“The trauma of being there does not heal.” A voice of children abandoned in orphanages in the 1990s in Moldova – Ziarul de Garda
- “It was not a day without hunger.”
- “We were beaten systematically, hard.”
- “I was going to the bathroom in two with blood.”
- “There was no grain of humanity in the whole orphanage.”
The 1990s meant the first steps towards independence for the Republic of Moldova, and with it, a lot of poverty, a lot of violence and too little hope. For the children from the orphanages of the Republic of Moldova, the situation was one of the most difficult, often – at the limit of survival.
We learn from Ivan how he grew up here and what the adoption meant for one of them, born in the Republic of Moldova, but who later moved to Italy. The young man knew both the drama of abandonment, of the daily abuses, and the joy of finding a place that he could finally call home.
Ivan Farîma (31 years old) has a distinct image of that day in his memory. He could not see the people who were accompanying him, but he very much hoped that it was his parents, with whom he was going together in a new and miraculous place.
The memories of those first years of his life are fragmentary, he intuited, however, that there were two people in uniform. My mother was behind bars due to minor thefts. And he – in an orphanage, where he would spend “the most traumatized”Years of his life.
The days of abandonment
There, the baby Ivan would discover the austere and dirty bathroom. Toys that will be locked forever in a closet bottle, to which he and other children did not have access. They could only look at them. Beds with broken mattress. Prohibition to enter the kitchen. Prohibition of any activity, if it has not been approved first by adults, ie by educators.
“There was not a day that we did not endure hunger, and there was no day that we did not endure thirst. I ate once a day, I rarely received water. Instead, we were scared and beaten systematically, hard, with various objects.
Every night, before going to bed, we were beaten with sticks on our feet, until the blood gushed out.. Many of us went to the bathroom in twos with blood.
At other times, women who should not have cared disguised themselves as witches and knocked on the walls at night so as not to scare. That’s how they had fun. ”
Out of fear, some children develop a feeling of paralysis at night.
“There was no grain of humanity in the whole orphanage. No outside control. For fear of making a noise, you couldn’t move, you couldn’t scream, you couldn’t do anything, it was a voiceless shout.”.
The abuse continued for years. The children, although they cried when they could, secretly, had gradually become accustomed to this situation.
“Besides all this, there was no shortage of opportunities for everyone to learn, to develop. There was no education there, of any kind. ”
As time went on, even though they, the children, helped each other and told each other stories to gain some strength and confidence in tomorrow, they mostly lacked the support and love of their mothers, who, however, did not they came back to them only too rarely.
New life
Ivan was the lucky one to find a new mother. He had seen parents there before, but from the first moment he saw this couple, he knew they were “his”.
The two, who came from Italy, took him to spend a day together. They took a bath and, for the first time, Ivan slept in a clean and warm room, dressed in new clothes:
“It was a feeling of peace that I had never experienced before. With them, I was at home”.
The next day was difficult because he had to return to the orphanage. “I’m going back to die in that placeHe repeats in his mind.
His life, however, took another turn – he was adopted. It was September 1996, he was 7 years old and, from a dark room, Ivan woke up at the window of a plane that was taking him to another life. He remembers, in particular, that his father had a hat full of candy with him and that, seeing that he could not find a place on the plane, someone from the flight crew picked him up. Ivan never imagined that the world was so wide and beautiful.
On landing, he met his uncle, and when they arrived at their house in Naples, he met his neighbors, who had prepared them or the Serb. Everyone congratulated them. Ivan had a light plane with him, which he kept showing to the adults around him. In response, although they did not understand a word of what he was saying in Romanian, they applauded him and smiled at him.
In the house there, Ivan discovered, for the first time, the feeling of belonging: a bed of his own, his toys and the security he did not have at the orphanage.
The years that followed meant, in addition to maturation, a lot of work and self-trauma.
“I tried to transform the experience from the orphanage to become more empathetic and understanding with the people around me, but I didn’t take anything good from there. You just had nothing”.
At the same time, he sweeps away the young man, the feeling of abandonment, of being abandoned, he always stayed with him. She has been with him all day and has made the most of her life. And if he hadn’t worked with specialists, in his opinion, depression would have broken him in the end.
The way back: “I remember everything”
In 2021, Ivan told himself, including discussions with the therapist, that it was time to look for his biological parents. He always wanted to see them. He wanted to know his origins. He still remembers his father, mother, brothers:I still remember everything today”.
He would find out that his father had died in 2001 and when he saw his mother again he would not be as special as he would have expected.
“But I reconfirmed some things. For example, the fact that my father was abusive and violent, that he had an addiction. And also that this last moment was not important, but the road we took there”.
Despite these facts, he failed to fill the void he felt, the wound of being passed through an orphanage and too large and does not heal.
“I know that many other children do not have this luck… and probably their path in life will not be the best, because they are so traumatized and this gap and so big, if they can not fill it.”.
Ivan believes that if he had not been adopted, he would most likely have moved to Moldova to live “under the dumpsters”.
Instead, he has found his vocation, continues to work with his traumas, and his adoptive parents are still with him. He wants, after the pandemic, to be able to come to the Republic of Moldova and, especially, for his story, once told, to do as little justice to the children with the broken destinies in the orphanages of that time.
***
When you abandon a child they do not allow him to develop his love for others. You don’t give him a chance to feel safe in the world, to live a quiet life.
In the orphanage, education… he was missing, we were just physically and psychologically tortured.
When I left there… I didn’t take anything with me, I had nothing. Even the toys my adoptive parents had previously given me were taken away.
Now, I would tell the educators… that they are beasts, that no child should be treated that way. That because of them, children who have gone through violence are now closed in on themselves and deprived of love. And I know that if I speak now, it’s because I want to become or wear those who can’t.
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