'drunken sailor,' stumbles around trying to discover the world despite his struggle to see and hear.
Watch 'Annie' and you'll get a clear picture of Catalina, my beautiful little pig-tailed orphan who loves to rough-house. Costica, my Down syndrome boy is another slug-like fella, who can often be found rocking himself against couch. Finally, there's Andrada: the epitome of endurance and purity strapped into a wheelchair, who loves to hear 'mai poti!' meaning 'You can do it!'
This experience is solidifying the importance of my major and others like it. These orphans would not be living in such conditions had the government not been so corrupt. I hope this little insight into life outside the American bubble will stir some to the realization that change can be made and it's up to us to make it.
'You see things, and you say, 'Why?' but I dream things that never were, and I say, 'Why not?' -George Bernard Shaw
Catherine Bell is a junior from Orange, Calif., majoring in International Relations doing an internship at an orphanage and hospital in Iasi, Romania.