“Bastard!”

“Bastard!” Tempers sky rocketing, rocks soaring, hands flying everywhere trying to inflict the same hurt the words have just caused…In our Western everyday life ‘bastard’ is often simply an insult, in an orphanage in Romania it is an identity.

The children living between the four walls of the Institute, however, are not orphans; they are parked children forced to wait for a far away-parent’s phone call that may never come. As the parents try to make a fortune abroad, the ‘copii’ are forced to wait incessantly and make the best of the situation. While their smiles seem to reassure us volunteers that all is well, their eyes hint at past memories and pain we can’t even hope to fully understand. They know their parents are out there somewhere and might call them every now and then for a superficial “Hello. How are you?”, but this is sometimes harder to face then the reality that they will never see their parents again. The apparently happy looks of the children seem to mask uncertainty, a need for recognition and a deep hunger for signs of affection. These children are forced to swallow the pain they feel inside and simply wait for the doors of life to be opened until, finally, the inner turmoil is too much for them to hide. “Bastard” in this case does not mean the conditions in which you were conceived, it simply means they don’t want you!