Elena Page Four

and the administration are dependent on them. A car is a luxury in this country but it's not a luxury for a large family. You need some form of transport especially when you have small children. There are too many of us to take a taxi. Sometimes it is more important to be mobile than anything else.

How does the public see the job of an SOS mother?
People have different opinions. Some of them admire and respect us for what we do; others ask why we chose a job like this. I think that feelings are positive on the whole.

Do you have any contact with the community surrounding the SOS Children's Village? On the whole we have a good relationship with our neighbourhood. Sometimes our children steal fruit, that's quite normal, and other times the neighbours bring fruit in for the children. Occasionally strangers come in with books, toys and food. There are no negative feelings towards us and never have been. I'd like to tell you of an example: t here are twenty children from the SOS Children's Village in the Kindergarten here and all the others, that's more than twice as many, are from families outside. If their parents had any negative feelings towards us they wouldn't send their children to our kindergarten, would they? Sometimes when members of a family work and don’t have anybody to look after the child, they leave him or her in the grounds of the SOS Children's Village. The child is safe here and they know he will be looked after. My children also go to visit their friends and school colleagues.

The Children in Her Care

"The feeling of abandonment still lingers in their hearts."

The first child who came to me was Aljoscha. I had planned exactly what I would do with him, how I would play with him and how I would talk to him. Then I arrived at the orphanage and they said to Aljoscha, "This is your mother." He ran to me, flung his arms around me and asked, "My mother, where have you been?" All my plans went up in smoke. I realised that most of all I had to listen to my heart and do everything so that this child felt protected and received the love that he had been deprived of in the orphanage. Aljoscha was jealous of the children who came after him. He is a talented child. He paints, dances, likes music and is interested in everything. All of the children have a deep emotional problem. The feeling of abandonment still lingers in their hearts. Nikolay - we call him Kolja - for example: you can still sense his suffering today. He was four years old when he came to me and still today he's not able to believe in the good side of life.

Then there's Tanja. When we picked her up from the airport I bent down to her and said, "Hello Tanja, I'm your mother." She was so shocked that she screamed for four hours and wanted to be taken back to the orphanage. She refused to be together with us for a long time. She would go to bed with her boots and jacket on and her bundle with all her belongings. She was five years old at the time. When a child arrives in our family we all go to the shop to buy a few things that the child would like. Tanja was also allowed to choose things when we were in the shop. She had never had an opportunity like this before and she got "square" eyes, as we put it, because she was so happy. Then she started to try to manipulate me by saying, "If you don't do that I'll go back." That's when my patience ran out and in the end I said, "Right, then give me back all those lovely things and go back." She replied, "If all the nice clothes and things stay here, then so will I."

It was also difficult with Anuschka to begin with because she couldn't speak. She just made sounds. Our speech therapist worked with her for three years and it's amazing that a child who was unable to speak when she was four-and-a-half years old can talk now. She does, of course, have problems with school but she's got a good heart, is happy and tender and everybody in the family loves her. Dimitrij, or Dimka, wasn't able to talk or move when he came to me. He was ten years old. It's a miracle that this boy was able to catch up in his development. Dimka has the character of a man. He studies a person for a long time and if he likes that person he will become his most faithful friend. If he doesn't like the person, then they will have problems. I am a person of authority for him. If his teacher has a different point of view to mine, the teacher has problems with him. He's a good child and we call him "the golden son."

I noticed that the children help and look after each other. I try to make sure that the children look after and help each other. One day we were all outside together somewhere and the children found a wonderful tree for climbing. Anuschka finds it difficult to climb and I noticed that without my interfering, the children were organising themselves. The boys climbed down again and one of them helped her from above and the other from below. They were all happy then and so was I. I'm very proud of them when we're using public transport and the older ones give up their seat for the little girl. And when we get off, the eldest takes both the little girl and myself by the hand. Sometimes when the little ones are doing their homework and are taking their time about it, the older ones help them so that they can all go outside together to play as soon as possible. I do try to teach them, though, that it is important that each child does his own homework. It's all right to accept help but nobody should do anybody else's homework for them.

Anatol is the eldest child but he was the last to come to us. When he arrived he took a lot of my worries about the children upon himself. He carried out all the tasks responsibly and seriously. When he arrived he couldn't read very well and could only count up to 20. He'd caught up with everything within six months. I admire Anatol's great eagerness to learn.

Elena's Story:
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All these mother's stories come from SOS Children's Village Hermann Gmeiner Academy. Copyright is reserved and no unauthorized use permitted. Use for non-commercial purposes may be requested. The interviews telling about the lives of some SOS Mothers form part of an interesting study on being a replacement Mother to children in need in SOS Children's communities worldwide.