Texan Marolen Mullinax of Longview has the same fear. She was at a turning point in her life when she went to Romania to see what she could accomplish in a year. She arrived in April 1991 and has yet to return home. She works in Constanta, a port city on the Black Sea where the rates of childhood AIDS in Romania are among the highest. Her group was recruited by Starcross, a three-person religious community in the San Francisco Bay area that has been taking in children with AIDS for a decade.
Meals are prepared in a central kitchen.
The facility includes a Montessori kindergarten and a chapel. They started with American caregivers, but now Romanian women have taken their places. The progress of the children is phenomenal, said Mullinax, the project director. Those who came unable to walk, talk or feed themselves are making good progress now. Six of the children are in public school.