September 18, 2001

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

Imagine how hard it would be to get 158 boys up and ready for school ...I never had an inkling until a team of four NOROC workers went for the opening exercises of the elementary school.

We wanted to attend with the eight first graders, seven of whom were repeating the grade. Thanks to NOROC donors the first graders all had the coolest backpacks in town, new shoes and were clean and as polished as anyone could possibly want. The first graders also had flowers for their teacher, which is a Romanian custom for children to bring their teachers on the first day of school. We went to meet their teacher, who was thrilled and overwhelmed that so many people had come to be a support for these students. Nina, the psychologist who works for NOROC said that one of the boys who was seven years old had a vocabulary of only 15 words when she first tested him. I want to cry and cry when I even think of this. I truly feel like a lemming swimming upstream... and yet despite what could be complete despair there are many, many wonderful stories. I want to share two with you.

An unexpected blessing for all the other boys who attended the first day of school with the NOROC team was that these boys had a dynamic team of people coming to meet all their teachers. For some I am certain this was a first. The opening assembly was held outdoors and this way we got to not only meet teachers but we had two hours to talk and visit with the different boys.

I don't have the space to tell you all the stories, but my absolute highlight was my encounter with Mihail from the orphanage, a seventh grade boy who asked us if he could have some flowers for his teacher too. We said they were for the first graders to give out. However, after the flowers were all distributed by the first graders, there was one bouquet left over. We found Mihail (spelling?) and said he could have them to give to his teacher. We watched as he approached her with the biggest smile you could ever believe. His teacher was absolutely GORGEOUS and appeared to be very young! She smiled and kissed him warmly once on both cheeks while she tenderly placed her hands on his shoulders as is the Romanian custom. He blushed and blushed and his radiant beaming smile would have lit up the darkest night sky. We knew then why he wanted the flowers! After this he ran over to me and kissed me the same way... Well then there were two of us beaming from ear to ear.

Another highlight was talking to Florin, a sixth grader who adores animals. His favorite subject in school is NOT sports but biology. His favorite animal, among all the animals is the kangaroo. He wants some animal books in the boys home library to read... What do you want to bet that there are soon to be animal books in that library!.. I hope to find some animal books written in Romanian... Any books or pictures of Kangaroos out there? In case you think that Florin is all talk... he is a man of action. I asked him if he played with the litter of puppies I saw that morning hanging around the boys home. He kind of giggled and said that he had found a pregnant dog on the street (NOT HARD TO DO IN ROMANIA) and brought it to the home. I naively asked who fed the dogs and he said all the boys share their food with the dogs.... I am crying as I write this... They get so very little food themselves.

Thanks for being our partner in this grand endeavor...

MARY

P.S. Next time I will tell about the girls. There were no first grade girls and there were eight first grade boys, so that is why we choose to attend with the boys. More boys are abandoned and foster parents usually prefer taking girls. There were 38 new boys in the boy's home right before school started. There are currently 77 girls in the girls home and 158 boys.