Thursday we traveled to Belti. It is about 2 hours North of Chisinau. It is another town here in Moldova where JMI has a few orphanages. After arriving in Belti our team set out for our first true adventure in a Moldovan orphanage. We got off the bus at the small, country orphanage and immediately began playing with the kids. This orphanage is my favorite one that we have visited. It is ran by a woman who is really sweet and caring. When we arrived to the orphanage I was invited to go into the office to meet the director with Brian and Alina. It was a huge honor for me to be able to go with them. While in the meeting with the director we learned about this orphanage. It had about 170 kids. Unlike many of the other orphanages it provided psychological and physical health help. Many of the children here had some kind of mental disorders or would be what we considered ADD or ADHD. Several of them came from families from alcoholics and had Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or came from families with drug problems. It was heartbreaking to see these kids and some of their disabilities that were obviously psychological. Some had problems with bladder control, yet they were all from about 6-13 years-old. Despite some of these difficulties, we had a blast playing with the kids. While some of us played with the kids, others began interviewing some of the kids who don’t have sponsors from other organizations. This orphanage is one that JMI is beginning a relationship with so that they can offer some people in the U.S. the ability to sponsor and build relationships with these kids. To make this happen some kids needed to be interviewed so we would know a little bit about them. The ones of us that got to play played hard. We played a lot of volleyball/soccer (not both individually, but a game that mixed both sports). We also got to sing songs and play some catch and other games with some of the other kids. There was one kid who was one of my favorites. He was absolutely precious. He was just a little boy, maybe 8 or 9 years-old. He had the most beautiful blue eyes and precious smile. His name was Victor and he was very shy; he hardly spoke but was beautiful. Later I found out that he had been at the orphanage longer than he could remember and that he didn’t even know his birthday. Those kind of stories make up the Moldovan orphanages.
When we came back from the orphanage we had a delicious dinner (Moldova food is GREAT!) and went out with Andres (a Moldovan boy who is 21 and speaks perfect English) and some of his friends to a carnival type park. The park was so much fun! It reminded me a lot of the Prater in Vienna. At the park we rode one of those huge swing rides. As we were riding we noticed that all kinds of Moldovan people were gathering below us watching and even videoing the ridiculous Americans; we were having a blast, though. The next ride we rode was really fun. I sat next to Brian and got an ab workout from laughing so hard; again people were watching us and laughing at us riding the rides. After those two rides we transitioned to another park close by that had some more rides. On our way we saw some of the Moldovan national soccer team players. Some of the girls got a picture with them later (they didn’t actually like it very much… ha!). At that park we rode a really rickety ferris wheel. I got a little scared riding it. Then we rode this centrifugal ride that uses centrifugal motion and G-forces to push you against a wall. It was really fun and we all felt like astronauts, but after the ride we were all a little nauseous. Again, we laughed the entire time. The whole day was so much fun. It was different, but we loved it.
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