The Land of Count Dracula
When and Where: 4/2001 –Bucharest, Babadag, Tulcea,
Constanta
24th Country Visited; 18th European
Country Visited
Interesting Facts:
·
The name Romania comes from the Latin word Romanus
or “Citizen of the Roman Empire.
·
The Palace of Parliament in Bucharest is the second largest
building in the world; the first is the Pentagon
Not all of my travel has been a
vacation, or even pleasurable. My visit
to Romania is the perfect example of this.
Back in the late 1990’s, there was a lot in the press about the plight
of Romanian orphans. These stories often
featured on Nightline and 20/20 inspired me to adopt. I began working toward adopting a child from
Romania. I started working at the
Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia in January, 1998. I accepted a travel job as an Examiner just
to get my foot in the door. I knew I
would be posting for non-travel jobs after 1 year in order to pursue my dream
of adopting. In January 1999, I changed
jobs. By mid-1999, after speaking to a
coworker who had adopted from Romania, I chose an agency: International Families base in
Philadelphia. The agency worked
exclusively with Romanian orphans. By
mid-2000, I had completed my homestudy, cleared all the legal and bureaucratic
hurdles, and began working with International Families to find a child.
In late December 2000, I had a
match: a 3=year old in an orphanage in Babadag Romania named Cristian
Ciuperca. I immediately accepted the
placement and began the legal process to adopt.
Within a month after agreeing to adopt Cristian, Romania shut down
International Adoption. Romania was
trying to get in the European Union and in order to appear as if they had child
welfare system under control and with pressure from UNICEF, the Romanian
government shut down international adoptions.
So from the get-go, my case was in jeopardy. Given I had started the process, my request
wasn’t summarily dismissed by the courts.
At the request of the head of my
agency, I agreed to travel to Romania in April 2001. My dear friend Mary volunteered to accompany
me on the trip mostly for moral support.
We arrived in a dreary and snowy Bucharest and were whisked away to our
accommodations; Soviet-era housing. The housing
bloc looked cold and unwelcoming. The elevator
worked sometimes. The lights flickered
in the apartment, and the temperature controls didn’t work well. I slept on the couch and gave Mary the
bedroom. Our first night, we went out to
eat and I ordered chicken. I wound up
eating spaghetti as most of the things on the menu weren’t available. Bucharest, at the time, was beyond
abysmal. I saw things I wish I could
easily forget. I saw children dumpster
diving for food. I saw young kids
huffing glue to stave off hunger pangs. I
had never seen kids begging on the streets for money or food. Runaway orphans lived in the underground
sewer to evade authorities. The McDonalds
had armed guards as it was considered a luxury dining experience. Bucharest was hell on Earth.
Two days later, the head of my
agency showed up early in the morning in Bucharest and took us to remote Babadag,
out in the countryside. The road
conditions were the worst I’ve ever seen anywhere. The main roads were rife with potholes. More often than not, we drove in grassy
knolls on the side of the road. We
arrived at the orphanage which looked like a backyard shed. I was not prepared for what I was about to
see. The heat didn’t work, the food was
minimal, the facility was short staffed and there wasn’t enough shoes for each child
to have their own pair. I met Christian
and got to know some of the staff. The
visit was brief, maybe 2 hours. I had to
appear in court the same day in Tulcea to plead my adoption case before a judge. When it was time to leave the orphanage,
Christian would not let go of me. One of
the aides at the orphanage had to pry his hands off of me. I felt helpless and heartbroken. An hour later, I was in court with Mary by my
side. I knew a few phrases in Romanian
so I could properly address the judge.
The hearing was brief. My case
was deferred to another date as the judge claimed there was a missing document
in Cristian’s folder: a release from the birthmother. In reality, it was just an excuse. The courts were being pressured by the
Romanian government to shut down all adoption cases, even those in
process. Mary and I spent that night in
the Black Sea port city of Constanta. At
night, we wandered into an open-air market for food. There were children begging for food in the
market. I will never forget this one
girl in particular. The look of
hopelessness I saw on her face haunts me to this day. I later found out that Constanta had a high
rate of pediatric HIV. Sailors would
come to Constanta and prey on these hopeless kids. Constanta was among the worst places I’ve
ever been.
Mary and I flew back to the US a
few days later. My case went before the
court again in May, then again in June and once more in July. Each time, I was given a bullshit excuse why
the case couldn’t proceed. I was
assigned a new court date of September 17.
I spent the summer of 2001 learning Romanian so I could plead my case
once again before a Romanian judge. Fast
forward to September. I was at work the
morning of September 11, filling out FMLA paperwork at the Fed believing I
would be coming home with Crisitian. I
had an afternoon flight from Newark to Paris and then onto Bucharest on Air
France. As I left Human Resources, I was
summoned by a coworker to a television outside the cafeteria. By then, two planes had hit the World Trade
Centers in Manhattan. Within an hour,
there was a ground stop on all flights coming and going from US airspace. At that point I knew I wasn’t going to Paris
that night. Before noon, we were sent
home from work. I went home to West
Collingswood, sat on the couch and just cried.
I wasn’t able to reschedule my flights and therefore wasn’t able to make
it to Romania to plead my case. On September
17, my case was dismissed by the Romanian courts and my journey to adopt
Cristian came to an abrupt end. I hired
an attorney on my own to appeal the dismissal all the way up to the Romanian
Supreme Court, but to no avail. I was depressed for months. Despite
the trauma of a failed adoption, fate was on my side. Two years later, I adopted the child I was
meant to parent: Willian Alexander Hernandez-Cardona from Guatemala. Although the journey was horrible, the story
had a happy ending.
With Cristian in Babadag Orphanage
With Mary in front of the Palace of Parliament
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