Day 4: Gypsies and Money Troubles

When I arrived at the hospital, Pamela's mother had returned :) and so she was no longer with us. Toni had the room all to himself. That was nice for both of us because it meant I got to hold him the entire time I was there. The abandoned babies simply don't get held as much because the staff have too many things to do, and too many other babies to care for. Every now and again he would look up at me with this little smile on his face that warmed my heart and broke it at the same time. As I rocked him to sleep he kept opening his eyes to look up at me, as if he was making sure I was still there. Around 11:00am one of the gypsy mothers moved into our room because her baby was crying so much and the other mothers in her room were getting upset. The poor little thing (Dono, I think his name was) had a hair-lip and I thought he was crying because it was causing him pain. The poor thing cried for almost three hours. And not just whimpering, full out wailing. It upset my stomach to the point I couldn't even eat my lunch. Vera (the woman I'm working with) had such a headache. Finally, the mother picks him up and gives him his bottle and, lo and behold, he stops crying! He was crying because he was /hungry/! She just didn't feed him. I don't know why. Anyway, so after she put him down again he just lay there gurgling away to himself. And goodness, he has the most beautiful grey eyes.

After I got home (without running into any bullying ticket checkers :P), Kathy and I picked up Codi from school and we all went to the bank. I wanted to cash in some of my traveller's cheques, but the lady had never seen a traveller's cheque before. She then proceeded to tell that they didn't accept traveller's cheques in Romania! I just about had a panic attack trying to figure out how I would survive the next two months with no money (since I had converted all my money into traveller's cheques before coming here). But then she phoned the big-ish branch (the biggest in Oradea) who then told her to call the branch in Budapest, and they worked something out. So if I go tomorrow I can convert a limited amount but they will take 10% as some kind of fee. Kathy says when her mother came they took 20% for extra charges, so I count myself lucky.

We stopped and bought me a pair of pants (since I forgot to pack any pants in my suitcase) and the most expensive pair were the equivalent of $7 CA! Clothing is just so cheap here! So I'm going to go shoe shopping next week and I expect I'll actually enjoy it, for the first time in my life.

The rest of my time has been spent playing with Codi and Andrea... we have so much fun. I'll see if I can't post pictures tomorrow.