Boy Beat Up By Babies

Between being rundown from the weekend excitement of our Transylvanian tourist travels and the frequent exposure to the winter colds and snotty noses of the babies, I have been battling a horrible head cold.  As a result, I have been popping Benadryls like candy.  Despite being highly medicated and coughing up a lung or two, clinic life still goes on.  We continue to learn more about each of the kids’ distinct behaviors and personalities with every visit.  For example, I learned that Ion, making up for lost time with volunteers due to his prior hospital stay in Barlad, is very strong and a bundle of energy.  He is able to climb and grab onto the radio stand in the larger toddler playroom all by himself (which is quite scary to actually see in person).  I also lost to him in a tug of war battle involving the stretching of the neck area of our clothes (he started it!).  In addition, almost all of the toddlers are notorious to be messy eaters, a volunteer’s delight. 

The twins thought the chocolate treat was lipstick.
She looks like the Joker from Batman.

Due to flying spoons, fingers in containers, and not fully closed lips, I end up with more yogurt and milk on my scrubs than in mouths.  They just know that I love doing laundry.  Many of us have also noted that Petre loves to cause trouble and even displays a devilish, yet cute smirk across his face upon someone’s discovery of his hijinx.  Probably sensing that I was drowsy from all of the cold medication, he decided to give me a nice “wake up” slap in the face yesterday.  How kind of him! 

As usual, Yoko and Kellie frequently stop by the toddler rooms to visit myself and Heather, and sometimes they even bring along a baby or two!  It’s always a nice change of pace to see their little, chubby faces!

Hey Nico!  How can you resist this face?

A few of us had a nice exchange with the nurse aids today.  Even though we see them almost every day, usually everyone is so busy running around after babies!  It is fun sharing information about our home lives and families with each other.  When the communication line fails due to the language barrier, drawing on the floor with a finger and playing charades is the way to go! 

At lunch, program leader Dan explained more details about where the Global Volunteer funds actually go within the clinic.  Besides paying for the industrial washers and part of the hospital water filtration system, the program fees also help pay for a number of aides’ salaries, the preschool teacher for the older kids, as well as half of the children’s food.  Following this delicious meal of yummy vegetable soup and cucumber/tomato salad, we headed to our favorite Tiff Market again to stock up on Milka chocolate for the week, buy what we hoped was laundry detergent, and purchase the cure-all for our pesky colds – more candy.

One of the volunteers on our team was actually a finance employee for Global Volunteers.  She threatened to cut the dessert budget after she departed Romania.  She left and this is what we receive for dessert today.  Bonus points if you can decipher what it is.  It is not a favorite of mine.
 


It's not cheese.  It's not tofu.