Lavinia and Cristi
House Parents
Cristi: My name is Cristi. We live in Lita House and we take care of seven positive children. We've worked with these children for about twelve years.
Lavinia: We hope we'll continue this activity as long as possible.
C: Our children are between 3 and 16 years old.
On joining the organisation
C: In 1991 I was working at Colentina Hospital as a teacher, employed by a humanitarian foundation named Health Aid UK - the mother organisation of Health Aid Romania.
L: And I worked at the headquarters of the British volunteers, who came here at the beginning of the ‘90s to work with the sick children in Colentina. We never kept secret our working with these children - we've always been open with our parents, and friends - because we really wanted them know these children. We aren't afraid of them - they shouldn't be either. And in their turn, they should tell their friends the same.
But I am sure there have been some problems?
To tell you the truth, I was afraid at the beginning. The children, and we, were tested at three or six month periods. Now we do this less frequently. We still do it, but not so often. Seeing that nothing has happened, we continue. This is the reason I said to my family and friends not to worry.
C: Our friends didn't reject us. They wanted to know them, to see what such a child looks like. Through photos, and what we told them, they understood that the children were absolutely normal.
L: Also through visits - we took them to our place. First there were photos and later they came to our place.
C: We explained to them that they’re not aliens, they are like us – “and there they are” - we showed them pictures. And they changed a little... they weren't so scared anymore.
So, at the beginning they were a little scared?
C: Yes. They were a little afraid.
L: Let's face it - all of them were scared.
C: Both television, and the newspapers, from '92 till '96, showed positive children in the final stages. Those children were looking very bad, and people understood - "That's how a positive child looks!" They placed all of them in the same category. I guess this made them afraid. They used to see those thin children, on the hospital bed, only bones - and I think this image lasted in the mind till long after '96. It’s what I knew about HIV positive children.
L: Well, Cristi, the children weren't looked after at that time.
Most of them looked like that. Remember? Not all of them but... you we afraid to look at them, swollen, with boils, a lot of...
C: The lack of treatment in our country marked their physical appearance.
…Regarding your question about my memories, those children who are sixteen now - I've known them since they were three. They were still in Colentina. I began my programme with them then.
…They seemed normal children. In the hospital, they couldn't offer them more than food and the most basic conditions for life. There couldn't be any affection. There were a lot of children. A lot of children in a pretty small space... Health Aid tried to de-concentrate that mass of children, and began the family house programme.
L: I came later - I came here ten years ago, and my husband has been working here for 12 years. When I came to the house, there seemed to me to be a marked difference between the children there and those in the hospital. Those from the house had a smile on their face, they were laughing all the time, taking my hand and - "Let my show you my bedroom!" "Let me show you what we eat…” Whereas those from the hospital… were rigid.
On the children in the hospital
L: They were missing their mother and father - they had no one to cry to. When we took them out to the park, they would hear the words "mother", "father" - and they asked, "who
is mother, father?"
C: Or actually, "what is that?", in fact. They were used to being - now I speak about the ward - 20 children in
30 meters square. And they can’t develop in such a room.
L: Yes, they played there, they ate there... They went to the bathroom there - and it was their bedroom. It was their only space.
C: This is what a three old child used to do: he used to spend 12 hours a day in the same place. Like you said - he played in the ward, he ate there, and that was his universe…
…The three-year-old children used only to go between the ward and the toilet. That was everything.
On being a house-parent
L: You must put your soul into what you do, and dedicate yourself.
C: You assume a responsibility. You start a journey with
them, you don't know what it is going to be like - we've had problems throughout our time. But you are motivated – when you see a child who you have been looking after for twelve years finally go to school, and begin to integrate into society...
But you never know how it will end; even now we don't know very well what is going to happen with them.
On children who have died
L: We had joys …but troubles, too. We now have seven children but - in all we had thirteen, didn't we?
C: Yes, we did. We lost four children [to the virus] in twelve years.
[Two of Cristi and Lavinia’s children now live elsewhere].
L: It was very difficult for us - for my husband and me. I said I
couldn't take it any more, after the third child died. I wanted to give up – I said, “I just can't, any more”. When you see a child tormenting himself - when you ask him all the time, "How are you doing?" "How are you feeling?" - and he won’t say. Even if he is in pain, he says only "I’m fine". They never complained about anything - about headaches, or anything else. And after the third child, I said I had to give up, and leave.
C: The unpleasant event came quite often then. Every couple of years.
L: Yes. I'll never forget how Anne McNicholas – the president of Health Aid UK - came and talked to me, and she said I had to go on with those children of whom I was taking care. “Those who died are fine where they are – I have to go on, with those in the house.”
C: They were generally children with very great health problems who were brought from the hospital. Those who weren't given much chance of surviving were given a chance to live in our houses.
L: Yes. So that if they had life left to live, they might enjoy it.
C: If we were aware that they didn't have long to live, we offered them what couldn't be offered in the hospital.
L: There were questions [from the other children] when the first of them passed away. "Where did he go?"; "But what happened?" At first I couldn't tell them, “he has died.”
Cristi talked to them and explained. When it happened the second, the third time - they understood. They had grown up a little, and when they saw [their sibling] refuse food, refuse to get out of the bed and [then disappear] - they slowly understood that they had gone up to the Lord.
Separation is very difficult for all of them. We still go to the cemetery, light a candle, and leave a bunch of flowers there...
C: That is the dark side of the social-parent job. But we must pass over it.
On the children’s biological parents
L: Did they call you ‘father’ from the beginning, Cristi?
C: In the hospital they called me Nelu.
L: In hospital – but what about at home?
C: At home they realised that we would stay with them, in suffering or joy... They were about four or five years old.
L: We used to spend most of our time here with them.
C: They come to us with all their problems. Despite the fact some of them know their real, natural parents.
Do they put questions about their origins?
L: Questions really began after they were 14. Up to 14, none of them wanted to know. "No. You are my mother, you are my father! I call you mother and father.”
Starting at 14, because - as Cristi says, they watch TV and have contact with the world outside - go to the high school, have friends from normal families with biological parents - then they began: "I am curious at least to see my mother... To see how she looks… if I resemble her..."
It has happened - this miracle of meeting one-another.
C: And we never hide in our programs that they have natural parents – and they really understood this, since they were 14. We are those who look after them.
But they consider us parents – there are cases where the child calls the social parent father, not the natural parent.
L: We have had a happy case - a girl whom we raised from the age of 5 - last year, when she was 14, her mother came and took her home. The family was reformed. Now she calls us from time to time - once a month...
C: “I want to talk with daddy” - you can imagine the reaction of her [biological] father… …And she comes holding her mother’s hand and says (to you): "Mummy I brought you flowers!"
L: She calls her natural mother "Mother" and she calls me "Mummy".
C: The bond was very strong.
L: There were big problems when we took her from the hospital.
C: Behavioral problems.
L: When her mother took her home, she thanked us for taking care of her… It's a big achievement. We are proud of this.
On natural parents at funerals
C: A negative case occurs to me… When [-----] died, his parents didn't even want to come to the funeral. Our organisation - and we, as parents - we prepared him for his final journey. We actually buried him, this came to be our task. And his parents were invited to come to the funeral - but they said they had no time.
L: This happened at funerals. But remember that child was in great distress before dying. He really wanted to see his parents before he died. The social assistant and Cristi went to them and they didn't want to come. They just said they didn't have any time.
And he, poor boy, remembered when he was 5 or 6, and his father came to visit, and brought him a watermelon. And because of that watermelon, he used always to talk of - "What my father brought me…!"
That child - I don't know - I guess...
C: That parent - he behaved… I don't know. It was an unhappy case.
In another case, with another boy – with [-----] – when he died, his parents came from very far. They didn't have money for the train, they came practically empty-handed - but they came.
L: But they came. What impressed me the most is - after the burial, they took a fist of dust, put it in a bag, and took it back to their home.
C: And they were simple people - unlike the other boy's parents, who had a better financial situation.
On a meeting between a teenager and his biological mother
L: Now, we have another boy, [-----], who met his mother two
weeks ago.
C: We didn't know anything about her since he was three, when he was left in Colentina Hospital. A month ago we found her address and - as Lavinia said, the first meeting took place two weeks ago.
L: I didn't expect [-----] to get so attached to his mother. Until a year ago, he used to say he didn't want to see her – “because she abandoned me in the hospital. I don't need to know her." But -
C: The feeling that you belong to someone...
L: Yes, when Cristi told him, “I've been looking for your mother, and I’ve found her…” – the look in his face suddenly changed. And he was looking forward to the day for when the meeting was arranged. He used to ask Cristi every day.
C: He was agitated for a while, till I arranged it, wasn't he? Peace followed.
L: The meeting with his mother took place before he was about to sit an important exam, and I think it helped him.
C: Yes. After he had had the exam - remember she called him and asked him about it. He was very happy.
L: Yes, but now we have small problems with the others, who have begun asking: "What about my mother?" What can we say to them? He [Cristi] must finish with the cases he’s begun, and he'll look for them - we'll see...
He must find their parents for the others, too. Though we don't know if we can find them – and if we do, if they would accept to meet their children.
C: I never believed that I would find some of them - but I found them. It requires a lot of work. We aren't policemen, but we do policemen’s work.
On problems of prejudice
C: I guess one of the teenagers should answer about the problems and the prejudices they cope with. In my opinion they don't have the freedom enjoyed by other kids.
…They want to go by themselves to the cinema, to the park, they don't want to be accompanied any more by somebody from the house. Some of them are not accepted in public schools, but if you [are open about their status] you risk not being accepted in any school. There are some campaigns made, about certain injustices concerning positive children - but there is still more to do about this. The positive child must have a new image - another image of him must be created. He shouldn't be considered as a danger anymore.
Concerning relations with our neighbours – when they saw nothing [bad] was happening after we moved in, they accepted us pretty fast.
L: It took a lot of time until we became friends with the neighbour who lives nearest us...
C: It is very important to have the neighbours on your side.
L: Yes. And I started to go to her place, for coffee. Later we began borrowing things from one another.
C: The children visited to them - the other neighbours saw this, and later they visited us. They saw nothing happened to them and they calmed themselves.
L: Now all the neighbourhood knows them.
C: There were some bad reactions, if I can say, to the children… …because of some newspapers articles. We went to those parents, and their children weren't naughty anymore. The little, 7-8 year old children used to shout: "Here are the sick ones!" Lavi went to the parents of that child, and everything was fine…
L: The children always used to come and say to me: "Hear what they shout at me…!" First, I tried to calm down my kids, and I said to them: "Don't listen to them any more. If you notice anyone shouting at you, leave that place, don't pay attention to them". Later though, I got angry and I said: "That’s enough."
I took my child by his hand and I went with him to the neighbours from other streets - not those around us - and I talked politely. I said: " If such a thing happens again, I can go further. It is my child, I love him and I look after him as you do with yours." Since then, they didn't shout any more.
C: But the children began to be a little afraid of some activities – to participate - I don't know if you noticed, they don't want any more to be filmed, or to have newspaper articles about them. They want to protect their image a little. They attend schools and don't want the same thing to happen again…
They must have suffered when they were ostracised by the other children…
L: I told them - as long we are here with you and we protect you, you don't need anything. Even if they reject you, we'll never forsake you. They understood and they rely on us.
C: It was a little difficult for them till they made acquaintances and friends among the healthy ones.
L: There are children who play with them in the park and they know their condition.
C: This took a long time, to get closer to the other children - there are a few who are their friends. Some protect them, among the healthy ones.
On state schooling
*Health Aid maintains some portacabins in Bucharest, which act as a makeshift ‘private school’ for those children not accepted into state schools.
C: They are enclosed now, attending our private school. Taking them out of this school and into mass education - integrating them with healthy kids - would mean the integration of HIV positive children into society itself. That means he is …not labeled, in the street, on public transport, in a cinema...
L: [Those who’ve been enrolled in state schools] managed the transition pretty well. Soon the school year will finish - and at the beginning I was afraid that they wouldn't have done as well as those from normal schools. But they should be congratulated.
C: Generally all of them had very good results.
L: They worked hard. They had a fixed schedule, woke at a set time, came home later than they used to - but they managed, and I am sure they'll do well in the future…
C: …They have been subjected to a great deal of physical and intellectual pressure throughout the school year. As you said, they used to leave at six in the morning, and at seven they had to be at school, which is very far from home. They use two types of public transport to get there - tram and bus.
And you realise - during the winter. Winters here in Romania are very difficult. And they had been used to a very relaxed program, till then.
L: Remember how it was with - we had to take them to school for a period, for three months. And we kept going with them till they said to us: "How long are you going to take us to school? Enough! Our colleagues have begun laughing at us because we are brought to school by our father."
And that was that - we let them go by themselves. I watched them, from a distance, for a short time - and I told them: "You go by yourselves, but you are being watched!" I was afraid they might do naughty stuff, or not reach the school.
C: We took that decision - to let them go by themselves, together with the oraganisation [Health Aid]. We considered all of our responsibilities and other factors, and said: they must go by themselves! You can't take a 16-17 year old child to school.
But other children continue to be excluded from state education?
C: Now we have [-----] - she wants to go to school, but she isn't accepted in any school. We have children in the eighth grade who attend our private school, and they aren't accepted in ordinary schools. Or those younger children who aren't accepted in kindergartens as they should be, who aren't accepted in ordinary schools...
And these are problems. All children who are six should go to school. We participated last year in the opening of the school year - at the school where they should be accepted - where they are registered - but, after the opening, we were told there were no classes for our children. And we are in 2004! This was a problem.
The children took flowers, went together with us to the school - "This is where you will learn!" - and afterwards, a headmaster, or whoever, decided they did not have classes for our children. And now – “come back! To the same old school of ours!” The children were affected by this.
L: Yes, [-----] was very happy that she would change school, and later…
C: And it was not the children who decided to reject them! It was the adults. For them they were a problem.
C: At the beginning of the 2003-2004 school year, we had some unpleasant moments at one of the high schools - I mean [-----] High School - where some of our children were registered. After they discovered they were positive, the teachers refused to attend the classes. Later the same thing
happened with their schoolmates - some of them changed classes. The other parents took their children from the classes where the positive children were.
After campaigns organised by NGOs in that high school, the situation changed. In fact, these children forgot they were positive. They participated in school events, they were invited by the headmaster and by the other teachers.
The situation only changed six months after the correct information had been given to the headmaster of this school – to the teachers, and later, to the parents and children.
Only in this way they will be accepted into ordinary schools.
On looking to the future
C: Our preoccupations in the past were with their behaviour,
their elementary socialization - teaching them how to eat, teaching them to walk, to use the toothbrush correctly. The preoccupations have changed as time has passed. They've become teenagers. They ask about their parents. They ask about tomorrow - "What is going to happen to me?” We don't have all the answers to these questions - because we don't know what is going to happen with these teenagers.
We hope we'll assure them their place in society… …It's for sure that I can't give them an answer: “you'll do this for one year then this is going to happen with you…” We don't have such a project, yet.
We hope it will be OK for them… …They should be in ordinary schools, have some kind of job, support themselves - but I don't know if it will be possible.
L: They ask about “when I’ll be in my own home, when I get married...” They think like grown-ups.
C: They wish to have their own homes.
L: Some of them even want children.
C: How will they be able to do this? Because I've told you, there are no opportunities, even for the rest.
L: We'll see what is going to be done for these children.
C: Some of them want to become doctors or policemen. Some of them want to take care of ill children, as well.
L: Others want to be farmers in the countryside.
C: They want to have their own farm, to raise cattle. We've guided them to this age of 16-17, but I don't know what is going to happen some years later. It might be good to meet again in five years to see what will have happened with these children.
We want what is the best for them. Because they deserve this. Another chance was given to them - in 1996 life expectancy was very short. After 1996, when new, competitive treatments appeared, their chances increased. And we hope for a new medicine that might keep them...
…might cure them.
On a miraculous recovery
C: We rejoiced after the oldest among the children, [-----] - he is 16 now, but he had a difficult moment to pass. In ‘97 his weight dropped from 16kg to only 11kg - only bones remained of him, and we thought we'd lose him.
L: Yes, we thought we'd lose him.
C: We were about to make the preparations for… the final phase, for burial. We were preparing to buy everything necessary to bury him. Only one step was left.
L: [-----] felt terrible. He received morphine for weeks, so...
C: He was kept with analgesics. He had great pains and he was very much changed. He looked like a famine victim. But he was given a final chance.
L: A new medicine appeared, and [-----] was among the first children in Romania....
C: Actually, he was the first!
L: He took that medicine, and we took him home - as Cristi said before, so thin and undernourished. We took him home with his treatment and we waited.
C: We didn’t say - he had almost no hair. Even that was gone. But as days passed, his body regenerated, and he actually resurrected.
L: It was a miracle.
C: It was wonderful that it hadn’t been all in vain. We had another hope.
On their hopes for the future
C: We'd like that - not only us, as parents, but the society they live in, should offer them a home, should consider them people - so that they might help in the reconstruction of this country. Our economy has been in transition for 12-14 years, and I'd like them - as citizens - to help this country.
L: We wish for what is the best for them, as Cristi said. Their own home, a house, a family - and we can't give them all these, just Cristi and I. There must be more help from the state, from the government… [she sighs]
C [after a long pause]: As they say, each person wants the best for his child. And we want all of them to be well.
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