Factors Affecting Romanian Orphanage Caregivers: Education, Training, Salary, Funding, Schemes and Mind Maps of Anthropology

Download Factors Affecting Romanian Orphanage Caregivers: Education, Training, Salary, Funding and more Schemes and Mind Maps Anthropology in PDF only on Docsity! Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 129 Life Histories of Caregivers in a Romanian Orphanage Patricia Ward, National University of Ireland, Maynooth Introduction In 1990 when cameras first entered the Romanian orphanages, following the downfall of Ceausescu, the world was shocked by images of thousands of “shaven-headed children bathing in their own urine and rocking back and forth” (Rodina. 2009. Agence France Presse). The orphanages’ living conditions were “compared to the Nazi concentration camps” (Fox. English 1 class projects. 2009) as images of “malnourished orphans locked away in filthy, unheated institutions” (Rodina. 2009. Agence France Presse.) were released to the world as representative of the legacy of Ceausescu. This article is about the caregivers from two Romanian orphanages that I spent time with, and the piece examines the changes that have occurred in the orphanages since 1990. The main research question for this research was: “What is the reality of working as a caregiver in a state run orphanage in Romania?” The research focuses on three different time periods in the orphanages, the time during Nicolae Ceausescu’s reign up to 1989; the immediate time period after 1989 when he was ousted from power; and the present time in the orphanages. I am examining the life changes the carers went through in the orphanages and how the carers’ roles have changed over time, during Ceausescu’s reign until now. I also study the factors that the carers felt influenced how well they were able to do their job. I examine factors such as the carers’ level of education, courses and training undertaken by them, their salary, the ratio of orphans to carers, and funds the orphanage received. The carers look after young adults in the orphanage and are also responsible for the maintenance of the house and garden. They have no specific training or education relevant to their job, as many of them dropped out of secondary school before it was mandatory to have finished secondary school to become a carer. I have used quotes directly from the caregivers I met during my research and from my translator, Stefana, throughout the article. As English is their second language their spoken English is not always grammatically correct. The fieldwork for this research was conducted in Romania for a period of one month in June and July of 2009, during which time I spent on average five or six hours every day with the carers. I had spent eleven days, on average, each summer, for the three previous summers, volunteering in an orphanage in Romania and this provided a basis for my research. I used participant observation, semi-structured interviews and questionnaires to explore this topic. I hired a translator, Stefana, who came with me every day, as I spoke only a little Romanian myself. Casual conversations and the majority of the interviews were conducted in Romanian, with Stefana translating the questions and answers. The questionnaires had six questions and were written in Romanian; they focused on factors carers felt influenced how well they were able to fulfil their jobs, such as salary, ratio of orphans to carers, training, education and funding. For this project I spent time with caregivers from two orphanages in the region of Cylenia. (I have assigned each of the caregivers, young adults, and place names of the orphanages pseudonyms.) One was a large orphanage “Taorescu” and the other orphanage, “Burcesti,” consisted of two small group homes. These orphanages house young adults, all over the age of eighteen, who displayed some form of delayed mental development and had physical disabilities or mental health problems, too. Many of them are social orphans, meaning they were children taken from their parents by the state or those “who have been abandoned or voluntarily given over to state institutions by living parents” (Kligman, Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 130 1998:226). I will be referring to the orphans as young adults throughout the article. The caregivers used terms such as “resident”, “beneficier”, and “kid” when speaking about the orphans, because the adults entered the orphanage as children and the carers have raised them. The term beneficier is used by the carers when speaking about the young adults in a formal context, such as the interviews, and describes an adult who benefits from living in the orphanage. During June I spent time in Romania on the beach with the carers and orphans of the Taorescu and Burcesti orphanages and representatives of an Irish aid organisation for a fundraised holiday, for eight days. In stilted Romanian or through translators, on the beach I joined in with the volunteers and carers as they played games with the young adults, swam in the sea, and painted their nails. I sang and danced with the young adults and talked to the carers. At the end of the beach holiday, on the day before the young adults returned to the group homes and orphanages, the volunteers organised a party. The carers and young adults danced traditional Romanian dances and then the Irish volunteers danced a traditional Irish dance. Bags of toys were given to all the young adults, sweets were given out and everyone danced to music. The carers had helped the young adults to make cards thanking the volunteers and the volunteers made photograph collages of the time on the beach for the young adults. In July I spent my time at Burcesti, one of the orphanages with whose staff and young adults I had spent time with at the beach. Burcesti consisted of two group homes, which housed sixteen young adults altogether. I spent on average five hours a day at Burcesti and varied the time period I was in the Burcesti each day, to see the full routine of the day, with different carers. During my time there I conducted participant observation and carried out interviews with four of the nine carers there and with the director, Madalina. Although I was unable to conduct field research at Taorescu, I did interview one staff member, Tatiana, who describes herself as a therapist. Her job description is very broad, including feeding and changing the young adults and writing hygiene plans, and does not fit into a western category of a specific therapy such as physical or psychotherapy. Outside of my time with the carers each day I spent the majority of my time immersed in Romanian culture. I spent a lot of time with my translator Stefana and her friends and family shopping, having meals and going on trips to the countryside and the mountains. For the duration of my research I stayed in two different hotels and with Stefana and her husband in her grandmother’s house. My main argument throughout this article is that the caregivers in Romanian orphanages are viewed negatively by the outside world and that this is due to lack of understanding and knowledge about carers’ lives and working conditions, by the world outside the orphanages. I observed carers do a physically and emotionally draining job under difficult circumstances where they do not get the recognition they deserve. The Western media has branded all carers in Romanian orphanages as “very cruel and heartless” (BBC forum 2005) people who “don’t treat the children as people, they treat them like frozen chickens” ( Yallop. 1990. The Independent) and presumably do not care about the orphans they are taking care of. (I am using the term western media to include popular journalism, online forums and websites, including volunteer websites about the orphanages in Romania.) The caregivers I have spent time with over my past four visits to Romania were certainly not cruel or heartless and they cared hugely about the people they care for. The caregivers told me stories of bringing food and soap from their homes to the orphanages for the children, bringing the children to their own houses and digging the graves for the children that had died in the orphanage. These women were not people who did not care about the orphans but were working with limited supplies and did what they could, but these stories never seem to be in the media. Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 133 job is that she has to travel far to get to work, as she lives an hour and a half away from Taorescu. Public Perception of the carers “You don’t have time for them [orphans], for communication or whatever, just feed them, clothe them, change their pampers, going to the washing machine and washing the clothes” (Dana, Patricia Ward, July 7,2009) The western media often portray carers in the Romanian orphanages as cruel and uncaring people. Statements in the media such as “care-workers are cruel and resent giving the orphans attention because they feel like the orphans are getting a free ride” (Fox. University English class project. n.p), show the lack of understanding and information the investigators had concerning the carers and orphanages. The writer of this website about the orphanages in Romania obviously did not ask the carers why they did not bathe or play with the orphans; or why they did not spend much time with each child. As Dana explained to me, when she worked in the Vasnarii orphanage in the 1990s she had so many children in her care that her priority was to feed them and change their nappies. There was no time to spend time with each individual child. I discovered the many reasons behind this perceived lack of care in the course of spending a month with a group of carers and discussing with them the conditions of the orphanages in the 1980s and 1990s. Many statements in the media about the conditions of the orphanages are correct, but many newspapers and reporters seem to presume the reasons why the conditions were bad and blame the carers for the level of care they provided. The media attacks carers for keeping children in environments “compared to the Nazi concentration camps” (Fox. University English class project. n.p), where “simple needs like baths and exercise were unmet” (National Catholic Reporter. 1995:18). Newspaper articles also blame the carers for the orphans’ disabilities, claiming that the carers’ lack of stimulation and attention for the children “has stultified the babies’ mental and physical development” (Robinson. 1990. The Independent). Madalina felt that the Romanian media “will come out with all bad things about those kinds of centres (orphanages)… they are saying … they are so bad, they are mistreating, the carers are doing this and they are so bad” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). Fox’s website complained about the carers not washing the children and stated “the care-workers are so detached from the children that in some cases the children were hosed down with cold water to be washed” (Fox. University English class project. n.p) . One carer in Burcesti, Adriana, told me that she had previously worked in a larger orphanage where she had 36 children in her care and one hour of hot water to bathe all of them. This was not enough time to bathe all the children so sometimes they were washed in cold water. She explained that a number of the children could not walk or move, and that they did not have wheelchairs in this orphanage so she would have to try and bathe them in their beds. Fox did not stop to question why the children were not washed or why they were washed with cold water. One volunteer on the BBC News website forum stated that after a baby in an orphanage had died, “Nobody from the orphanage cared, nobody helped” (BBC News. 2005:n.p). The volunteer assumed that the carers were indifferent because they did not take time to mourn and dig a grave for the baby. The carers explained to me that when they had worked in Vasnarii in the 1980s and 1990s, when a child had died there one person went to dig the grave. The carers explained they had to “just get on with” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009) their work because they had so many other children depending on them. This could explain why the volunteer believed that the carers did not care. During my interviews Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 134 with the carers in Burcesti, many become very upset when discussing children in their care who had died, about whom they clearly had cared deeply. When the carers were asked in the interviews what image they felt the Romanian people and the world outside of Romania had of them, most of the carers thought they had a negative image. Tatiana felt that some Romanians appreciated the work she was doing but also felt that “some of them are just making fun of them [orphanage workers]” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). She described not having much contact with people outside of Romania, so she assumed that because volunteer groups come to Romania people outside Romania are “having a positive way of thinking” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009) about her hard work. Lenuta believed that there were mixed opinions of carers but that some people admired them and believed they were courageous to do that job. Simona stated “I think they [Romanian people] are having a very bad opinion of us. They are saying, ‘Oh you are working with handicaps’” (Simona, Patricia Ward, July 10, 2009). Madalina explained that up until the 1990s the public was not allowed into the orphanages. She explained that people did not know the reality of the conditions inside the orphanages. Madalina invites the public to visit Toarescu but states that not many people take up this offer. Thus the public in Romania and the western world still do not know the reality of the carers’ experiences in the orphanages, and rely for information on the media, believing many of these negative assumptions to be true. Daily Life I spent sixteen days in Burcesti, where nine carers worked. During my interviews with four of the carers, I asked each of them to describe their daily tasks and to talk me through a typical day’s work for them. Each of the carers described their jobs as cooking, cleaning and a bit of gardening. The carers did not mention the young adults as part of their work or tasks, perhaps because as many described them as their second family, they do not view them in the same category as their labour intensive work. I do not know the actual formal job description for the carers, as none of the carers or Madalina, a director, could provide me with a formal job description and informed me that they had not seen one prior to starting work, nor had they ever seen one. During my participant observation I observed them doing a lot more work than they had self-reported. Two carers work each twelve-hour shift and go home for twenty-four hours. A typical day for the carer would be to make the breakfast and set the breakfast table by 6.30am and start waking up the young adults after 7.00am. By about 8.00am the carers were starting to make both the ciorbă (Romanian sour soup with many vegetables and usually meat), for lunch and the meal for dinner. In between breakfast and lunch they tidied the house, gardened and taught some of the young adults how to speak, walk and bake. As two of the young adults were in wheelchairs and could not walk, some of the carers helped them stand up and were teaching them to walk and dance with them by lifting them out of their wheelchairs and stepping away so that the young adult had to step towards them to avoid falling. Two of the young adults had very little speech, so some of the carers would try to teach them words. They would sound out words slowly emphasising each syllable and have the young adults repeat it after them. The carers had no training for these activities and did not classify it as therapy. After breakfast some days Dana would teach Dorina, one of the young adults, how to bake donuts. Hagerstrand (1997) stated the “passing on recipes and particular cooking techniques from one generation to another (usually mother to daughter) is one way in which some households have traditionally reproduced their ‘identities; over time” (66). When they Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 135 were cooked, all the young adults would gather in one house and Dorina would hand the donuts out to everyone. Other days the young adults would help to pick the vegetables. They harvested green beans from the garden one day, and we all (carers, young adults, Stefana and I) gathered round the kitchen table pulling the ends off them before they could be cooked and eaten. Hagerstrand (1997) describes that “a commitment to sharing the preparation and consumption of food can be just as important to the production and maintenance of households that are shared voluntary as it is to the social reproduction of ‘proper families’” (65). Once lunch was finished everyone did housework. The carers washed the dishes and helped the young adults sweep, mop and wash the windows. Between lunch and dinner, the young adults took naps and the carers ate their lunch and cooked the dinner for everyone. After this they mended and altered the young adults’ clothes, most of which were donated. Then the carers would write a detailed report comprised of all the activities performed by and with the young adults; their developmental progress and any health issues and/or behavioural problems were also noted. When the carers changed shifts, the new carer would look at the book before starting work. After dinner the carers played games with the young adults, including doing jigsaws. Then they taught the young adults how to write letters and numbers and, for the more advanced young adults, words. They produced copybooks with each young adult’s name on one, and the young adults showed Stefana and me the numbers and letters they had written inside. Each carer would write a number, letter or word on a page for each young adult and the young adult would copy this for one page; then the carer would check it and write something else for them to copy. Some days the carers would colour with them instead, producing crayons, colouring pencils and blank sheets of papers. They also performed house maintenance on occasion. (I observed the garden fence and broken presses in the kitchen being fixed.) On some of the nights I was present in the group homes Iolanda and Juana, two carers, told stories to the young adults before bedtime. They gathered all of the young adults into one of the houses and told Romanian fairytales. The young adults were actively engaged in the process, laughing and joining in with the details of the story. They were using their hands to describe the characters, such as one who had a large nose, and all of the young adults gestured with their hands a large nose on their face. On other evenings some of the carers would put on music and sing and dance with the young adults. Twice during my time in the group homes there were storms and the houses flooded. One carer brought all of the young adults over to one house and told stories or put on music for them to dance to. While this was going on, the other carer mopped up the water as it gushed in through the doors, running from house to house putting blankets in front of all the doors to prevent more water entering the houses. In all my time in the group homes I rarely witnessed the carers sitting down taking a break. It is interesting to note that all nine carers in Burcesti were female and the majority of the carers in Taorescu orphanage were also female. Peacock (1991:344) believed because women gave birth to children “they will always have primary responsibility for childcare.” Historically women undertook household duties as well as childcare. Sharma and Gupta (2006) believe that because the work women are used to doing in the home “is now available for purchase in the market, women follow this work out into the economy” (197). Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 138 Crentsil’s (2009) study on caregivers for children with AIDS, describes how “the hardships of those who are faced with caring for the unfortunate children are not made public” (82). This was the case for caregivers in orphanages. The media have been very critical of caregivers in Romanian orphanages and research on Romanian orphanages has tended to ignore the caregivers. The carers all describe the job of a being a carer as like being a mother. Having a child in your care dying is unimaginable and these women had to continue with their work after a child died and even dig a grave for them. Vasnarii orphanage opened in 1975. All the caregivers I interviewed worked in Vasnarii during the 1970s and 1980s. Madalina informed me that the remains of 300 children who had died in Vasnarii were discovered. She explained that 200 of these children died from 1975 to 1989, and the other 100 children died after 1989. Simona remembered that when she started working at Vasnarii “every week somebody was dying”. She explained “those were the ones who were dying first with big heads [hydrocephaly] and with most … the biggest handicaps, the physical ones” (Simona, Patricia Ward, July 10, 2009). She felt the cold weather, lack of proper food and lack of more staff were the main causes for so many deaths in the orphanage. Madalina told me they had a saying “kids coming to our centre [the Vasnarii orphanage] in the spring they would get over the next winter, if they were coming in the fall they won’t get through the winter. That was the … like a rule” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). Madalina explained when someone was about to die they were put into a room in a building beside the orphanage. She described the ritual of lighting a candle when she thought a child was about to die, to light the way to heaven. Afterwards the carers would wash the body, Madalina would declare the person dead, send a telegram to the child’s family to inform them; and a staff member in the orphanage would go to the cemetery to dig a grave for the child and bury them. Madalina describes writing the names of the children on crosses for the grave, but that they often disappeared because “people in Vasnarii [town] took them to heat themselves in the winter” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). Madalina informed me that in the winter of 1989, from October to January, she had to declare sixty children dead. She stated that pneumonia was the biggest cause of the deaths. Each of the carers remembered a child in their care dying and became upset recalling the event to me. Roxanna recalled the story of one boy in her care who died and remembered that when Madalina asked who was going to take him to the room to die “she [Roxanna] hide away because she was too emotional involved in that and she couldn’t go and take him in that place to die” (Roxana, Patricia Ward, July 14, 2009). After he had died Roxana went to the church and cemetery and made “all the traditional stuff for him …brought the juice and I brought the donuts, for the people who is coming there to just, to stay around him when he was dead” (Roxana, Patricia Ward, July 14, 2009). Klass describes ritual as a “space in which one can construct the meaning of the deceased’s life, death” (Klass. N.d). Roxana felt it was important that someone who cared for the boy perform this ritual of cooking and providing food to people grieving. Madalina remembered “I was next to one child when he died and I never wanted to be with someone else when he was dying. That affected me very much, I will never forget that child” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). When asked about deaths in the orphanage, Dana became too upset to even talk about the deaths, stating “I cannot talk about that, it’s too hard” (Dana, Patricia Ward, July 7, 2009). Madalina recalled one night a boy escaping from Vasnarii and how there was only one carer and herself on duty. They sent people to look for him but could not find him. She explained he was found six months later, dead, frozen from the cold winter. The carers did not receive time off or any grief counselling after a child in their care died. Tatiana was surprised when I asked if she had received counselling or time off after a Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 139 child she was close with died. She explained that she could not take any time off, because she had so many other children depending on her, she had to just “get on with” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009) her work. Although the majority of these deaths occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, the caregivers were still extremely upset by them. A study on caregivers in a paediatric hospice, which may have been a similar place to the Vasnarii orphanage before 1989 based on the descriptions from the carers in Vasnarii, found that some staff “manifested symptoms of psychological distress” (Cherny 2005:836). The author found one reason to be that the staff had “failed to resolve their grief about a bereavement that had occurred some considerable time ago” (ibid.). The carers not getting any time off to mourn or grieve the loss of a child who was in their care must affect them, and may not allow them to move on. Management of funding Before 1989, funding given to the orphanages was extremely low, as the government did not want to acknowledge them: “the party [communist party in government] didn’t want people to know those kind of institutions exist or those kind of people exist in Romania” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009)). Madalina informed me that in Vasnarii orphanage, at the start of the year the ministry would give the orphanage all the funding to last for a year. As she explained, usually it was not enough to cover all of the orphanage’s expenses: “we supposed to pay the staff, buy the food, buy the clothes” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). This led to lack of funding in all areas, including paying the staff, as Madalina remembered: “sometimes we stayed without being paid!” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009), for three for four months. When I mentioned this to some of the longer working carers, they also remembered times when they were not paid, telling me they could not just leave the children. Twigg and Arkin (1994) stated carers “do not simply give up when the balance of interest turns against continuing. Carers carry on caring against their own interests” (10). Staff accepted this but unfortunately even without paying staff the orphanage still ran out of other supplies: “there were times when we had …well probably for a month we didn’t have enough food or we didn’t have another money for medication or another you know medical supplies” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009) ). Before the revolution the government required parents to pay money to the orphanage their child was residing in. Madalina described how a man from the communist party used to visit Vasnarii orphanage. She explained that he refused to acknowledge the lack of funding from the communist party that led to a shortage of supplies that were needed in the orphanage. I asked Madalina if they could make complaints to this man. She laughed at my inquiry, telling me that “we weren’t allowed to say anything… the party won’t let you” (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). After the revolution Working conditions After the revolution the working conditions for the carers improved greatly. These changes did not happen immediately and were due to several reasons. Madalina explained the carer changed from working “Monday to Saturday eight hours a day (Madalina, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009)” before 1990 to working five days a week. The ratio of children and young adults in the care of carers lowered. In Vasnarii Madalina explained that the children were all moved out of the orphanage and only the adults stayed in the care of the orphanage. The carers believe the quality of their work and the quality of life for the young adults Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 140 improved as the ratio lowered. Simona, who took care of twenty-five or thirty children before 1989, explained that after 1989 thanks to help arriving and the move of the children to another institution, she then had eight or nine young adults to take care of. She moved to Casa Georgeta, a group home, in 2001, taking care of six young adults. She described how having a smaller group made it easier for her to “take care of them properly” (Simona, Patricia Ward, July 10, 2009). Lenuta noted that when caring for so many young adults, the carers did not work together. Now, with fewer young adults in her care, she stated that everyone is “cooperating, every shift is helping the other together and it is better now” (Lenuta, Patricia Ward, July 5, 2009). She gave an example of Dimitry, a young adult who “never walked before but now every shift they try to do that [carers teaching him to walk] and now he’s walking, so it helped” (Lenuta, Patricia Ward, July 5, 2009). Twigg and Arkin (1994) state “carers do not simply do things for people; they can also support them with encouragement, personal attention” (8). It would be easier and less time consuming for the carers simply to push Dimity around in his wheelchair, but with increased time flexibility every day they take the time to teach him to walk a few steps. Dana informed me that with a smaller ratio of young adults to each carer they no longer feed the young adults from one big bowl. She explained now “meals was taking a lot of time because they [carers] were trying to teach them [young adults] how to feed themselves, and it was hard to show them how to quit eating from the bottle and the spoon” (Dana, Patricia Ward, July 7, 2009). Simona described times when before 1989 she was beaten by the young adults in the orphanage. Many of the carers mentioned problems with violence, either between the young adults or from the young adults towards them. Having smaller groups of young adults to care for now has enabled the carers to be able to tackle this problem. For example, Simona stated that once the groups got smaller, the young adults’ behaviour improved. Based on conversations with the carers, I have the sense that there seems to be less violence towards the carers now. Tatiana stated that occasionally now she gets scratches and bruises but that it only happens from “time to time” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). Carer-to-young adult ratio was considered by the carers at Burcesti to be the least important factor influencing how well they were able to do their jobs; the carers of Taorescu identified it as the second least important factor. Lenuta, Dana and Simona described taking weeklong courses in hygiene and massage therapy. Simona also took a course on anatomy and diseases during the past few years, and Roxana described taking courses in art and massage. Tatiana explained that to qualify as a therapist now, one must attend courses and training. She attended a three-month course to become a therapist, studying “communication, about the working behaviour, how to work with the wheelchairs, about hygiene, about everything that you have to do with the beneficier” (Tatiana, Patricia Ward, July 6, 2009). The carers from Burcesti and Taorescu felt the courses they undertook was the most important factor influencing how well they were able to do their jobs. Most of the courses the carers undertook were voluntary courses they paid for themselves. Treatment of orphans After 1989 the treatment of the orphans changed hugely. The carer-to-young adult ratio lowered, staffs were given more training, more funds were put into the orphanages and the carers described how people began to have an understanding about mental health and disabilities. In contrast to the situation before 1989 in Vasnarii (recall that Madalina described the children arriving with their name on a bandage, and no one knew their name once it washed Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 143 where she worked. She informed me that the volunteers had brought clothes, food, wheelchairs and nappies for the orphanage. The volunteers had taught her how to massage the children and helped teach the children how to eat by themselves. The volunteers had also built a soft room in the orphanage for the children who were self-harming and fighting, so that they could be put in there for an isolation period to stop the behaviour. Simona described how “having all this, the children start to improve their behaviour” (Simona, Patricia Ward, July 10, 2009) and she felt it was a “very important accomplishment for the kids” (Simona, Patricia Ward, July 10, 2009) to get these resources and have a chance to learn. Funding from aid organizations has contributed to building the Burcesti group homes. Dana and Tatiana also spoke of the many volunteers from various countries that came to Vasnarii just after the revolution, but both remembered one group of volunteers who had been negative towards them. Dana and Tatiana described how the foreign volunteers had criticized how they were working and explained that they did not know how to do some things, but the volunteers did not show them how. Dana stated “all the time they [volunteers] wasn’t satisfied with their [carers’] work” (Dana, Patricia Ward, July 7, 2009). Aside from this one group, Dana described her experience with the volunteer groups as positive, stating that she learnt lots of skills from them. A number of charities sponsored the carers to undertake courses. Dana described being sponsored to do an occupational therapy course by a charity and that “Aurelia Trust [an Irish aid organisation] sponsored courses in communication and massage” (Dana, Patricia Ward, July 7, 2009) for some of the carers in Vasnarii. Conclusion In conclusion, Ceausescu’s policies and ego resulted in thousands of unwanted or unplanned- for children who could not be provided for by their own families. State institutions were created to deal with this problem and to house people with any type of disability, as Ceausescu refused to admit that Romania had anyone with special needs. Very little money was put into the state orphanages, and they became a death sentence for the children who entered them. The working conditions in Vasnarii, where all the caregivers worked in the 1980s or 1990s, were extremely difficult for them. They had to take care of up to 30 children or young adults with special needs even though they had no training or courses on how to do this. The fact that they stayed in this job, going months without being paid, bringing in supplies that were lacking in the orphanage, such as soap and food, shows the caregivers’ level of commitment to the children and young adults they were working with. Listening to the caregivers remembering stories of children in their care that had died, and seeing them tearing up and becoming upset, it was obvious these women had cared deeply for the people in their care. The media tends to label all carers as cruel and portrays the carers as people who do not care about the children they are minding. But my research suggests that this is not the case. Assumptions and misunderstandings on the media’s part have led to misrepresentative statements being made about the carers. The caregivers often told me stories of the harsh conditions in the orphanages in the 1980s and 1990s and explained that they were not in control of the orphanage’s conditions and had no authority of power over the circumstances. The caregivers felt the need to explain and even defend themselves to me, perhaps viewing me as a symbol of the West, who believe caregivers are all cruel, uncaring women just working in an orphanage for the salary. To the contrary, the women I interviewed reported strong bonds between the young adults and carers, bonds even characterized as fictive Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 144 kinship. That the young adults view the carers as their mama proves this relationship was not simply a fabrication on the carers’ part to persuade me or to persuade others of the care they feel for the young adults. In comparison to the news footage (Panorama’s ‘Triumph Over Tyranny’ or ABC News’s 20/20) and reports of orphanages in the 1980s and just after the revolution1990s of caregivers shutting the door on cameras and hiding the truth from the world, I was surprised to find the caregivers were so open and honest with me. Although most were a little hesitant at the start, when Stefana informed them that Madalina, their previous boss, had spoken out about the problems in the orphanages the other caregivers seemed happy enough to do so as well. The caregivers all described major changes in the orphanages after the revolution but stated that these changes did not happen overnight. The sponsoring of courses for the carers was one of the major changes for the carers, who stated that this opportunity positively affected the quality of their work and thus the quality of life for the young adults they cared for. These courses helped the carers to understand the needs of the young adults and how to work with the young adults’ special needs and disabilities. There are many factors that are influencing how well the caregivers are able to do their jobs now, including courses they have taken, their own level of education, the funding the orphanage receives and the ratio of young adults to carer. The ratio of young adults to each carer is lower now and thus is no longer a problem for most of the carers. The caregivers are continuing their education by taking classes, courses and special training to improve in their job. Overall funding does influence how well they are able to do their jobs, as it is funding that pays for more staff, supplies such as food, clothes and wheelchairs, activities for the young adults and general equipment for the young adults. Despite the many constraints they face, the caregivers I interviewed have sought to improve the care of young adults in Romanian institutions today. The carers work with few resources, being criticized by the world and under huge emotional stress, for a small salary, and frequently do not get the recognition they deserve for doing a hugely stressful, but often rewarding, job. Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 145 Vasnarii orphanage, where the caregivers all worked. Now closed. One of the rooms inside Vasnarii orphanage, where 3 children slept to a bed. Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 148 At Stefana’s grandmother’s house in Vasnarii town. Stefana’s grandmother’s garden. Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 149 Stefana’s grandmother’s garden. The road into Vasnarii. Anthropology of East Europe Review 29(2) Fall 2011 150 The view driving from Vasnarii to Burcesti, which the carers drive every day. Thank you to all the caregivers from Burcesti and Taorescu orphanage. I appreciate everything you did for me and am forever grateful. Thank you so much for trusting me with your stories, I will never forget them. Bibliography Bourgois, Philippe. 2007. “Confronting the Ethics of Ethnography: Lessons” From Fieldwork in Central America in Ethnographic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader. Pp. 288- 298 Edited by Antonius C.G.M. Robben & Jeffrey A. Sluka. U.S.A: Blackwell Publishing. Cherny, Nathan I. 2005. “Paediatric Palliative Medicine” in Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine. Pp. 835-840. Edited by Derek Doyle, Geoffrey Hands, Nathan Cherny & Kenneth Calman. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crentsil, Perpetual. 2009. “Caring For AIDS Orphans In Ghana”. Suomen Anthropologi: Journal of Finnish Anthropological society 34 (3): 82-83. University of Helsinki. Dewalt, Kathleen Musante & Billie R. Dewalt. 2002. Participant Observation: a Guide for Field Workers. U.S.A: Altamira Press. Firth, Raymond. 2004. Themes in Economic Anthropology. London: Routledge.