3 December: An Unofficial Education

Just a short update. After 4 months here, I have experienced a lot of good as well as bad things here. Unfortunately the worst has continuesly been my job :( I was prepared already from home, that this job would certainly not be the easiest, but what I did not expect is just how untrue my job description was. Fact is I'm not assianting the primary caretakers of the downsyndrome children, I'm am the primary and - for the most part - only caretaker of these children. I do at least 3 trained peoples jobs alone, without any traning. I never got even the slightest information/instruction at work, ever. Unfortunately it is the rule, rather than the exception here in Russia that mentally handicapped people - be they children or adults - are just treated as inconvinient "things" that needs to be storraged the cheapest possible place, and held down as much as possible without any consideration to the longterm effects, or their emotions.

Any and all other bad experiences I've had in Russia I can deal with, and they do not give me the desire to go home. Even the really bad ones. This one does, and as if right now, after several empty promisses of help/change/fair treatment for the staff/assistance, I have decided that unless something significantly changes in terms of my work/my work is changed, I will not stay here for the remaning 5 months. I will not sacrifice my mental and physical health for another 5 months, nor will I be part of the Russian way of treating downsyndrome chilren - I am put in situations which I can not possiblely have the resources to handle and at this point, I sometimes act in pure fustration. The result means that I do become part of this Russian way, and I can slowly but steadily feel my integrety being knocked overboard.

I have shortly read up on downsyndrome both before and after I came to Russia for my job, but tonight I have decided to do an extensive research on downsyndrome children in hoping that, what might become my last couple of weeks here in Russia, I will have all possible knowledge that I can gain on my own, on how to handle downsyndrome children in the best way for both them and me. I doubt that it will make my work manageable, but as my mother always say to me "Lidt har også ret!", which basically means that "A little is better than nothing!". It's funny how, the older I get, the more I realise the true wisdome to many of the things my mother told me as a child - Russia is certainly speeding up this process.