Bucharest, Romania - Summer 2005, Journal 2
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On July 12, our three week rotation at the orphanage, called Luminita, began. For the next three weeks, our group, which was composed of Alexis and Beth from the USA, as well as Julia from Austria, Eva from Spain, and Rianne from the Netherlands. At first we would be met by a Romanian medical student who would help us navigate the Bucharest bus system for an hour before arriving at the orphanage. After a couple of days, we were left on our own to travel to the orphanage as we felt comfortable to make it in our little group. For the first week or so, we always had someone with us who spoke Romanian who could help us with communicating with the children and their teacher, but afterwards, we just arrived on our own and learned to communicate through the little Romanian we learned and the little English that the teachers and children knew.
The orphanage was a bright and pretty place with Disney murals on the walls, and plenty of people taking care of cleaning and tending to the kids. We spent the majority of our time with a group of children between 8 and 12 years old. There were 11 kids, all of which were boys except for one girl. From the very first day, they were happy to see us, and as time went on, they became more and more comfortable with us. We learned a lot from the children, and we hope they learned from us as well. It was amazing to see how much you can communicate with such a language barrier. There was another group of younger children who we also spent time with, as well as some who were up to 18 years old. We were lucky to be exposed to so many age groups, and a few of the older kids knew English well so we learned a lot about their lives and living in Romania from their points of view.
Beth Gaskill, Med 2 (Class of 2008)
Alexis Waggoner, Med 2 (Class of 2008)
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