Children

The children of Moldova are like children every where.
   They have round faces and round cheeks.  They have blond or dark hair.  I haven't seen any red heads.
   I hear them playing outside every evening.  Their is a play ground of sorts out our back window.  With a sandbox, slide and swing anchors with no swing.  Mostly they play in the street with a ball or playing tag.
   The young ones are always in a stroller being walked where ever their parents need to go.  They get bumped down the 8 stairs to the entrance or our building.  One little guy was waving good bye to us from his stroller as they walked away.
    There is a hand rail on our entry steps the kids like to swing on that and jump off and go around to do it again.
    Today, walking home from church we saw a double stroller.  They were twins about 6 months old.  They were happy and playing with their toys.
   The children in some of the schools we have seen have one parent living abroad working a job.  This parent might be gone for 4 months home for 2 weeks and gone again for 4 months.  Some children have both parents living abroad and they are being raised by grand parents or are put in boarding schools.  During the summer the school tries to find a place for these children to live either with relatives or with families in the village.   I think many children are raised by grandparents so the parents can work.
    The kids start school at the young age of 3.  They are at school 12 hours a day.  Doina our interpreter was telling us that her sister went to American and learned that it was not good to have children in school that long and that they should be not be taught baby talk but use correct words for everything.   The mother of these children found that her kids could talk to adults but not to children.  She sent her son to school for the morning for reading and math studies and then had him come home at noon.  Pretty soon he wanted to stay all day, because he liked being with the children and the activities.
Now the little sister is about ready to go to school and she will probably go all day.  They live next door to the school so if she needs to come home, she can.
   I just think how much the parents are missing out on.  This is a way that both parents can work and provide a living for the family.
   I saw a coloring book in the store on Friday.  One side of the page was the picture all painted and colored the other side was the same picture only needed to be colored.   I guess just like the original.
Not much for imagination..
    Well there are beautiful children here, with big eyes and curly hair.  They are clean and happy in spite of the hard times they may have.