We pass a cart, pulled by strong draught horses, driven by a woman with a brown, leathered face, wearing a heavy sheepskin coat. She shouts something to us over the clip clop of the horses, but of course we don’t understand.
‘Hello,’ we all roar back through the opened windows. I feel like I have stepped into a new, exciting world, straight from the pages of a Grimms’ fairytale.
‘Imagine the heat of that coat she was wearing,’ Olly says, wiping his forehead with his hand. He’s sweating in the hot Romanian summer air.
We turn a bend in the road and Olly brakes hard because the road is filled with a caramel-coloured herd of cows.
‘She was warning us about the cows, not saying hello,’ I realise.
A farmer dressed in blue overalls and wellies chews a blade of straw, as he ushers the cows towards an open gate ahead. He’s totally unfazed by us in our motorhome.
The farmer looks up then and smiles a toothy grin at us. He says something, followed by a bellowed laugh. While we don’t understand him, we get that he finds the whole situation hilarious. We can’t help but laugh in response.
‘I love it here,’ I say. ‘It’s like a town that time forgot.’
‘What’s that smell?’ Evie asks.
Nomad is now filled with the aroma of cow dung and hay.
‘That, my dear Evie, is the smell of the country,’ Olly tells her. ‘It’s the complete opposite of what I thought it would be.’
‘What did you expect?’ I ask.
‘I got it into my head that we’d be passing by tanks on the road, not horse-and-carts and cows wearing blue bells around their necks!’
‘I would think the big cities of Romania look different to the sleepy villages,’ I say.
I turn around to face the children. ‘It’s not that long ago that the Romanians united in uprising and ousted communism. When you learn about this in school, remember that you were here. You’re lucky.’
They look at me without much enthusiasm.
‘Only another 10 km or so and we arrive in Valea Screzii,’ Captain Kirk tells us. ‘I’m excited, but also nervous. I just hope that whatever they throw at us, we’re up for the challenge.’
‘We’ll be grand,’ Olly says. ‘We’re a good team, us Guinnesses.’
‘My name is Evie. Mnumesc Evie,’ Evie says suddenly.
I turn to look at her and she shrugs. ‘I’ve pulled together some phrases for us. You’ve got to learn how to introduce yourself to the kids at least.’
‘My numbers is Jamie,’ Jamie attempts.
‘Mnumesc Jamie,’ Evie corrects him.
‘That’s what I said, silly,’ he replies, making us all laugh.
The village is in the foothills of the Carpathian mountains and once again we pass by several horse-and-carts along the way. We spot a local farmer pitching hay in a field as we enter the village, so we stop and Olly asks him where the orphanage is.
And although neither of them can understand a word the other is saying, somehow or other, he realises what we want. He gestures with his pitchfork, straight on and left.
He doesn’t steer us wrong and we arrive in the orphanage compound a few minutes later. We are all silent as we drive in, taking in the large building in front of us. I think we are all awed by the challenge we are about to undertake.
‘Let’s try find this volunteers’ farmhouse at the back,’ Olly says. He follows the road around and parks up as we enter a yard. The sound of Nomad’s engine alerts the people inside a large whitewashed farmhouse and the door opens and several walk out to greet us.
‘That’s Andy,’ Olly says, waving at a man with a shock of white hair. He jumps out to greet him.
‘Olly Guinness,’ he says, pumping Olly’s hand up and down. ‘What’s it been? At least ten years since I’ve seen you, I reckon.’
‘That sounds about right. Good to see you, Andy. This is Mae, my wife. And the kids, Evie and Jamie.’
‘You made good time. We thought it would be much later before you arrived,’ Andy says. ‘That’s some vehicle you’ve got there.’ He walks around Nomad, admiring it as he goes.
‘A gift from Pops. But you probably know all that?’ Olly says to him.
Andy walks over to Olly and puts his two hands on his shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry about your dad. He was a good man. A true friend to me when we worked together.’
We stand for a moment in silence, awkward and unsure what to do next.
‘Come on, let’s get you inside to meet everyone. It’s teatime, so we’ve a full house,’ Andy says.
He leads us into a large kitchen and dining room. There’s a long rectangular table in the centre, with about a dozen people sitting around it.
The table is laden with pots of steaming food and bowls of salads.
‘Everyone. This is the Guinness family. Olly, Mae, Evie and Jamie. They are with us for two weeks,’ Andy says. ‘I’ll let you meet everyone yourself, bit by bit. Don’t expect you’d remember all the names if I throw them at you at once!’
A chorus of hellos and warm smiles descends upon us and seats materialise at the table, squeezing us in. Then plates appear and a glass of wine for Olly and me, juice for the kids.
From first glance, it appears that every age group is amongst the volunteers, from late teens right up to Andy in his seventies. And they are all speaking English, so we don’t have to rely on sign language as we did with the farmer earlier on.
Jamie is the youngest by the looks of it, though. But within minutes he is chatting to a pleasant-faced woman in her forties from Germany, who seems to have taken a shine to him.
I sit beside Gloria, a woman who boasts that she is almost sixty-seven and is from the Lake District in England. She’s a retired nurse and is on a long-term volunteer programme.
‘You’ll soon get used to everyone,’ she tells me. ‘It can be a bit daunting at first, but by tomorrow you’ll know the lie of the land.’
Evie is quiet. I can sense how overwhelmed she is with it all. I give her hand a little squeeze of reassurance.
‘Can you tell us a bit about the orphanage?’ I ask Andy.
‘Well, there’s several parts to Ripples Orphanage. There’s about a hundred children of varying ages. Plus a larger community that includes families in difficulty, abused mothers. We’ve also got adults who grew up in state institutions and pregnant women who have nowhere else to go,’ Andy replies.
‘What will we be doing?’
‘Well, as you are a teacher, Mae, we plan on taking full advantage of that. We want you to help out in the baby and toddler room and then do some classes with the older kids. Maybe work on their English, which is sporadic at best, do arts and crafts, that kind of thing. Evie and Jamie can help you.’
He turns to Olly then and says, ‘Hope you’re feeling fit and able, young man, because we’re after your muscle. We’ve a project we’re working on that we need every strong pair of hands we can get. We’re building houses for some families.’
‘Muscle I can do,’ Olly says.
‘That all sounds brilliant,’ I say. My mind starts to buzz with ideas of what I might teach these kids. I can’t wait to start.
‘I have muscles too,’ Jamie declares with a pout. ‘I’m super-strong.’
‘Well, maybe, young sir, you can come help your dad out a bit too. Super-powers are important over here,’ Andy says.
‘I’m glad I’ll be with you,’ Evie whispers to me, with obvious relief.
‘Me too,’ I tell her.
After dinner, Andy takes us on a tour of the house. There’s a large family room with a huge TV in it. Plus a games room, with a snooker table and a dartboard, plus lots of board games stacked in the corner. There are four dormitories, which Andy tells us are pretty much always full.
We decide to sleep in Nomad each evening, but to eat with the group every day. Andy has a generator for us that we can hook up to Nomad for electricity and we’re sorted.
‘I don’t think I’ll sleep tonight,
’ I say to the children as I tuck them into bed.
Andy has told us that the volunteers do either a morning or an afternoon shift each. We are all on mornings for our first week, then we’ll switch for our second week.
We also get free time to do some sightseeing or relax outside of our shifts, with one day off each week. I set the alarm on my phone, to make sure that we don’t oversleep. But I needn’t have worried. We are all awake an hour before it goes off.
After breakfast, the children and I walk with Gloria to the orphanage and Olly heads off with Andy to the construction site.
‘I’ll be your go-to person while you’re here, Mae. So don’t be shy, ask me anything.’ She’s got a kind face, round with few lines that defy her years.
‘How long have you been here?’ I’m curious about how she ended up here.
‘Since 2007. I watched a programme one night about the abandoned babies in Romania. 350,000 of them, left alone after the revolution. It broke my heart. I couldn’t get the images of them tied up in cots like animals out of my head,’ she tells us.
I remembered seeing those same images and the horror at the conditions they were living in. But I didn’t pack up and give up my life like Gloria did. I’m in awe.
‘I was widowed, never had kids of my own and had retired. I thought: what have I got to lose? So I came over here and I’ve never left. Turns out I had everything to gain,’ she said.
‘You’re incredible,’ I say to her.
‘Wait till you meet the kids – they are the ones who are incredible,’ she says.
‘Are there any other long-term volunteers?’ I ask.
‘Yep, we have six long-timers. And lots that are here for a year at a time. We get a lot of volunteers who are on a gap year in university or on a career break. And sometimes we have families who come here as part of their extended vacation, like you guys,’ she tells us.
‘Well, we are glad to be here and will do anything you need us to,’ I say to her. ‘Won’t we kids?’
Evie and Jamie both nod in silence. They are clearly overwhelmed by it all and I don’t blame them. It’s a lot to take in. Pops, you’ve really set us a challenge here.
‘We’re lucky to have you,’ Gloria says, with kindness to the kids. ‘Although Romania joined the EU early in 2007, it’s still one of the poorest countries in Europe. There’s widespread poverty, unemployment, and corruption. That’s a tough cocktail for a country to move through.’
‘We see some of it at home, on the news, but I think this could be an eye-opener for us,’ I say.
‘I’ve learnt that we can’t save all the kids, but the ones who end up in our orphanage get a shot at a better life,’ she says.
I hold each of the children’s hands as we enter the orphanage. It’s a large impersonal white building, with grey concrete paths around it and red metal fencing on the surrounds.
It’s still early and the only sound is birds chirping and the leaves rustling in the breeze. It looks deserted it’s so eerily quiet.
‘The morning shift starts at seven a.m., so volunteers will all start to arrive any time now. Some will go to get breakfast ready for the kids, others will go to the infirmary to do the meds,’ Gloria says. ‘Don’t be taken in by the quiet now. It’s going to get noisy any time now. I’ve put you on baby and toddler duty for a couple of days. We’ll help get the children dressed and washed, ready for breakfast,’ Gloria says. ‘And the babies have to be changed and fed. We need every pair of hands we can get. It’s quite chaotic for the first hour!’
The tiled floors are white, walls are all spotless and a faint smell of bleach lingers in the air. Glass windows gleam. I’m impressed with the cleanliness.
‘Let’s start with the baby room,’ Gloria says. ‘Always makes me smile, this place.’
She walks into a room filled with cribs, lining either side of a large room.
‘Salut,’ she addresses the staff, who are already there. ‘Meet Mae, Evie and Jamie.’
Three women greet us in return and we are given our jobs.
‘Jamie, you will be in charge of the diapers. You can hand them out to each of us as we change the nappies. Right, let’s get going,’ Gloria tells us.
She walks to the first crib, where a baby who looks no more than a month old is fast asleep.
‘Salut, my little Nicolae.’ She picks him up and kisses his forehead, smoothing away his dark hair. He’s wearing a simple white babygro and is adorable.
‘Here you go.’ She hands him to me and I hold him in my arms, close to my chest. I’ve forgotten how small babies are.
‘You were this size once,’ I tell the children, who are mesmerised with the baby in my arms.
‘You got this?’ Gloria asks me. I look her in the eye and I tell her, ‘Yes, I’ve got this. Babies I can do, especially ones that are as beautiful as this little one.’
I breathe in that smell – that only a baby exudes – and make a vow that while I’m here, I’ll work so hard to make a difference. Just like Pops wanted.
‘Evie, watch how I do this and in no time you’ll be changing nappies too,’ I say to them.
Nicolae opens his eyes and looks at me with interest.
‘He’s awake!’ Jamie says with excitement.
‘That he is. Let’s see what he’s got for us.’ I set him down on the changing table and open his babygro.
I show Evie how to clean him properly, then add Sudocrem and a clean nappy.
‘You made that look easy,’ Evie says.
‘Years of experience with you two,’ I say to her, smiling.
‘Ewwww,’ Evie says. And while she thinks it’s gross to think of me changing her and Jamie, she has no idea how many memories this single act evokes for me.
In hospital, sore from birth, but jubilant and feeling more like a woman than I’ve felt before in my whole life. Holding Evie, my firstborn, in my arms, breathing in her special new smell. And looking at Olly’s face every single time he holds his daughter in his arms.
I look around at the room full of babies and my heart aches in sympathy for all the women who never got the chance to do any of those things. I try to imagine a world where my children are not in it and I can’t. It’s unfathomable to me.
‘Penny for them?’ Gloria asks.
‘Just realising how lucky I am. How different my life has been to the parents of these children.’
‘Gets you in the gut, doesn’t it?’ Gloria sympathises, as I place Nicolae down with care and kiss him one more time, before moving to the next crib.
‘Who do we have here?’ I say, and read the name above the crib. ‘Stefan. Another boy!’
I pick him up and cuddle him for a moment before changing his nappy and replacing him in the cot.
‘Can I try?’ Evie asks when we get to Lucia’s cot next. A beautiful three-month-old little girl is awake and smiling, waiting to be scooped up into someone’s arms.
So Evie, for the first time in her life, changes a nappy.
‘Good girl. That’s it. Don’t forget the Sudocrem. Perfect.’ I smile at her, my daughter, who is getting stuck in without any prompting from me.
There are fifteen babies in the room, under the age of two, and between us we change each of them in thirty minutes. Jamie is a star, running between each of us with his kit of nappies and bags.
‘Right, before we do their bottles, we’ll go next door and get the toddlers dressed for breakfast,’ Gloria tells us.
The toddler room is lined with camp beds, low on the ground, with mismatched blankets on top. I count nineteen beds and Gloria tells us that the children in this room are aged between two and four.
‘Each child has a locker with their clothes and shoes. Their names are above their beds, as in the baby room. Right, we better crack on, breakfast will be ready in no time.’ Gloria walks to the first cot and rouses a little girl.
I walk to the bed opposite, where a little boy, about three, is lying face down on his cot, bum up in the air.
‘You used to sleep like that,’ I whisper to Evie and the innocence of his position and the stark difference of his location to that of Evie’s when she was a baby makes me shake with the injustice of it all. This perfect little boy – how did he end up here with no parents?
‘We can do this,’ Evie says to me, sensing that I am faltering. I repeat that again. ‘Yes, we can do this.’ Little do I know that this will become our mantra for the next two weeks.
‘Salut, Robert,’ I say, gently stroking his face to wake him. ‘Salut.’
He opens his eyes and looks at me, wary at the new voice.
‘Ma˘ numesc Mae,’ I say to him, pointing to my chest. ‘Mae.’
He smiles and says, ‘Salut.’
As I pull out a pair of shorts, a t-shirt and some trainers, I look at Evie and smile. She’s beaming because she knows she taught me that phrase. She did that.
Robert is a little star, obviously used to the early-morning routine, because he lets me get him dressed without any issue. Evie wanders over to the next bed and I hear her waking a little girl. Jamie is shyer in here than the baby room, without a job to do, so I ask him to fold the pyjamas for each child and put them in their lockers.
‘They are all so good,’ I say to Gloria.
‘Yes, they are. Most have been here since they were babies, so they know the drill well,’ she replies.
I think of all the firsts these children have experienced here in this orphanage. First roll, first words, first steps. I think about Olly and I teaching our children ‘Mama’, ‘Dada’ – wondering which word would be their first. Do these children say ‘Mama’ and ‘Dada’? Do they miss what they don’t have? And I falter, once more, not sure I can continue, as the sadness of the situation becomes too much.
‘Mam?’ Jamie tugs at my arm, worry on his little face.
‘I’m okay, my darling. I’m just feeling a little sad.’
‘Because these children have no mam and dad?’
The Things I Should Have Told You Page 28
