Twenty years ago today (give or take a month ... or six)
Norb, my adorably handsome man, and I went on our very first trip to Romania.
We landed, excited, but very unprepared, in the city of Bucharest, the capital.
It was spring, the weather was mild, yet the country was …. sad
It was a very sad place twenty years ago.
It was a very sad place sixteen years ago
with some hope sprinkled in
when we went for the second time.
But that first visit.
Our friend Angie had moved to Bucharest, Romania a few years earlier after hearing about the children of the sewers. She was to be our guide, a friend to these sweet, abandoned, soot-covered children.
What we saw in the next few days was unlike anything we could fathom
Writing about it in this blog seems trite … words won't express it, I'm afraid
but as I write
and then, when I post this
I pray that the reader (and I) will be moved
will be awakened, if need be
and will act - in some way - for some child - somewhere
Walking the streets of Bucharest those cool spring evenings, so many years ago
with a backpack full of sandwiches
and our huge video camera on our shoulder
What we were about to see, and who we were about to meet, would forever change our hearts.
That huge video camera
(way before digital, small and indiscrete)
attracted quite a bit of attention.
The sandwiches were obviously a big hit.
We were thrilled to be there,
not the, there's the Disneyland sign… we're here!! kind of thrilled
not the whew!! there's one more piece of chocolate cake left!
or the
someone else is cooking dinner tonight elation
It's more of the
giving food to someone who was actually hungry
(not just someone who wanted more food)
kind of thrilled
It was the kind of elation where your hug, your smile, your attention or your sandwich actually could have made a life or death difference that day
There was a problem though.
These were kids.
seriously people,
they shouldn't be begging for a meal
They shouldn't be without a bed
They should never have to say no one would know if I was alive or dead
Stepping out of that van, they came...
they came from around every corner
running down the street, or across the railroad tracks
climbing out of holes in the ground
filthy dirty
often shoeless
many addicted
obviously starving -- for food and for love.
What we saw - what I saw over the few days we were there,
my words just aren't giving it due justice.
My heart - it didn't just break - it went in to shock
Our first night out, we watched as a beautiful little boy dug through the garbage can at the train station
right beside a food vendor.
He reaches in and finds an empty ketchup bottle.
But not so empty that he can't put it to his mouth and squeeze the last drops out.
That food vendor yells at him… swears at him in Romanian. Would have hit him if he were a couple of inches closer
Wow! That was and continues to be so confusing
--- to my heart and my mind.
I couldn't grasp what I saw then and I can't compute it now, 20 years later
Another cool evening.
We had visited the train station, again - crossed over to the other side of an abandoned line of train tracks.
We walked around the city of Bucharest looking for Angie's "kids" - children that adored her because she came, night after night, hugging them, caring for them, feeding them
Once again our backpack full of food
we walked down a dark, lightless street
so dark
so lonely
There she was - a little girl. That's all, just one little girl.
Angie bent down to say hello, asked her in Romanian what her name was,
how old she was
who she was with and where she had come from.
A little girl. Alone.
She couldn't have been older than seven years old. She was small enough to be five or six. It was May. It was a very cool spring evening on the streets of Bucharest. It was after midnight!
Her little dress and little shoes... they were not enough.
I don't remember her name
I don't remember her exact age
I don't remember
The whole scenario was like watching a clip from some movie set back in an era that I just couldn't relate to - some horrific story about children being left alone in some far away place. A story that was being told so that we would be shocked while being entertained.
This was not academy award stuff
This was happening in front of me.
That sweet, darling little girl was alone,
and I regret saying that we left her - alone.
The crazy part is, in that moment, what were we to do?
We didn't live there, in Romania.
We didn't have the option of (legally) bundling her up, bringing her home with us to California.
There wasn't a girl's home in Bucharest (yet*) to bring her home to, and sad to say the orphanages weren't always the best option (overworked and overwhelmed)
It feels so lame to say this
I'm risking here, hoping that you won't be moved to rebuke or scold.
Or then again, go ahead
because maybe I deserve scolding, for not being "brave enough" to take her with me.
Anyway, I took off my socks
my long adult-sized socks.
I put them on her little feet
under her little shoes.
I took off my flannel shirt, my very large shirt
put it over her little dress.
I rolled up the sleeves, those long over-sized sleeves.
Angie was talking with her the whole time.
where do you live? are you with anyone?
I have to tell you I don't even remember much about that or much that happened afterwards.
All I know is … we walked away.
She was abandoned by her parents.
She was abandoned by her siblings.
She was abandoned by a broken society.
Put on a train in another part of this beautiful but very sad country
At the end of the track she got off.
She had nobody. Nobody!!!
to be continued ...
* Response to emergencies should go faster, but frustratingly, it often takes an agonizingly amount of time. It takes money, resources, property and people. Since we first visited over 20 years ago I'm thrilled to report that Angie's kids have a place to call home. Soon after we visited, Children's Relief Network opened both boys and girls homes in Romania, caring for the abandoned children of a country broken by dictatorship many decades earlier.
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| Angie's Kids |
