The first few days in Romania

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well.
My trip has gotten off to a bit of a bumpy start due to problems with the airport. After waiting a few hours for my first flight we were informed that it had been delayed "indefinitely" because they were missing a bolt to secure one row of seats to the ground and because of new regulations they were not allowed to simply remove the problematic seats. Therefor the flight would not be able to take off until they found this obscure part, and apparently no one seemed to know where to find it. So I had to transfer to all new flights as there was no possible way to make my connection in San Fransisco. This in and of itself was not a big issue, it had me arriving in Romania about 3 hours later than originally planned, but that was no huge inconvenience (especially considering some of the other passengers on the my original flight ending up being delayed by a day or more) And as an added bonus they bumped me up to business class for the 7 hour flight from Chicago to London, which was very nice -lots of room to spread out and get comfortable. So none of that was a problem. The problem was they could not remove my luggage from the original flight so it did not arrive with me on Saturday. In fact I still do not have it today on Monday evening. It will hopefully be arriving at my hotel tomorrow but until then I have nothing except my carry-ons which included all of my camera equipment and several books but no extra clothing. Luckily the group of volunteers I am traveling with have all been very generous and have shared their clothing and toiletries etc. Lesson gained from this: Always carry enough clothing/supplies for a few days in your carry-on.

We have a much smaller team than on my last trip -five volunteers instead of twenty. They are a nice group of women and we are getting along well already. We finally got to visit the clinic today. I have been anxious to get there since boarding the plane but the first days were mostly spent in transit and then getting settled at our hotel and preparing as a team for our work assignment. For me this always seems unnecessary. I was ready to go the minute we got here. I always hate prep work. I always want to skip the whole process and get straight to the objective.

Our team leader this time is Mihaila's husband, Dan. He is very nice, but his is his first team and he is a bit nervous. Mihaila (who is the country manager for The global volunteers program) joined us today for our team meeting, and tour of the clinic. She brought their daughter Delia with her for lunch and the tour of the clinic. Delia is almost 4 now and She the most beautiful little girl. She doesn't speak English fluently, but the English she does know she pronounces perfectly. She is so adorable and we all enjoyed her immensely at lunch. Not a shy child, she provided us with entertainment until we reached the clinic.

When we finally got to the clinic I had to hold myself back from jumping up and down and running straight through the doors to the babies rooms. I was so excited to see them all again. Last time I worked with the non-mobile group and now many of them are in the toddler group. Denisa and Andreea (whose photos are on the right) are so big. Everyone has grown so much and of course there are many new babies as well. After touring the clinic and saying hello to all the little ones I went to each of the playrooms and found my kids from last time.
I'll get into more details later but for those of you who were here with me before Here's a list of the babies from our group in Sep '05 who are still at the clinic:
Ramona -who has barely grown at all
Lilliana Rosca -I tried to give her a hug for you Jennice but she is still very wary of new people and didn't want anything to do with me today. We'll have to give her some time to warm up to us.
Dumi, Ioana, Octavian, Andrei, Sorin, Maia, Andreea Rusu, Denisa, and Andreea Romila are all in the toddler group now. Andree Romila has a little sister now (Crina, born in August) who is in the non mobile group.
Mirella, Abel (whom we called Nicu last time), Maiastra, and Mihaila are all in the mobile group now. Mirella is walking now and Abel and Mihaila give you the biggest smiles, especially when you toss them in the air.
Alexandra, and Ana Maria are still here as well, and I think that is everyone from our last group, the rest are new, including another little Mihaila who is only two weeks old -so precious.

I will again be working with the non mobile group this time, although I'm sure I will have to visit all the kids from last time on a regular basis. After all, they are still my babies.

I will have more updates after I really get a chance to work with them. Today was really just introductions, not a full day (unfortunately). We never get to stay long enough the first day.

Tomorrow we really start working at the clinic and I will be sure to keep you updated as things progress.