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Inside a Romanian Orphanage, Page 2

Part 2: Making a Special Friend

One little girl was 3 years old and cross-eyed. When you are cross-eyed in Romania, you are labeled as mentally retarded. I was not impressed with the labeling. She could not speak at all, she would scream as soon as she left a unit and went outside, a scream of being totally petrified. She could not eat any food that wasn't liquid. I tried chocolate, puddings, just about everything but she would not open her mouth for anything. The workers thought I was crazy to even try as she was "retarded". I was out to prove them wrong.

Turning It Into A Game

We would play "let's screw up our face and poke out our tongues" in the hope of getting her to move her facial muscles that were needed for chewing of food. After much patience, in fact after 3 months of sitting with her daily and encouraging her to eat normal food, she was able to eat with a teaspoon and even feed herself.

When I first met her, she could not speak at all but after only a month she said her first word.. "tickle, tickle." I had become the tickle monster for the children, lying them on their backs on a mattress and then tickling them. They loved it! All I had to say was "tickle" and they would run for the mattress and throw themselves on their backs and start to giggle before I even started to tickle. She would hold up her finger and wiggle it in the air saying "tickle, tickle," and if she wanted my attention, she would stamp her foot and yell "tickle, tickle!" This was my call sign! She would tickle anything and everything... the soft toys, the other children, and she loved to tickle me. I had big scratch marks down my neck where she had lovingly tickled me.

Next we worked on going outside without the screaming. This took quite a bit of doing. We started by playing peek-a-boo with the door that led outside and then jumping on one step and taking the toys to play with. It was very much one step at a time. There were about 25 steps to the bottom and it took a while to get down each one of them. I had to get very inventive with games getting her out the door. Finally the day came when she took my hand, climbed down the steps and just walked outside to play with the other children. I cried with relief!

© Leslie McCarthy

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