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Published: August 25th 2006
(From Adrienne):
Not that we are counting down or anything, but as of tomorrow we only have one week left in Moldova! It is amazing how in 2 weeks, the children at the orphanage "know" us and look forward to seeing us. I think the softest spots in our hearts are still for our first group. This morning, their caregiver took them on a walk to our area of the yard today. When Andre and Nicollietta saw us they went crazy. Andre has this wave that uses his entire body, and his face literally lights up. Even my heart of stone melts at the sight of him. It's funny how during our first week, the caregivers of this group asked us to move on to another since we couldn't understand each other, and now they are bringing the kids over to see us. Like Wendy said earlier, we use the language of play and all kids understand that!
I reread some of my earlier blogs, and in my first one I said our apartment was small but cute. I need to revise that. Our apartment is small.
We have been working with 2 year olds the past few days and this group is tiring us out the most! They are all over the place! And you won't believe it, but this group brings NO toys when they come outside. They are literally picking up plastic cups and tops of soda bottles and playing with those (and putting them in their mouths!)! Because they don't have any toys, we have had to get very creative in getting them to play with us. I found that bribery works well. Yesterday I started handing out stickers and their reserve melted right away. They love to be picked up and to sit in our laps. Unfortunately, they also like to bite and pinch. One little girl is a professional pincher and spent the afternoon pinching her peers and pinching me. And I have bruises on my leg where little Igor (yes, we have now met 2 Igors) would run up and bite me through my pants. I don't really like those kinds of games.
After riding the bus for 2 weeks, Wendy and I learned that we have been doing it wrong. Yesterday morning, on the way to work, we jumped out at our usual stop and I gave the door my usual heavy push, to make sure the door latched. Well the busdriver went crazy and started yelling at me in Romanian. I was scared! I felt like a 6 year old who has been caught stealing candy from her brother. For some reason I opened the door again so he could continue yelling at me, and I shut the door more carefully. Wendy said I should have slammed it again.
That afternoon, on the way back to work after our lunch break, Wendy got out of the microbus after me and apparently shut the door too hard as well. This time the busdriver started shaking his finger and reprimanding her. He was not as mad as the morning driver, but no one likes to get yelled at! We asked our host about this at dinner, and she said you should just close the door quietly behind you, not slam it shut. Lesson learned.
We work all day on Saturday, but get Sunday off. We are really looking forward to a day of rest! Bye!
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Anna
non-member comment
f-u-n
Hi Adrienne! I laughed out loud at your description of the "biting game". C'mon...nothing spells fun like getting bit on the leg by a little one!! :)