Last day

Yesterday was our last day at the clinic. I posted after lunch because I was so excited after seeing Gabi. I still have the picture in my mind of her holding her arms up to be picked up as I was leaving. I forgot to mention that Ionut is at the placement center as well and about the same.

The afternoon passed very quickly. The high school girls who came last Friday came again and they are great with the children. They will come again in the upcoming weeks.

It was hard to say good bye to the children knowing that there won't be volunteers until March. There are none signed up for April and only 1 so far for May. I hear the policy is now that a team needs to be a minimum of 3 people. Mihaela asked me why the number of volunteers have dropped and I speculated that money is an issue for people as well as busy lives. I also told her that I think some people liked the babies and there tend to be fewer of them at the hospital. Having said that there are fewer children in general to take care of at the hospital which makes it easier.

We had a nice dinner at Dan and Mihaela's last night. Mihaela showed us some pictures of Tutova in the early days and some pictures of her and Dan in younger years. Delia showed us her pretty bedroom.

We took the train to Bucharest this morning. Unfortunately Robin had a stomach bug but she came to the Rembrandt hotel to rest for a few hours before catching her night train to Budapest. Beth and I walked around and among other sites saw an older lady with lavender colored hair. We also went into a combination bar and antique store. We had dinner at the Van Gogh restaurant next door to the hotel and dessert at the cafe where they serve breakfast at the hotel.

Beth leaves for home early tomorrow morning. I leave for a week in Berlin in the afternoon. I'll probably post on Facebook about Berlin. Once again it was great to be on a team with a friend made on my last team (Robin) and make a new friend (Beth). Another advantage of these trips.