2009 Day8

This morning we bathed group 5. In years the girls age between 13 and 35 but intellectually they’re probably all pretty similar in age. 23 out of the 24 girls are lovely, they just want to hug you and play games. Catea can a bit scary but I’m sure she’s nice deep down! Apparently if you get on the wrong side of her she will call you every name under the sun (no one knows where she learned all the bad words!) and she’s pretty strong too…  We made her bath super quick just in case!

In one way bathing this group was much easier as most of the girls could get in and out of the baths themselves. Many of them were well able to wash themselves as well so we just had to wash their hair. It was a bit strange washing some of the older ones though. And there was only one bathroom for 24 girls which slowed down the whole process. AND the water kept running out! So it was a tough morning. I was wrecked by the end of it.

Natalia & Julie

Next we took group 3 out for some walks. They’re adorable. I spent most of the time with Pasa. She’s seven and has a range of different disorders. When we got there she was whimpering constantly and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her. I brought her around the building for a walk and gave her loads of attention but that didn’t seem to help too much. As a last resort I brought her out on to the trampoline and she absolutely loved it. It was so nice to see a smile on her face.

After lunch we met with group 7 – now there’s a tough group! It was really hard to interact with these girls because of their level of intellectual disability. They didn’t want to play any games, they didn’t want their hair or nails done, they didn’t even notice us blowing bubbles for them… one of them seemed to like throwing things so we threw teddies at each other for a while(very lightly!). It’s really frustrating not being able to interact with them. One of the girls conditions meant that she kept trying to eat everything she could find – including twigs, leaves, nail varnish and bits of mud. I was relieved when our time with them was up but I want to try again another day. It would be great to even figure out what one of them likes to do.

Next we met with group 11 and it was a lot easier to play with these girls. Olga is really funny. She likes wearing socks on her hands so she asked me if she could have a pair of mine. Unfortunately the only socks I hadn’t worn yet were tiger print fluffy ones or small little runner socks! It was kind of embarrassing bringing out the tiger print ones as an audience had gathered. She seemed thrilled with them though.

Felicia & Lizzy

Felicia is also in group 11. I think I mentioned her in the blog from day 3 – she’s amazing. She goes to classes all day but there is one thing that she’s a bit lazy with and that’s walking. She spends most of her time in her wheelchair but she is actually learning how to walk and she’s doing so well with it. Her English is fantastic and she’s great craic too. We just slag each other to bits. 🙂 After much persuasion/slagging, she let me have a go in her wheelchair while she pushed me around. She was well able for it! We gave her so much encouragement that she stuck with it for about 20 minutes pushing a few of the girls around. She was knackered by the end. It’s really good practise for her though and we’re going to try to get her to do it every day.

At the end of the day I treated myself to a full body massage from one of the physiotherapists. It was amazing! An hour long massage here costs 300 lei, which is around €20. I’m so relaxed now. 🙂 Apparently there’s a beautician coming tomorrow so we’re all signing up for the facials! Who knew that we’d be getting this treatment in Moldova! I promise we deserve them though – we’re working really hard! Night night.