Romania, Day 6

The day began with a tour of Muzeul Universitatae, University Museum. The school can be traced back to 1518, when it was a Jesuit college. The museum was full of interesting electrical devices and artifacts from the university's history.

Next up was a tour of the historical city district with Professor Ardevan. He was wonderful, enthusiastic and made the history of Cluj incredibly interesting.

Statue on Strada Universitatii outside of Universitatae Babes-Bolyai

Alva Magnum (Great Hall), Universitatii Babes-Bolyai

Biserica Reformata - dating back to the 15th century

A room of interesting carvings - Biserica Reformata

A very friendly cat who enjoyed rubbing up against our legs during Professor Ardevan's lecture on the St. George killing a dragon statue.

If you look very closely, you will see the remains of a stone cannonball in the buttress wall.

Jeff and I with Dracula graffiti

We walked down Strada B-dul. Eroilor towards the Neurologic Clinic for Children Cluj-Napoca for our early afternoon appointment. On the way, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a health food store with gluten free cookies! I was thrilled!!! And, they were really really good. Romania continues to surprise me.

Walking through the streets, there were fascinating shops and absolutely stunning architecture:

Roma gypsies selling absolutely stunning flower arrangements

This is the tuperware lunch crowd - me, Mallory, and Caitlyn. I think after today, everyone of our group now possesses the same tuperware box.

This, we believe, is quite strange and could perhaps be the making of a terrorist

The next stop was the Neurology Clinic for Children Cluj-Napoca. It was a very upsetting experience for me. The building was three stories high, and lacked any sort of wheelchair accessibility. There were 35 beds for children, crammed 4 or more into a room. Although the walls were brightly coloured, there were no toys in the rooms, there was not a family room or playroom for the children, and there was hardly any room for visitors. There were no common areas and a TV could be found in the hallway with a few hard plastic chairs. We were shown a video EEG with no attempt to protect the patient's privacy. We were also guided through some of the rooms which were occupied, and there was no permission requested from the patients or their parents. There was hardly any lighting, it was so dark and depressing. Even the playground was overgrown with grass and weeds. There was also no regard of safety. The gate to the backyard was wide open; there was a loose sewer in the path from the garden to the entrance. In other buildings, there is also a lack of safety and windows do not have any barrier to block someone from jumping out. Every single window of the clinic was covered in bars. It was absolutely awful. I was so upset that I felt my eyes tearing. I know that there has been huge progress to even have such a clinic, but the conditions are simply terrible and sterile.

Our day concluded with a lecture on Children in Institutions in Romania. I was really thrilled to hear about the drastic improvement of conditions since the fall of communism. However, one thing I learnt made me incredibly angry and feel hopeless. For a Romanian child to be adopted, the birth parent(s) must give written consent. If biological parents cannot be located, the children then cannot be adopted. Shocking. Awful. And something that I hope will change in the near future.