Halfway down the Danube

Romanian 101

So we're all learning Romaneste. Knowing that Romanian is a close relative to Italian and Spanish, you'd think it's easy, eh? Not so. OK, it's not as hard as Serbian. But it's definitely not as easy as Italian or Spanish. That's because Romanian is a Romance language with a twist. Let's hear it from the experts:

Romanian is a Romance language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European family. [...] Romanian is an inflected language comparable to other Romance languages. However, unlike other Romance languages, Romanian has retained a case system. It uses two nominal cases: the nominative/accusative and genitive/dative. A third and rarely used case, the vocative, is a Slavic influence and is in the process of disappearing. Three grammatical genders, masculine, feminine, and irregular (masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural) are distinguished. Word order is Subject-Verb-Object, although OVS also occurs. Romanian has seven vowels and three diphthongs. Consonant clusters occur at the beginning of syllables, which is unusual among Romance languages. Stress can occur on any syllable. Varying the stressed syllable can change meaning. Romanian has borrowed vocabulary from the surrounding Slavic languages, most noticeably in the religious sphere. Turkish and Greek words entered the language during the period that the Greeks rules Romania on behalf of the Turks, from 1711-1821. The UCLA Language Materials Project

There is no Vessel like a Book

Alembic is the blog of Maria Benet, a Romanian-American poet and writer. Most of her writing is about, well, writing, but she does have some interesting posts about her girlhood in Transylvania: Growing up under communist rule, with our every move controlled and documented in booklets filled with the quilt of hieroglyphic stamps, we dreamt of travel the way Odysseus dreamt of going home. Though our borders were closed and we were shipwrecked, the world was still wide open to us in words. The sirens -- dictionaries, primers, novels -- perched on the shelves of our small bookcase, sang and lilted of enchanted sunny islands in the subjunctive of French, echoed of the cobblestoned meandering paths of German compound nouns, and spoke in clipped tones of the bright, jagged cliffs of English verbs that stood like wardens holding off the invasion of maudlin latinates. Our passage through these worlds of words was slow and required a great deal of effort, though we traveled light and weather was never an issue. But, back then, we had time and we had plenty of energy -- for we had few possessions to care for, and the exercise of effort seemed the only right to free speech left to us. So we ventured, back and forth, between the languages, whispering words from one or the other to crack open the doors to a bit of fresh air and to another view, as the stuffy discourse -- the official language of some situation or another -- threatened to suffocate or blind us... This might explain why I keep meeting so many middle-aged polyglots here. (Link from Language Hat, the blog for language lovers. Scroll down to the comments section of that link for some discussion of matters Romanian.)

Serbia, cont'd

Some people were paying attention to the New Hampshire primary yesterday. Others were watching London, where Tony Blair's government narrowly survived a challenge in Parliament, winning by just five votes. But a few of us were looking to Belgrade, where the newly elected Serbian Parliament was trying to form a government. Trying without success, I must add. They weren't able to agree on that or anything else... in fact, they couldn't even choose a Speaker Pro Tem; the job ended up defaulting to the oldest legislator present. (Yes, really.) The problem is, the non-evil parties can't form a government unless all of them agree; and the Democratic Party won't agree unless it gets something; and nobody wants to give the Democrats anything, at all, because they were the previous ruling party and have become the scapegoats for everything that's gone wrong in Serbia in the last three and a half years. So, much yelling and finger-pointing, but no government. A surrealist touch: while most parliamentarians showed up in suits and ties (or the feminine equivalent thereof), all 81 members of the Serbian Radical Party showed up wearing t-shirts. Identical t-shirts, all bearing the image of Radical Party leader Vojislav Seselj, who is presently imprisoned at the Hague awaiting trial for war crimes.

Addendum to Blizzard of '04

Ice Fishing

Romanian hospitals revisited

Ploiesti is a city in Wallachia. It has a population of 254,000, oil fields, four train stations and a McDonalds. Whatever you plan to do in Ploiesti, it better not involve the maternity ward of the local hospital. Apparently it all began with an eerie series of 18 dead babies between December 2003 and January 2004. Although hospital officials tried to explain this high number with the fact that many of those babies were premature, it was found that the newborns had actually died from bacterial infections. The culprits are called Klebsiella and Acinetobacter -- nothing you want to find in a hospital, let along in a newborn section. Prosecutor Dan Ghita, who is investigating the deaths, unveiled what the Press Review called "a true nightmare" at the maternity ward - negligence, poor hygienic conditions, criminal activities. He found out that of 68 babies who have died at the clinic, 23 have been incinerated without any documents, 11 have been returned to their families for burials, in six cases there is no documentation of whatsoever action. Some of these babies are believed to have been trafficked. Others may have died from infections or poor care. We might never know. But this was not the last of it. In January, two families were asked to pick up the babies they had "abandoned" four months earlier at the maternity ward. It turns out that the families had been told that their babies had died. Now those babies turned up alive and well. One family requested DNA testing because they can't believe their child is alive. The other family took their baby home. As far as I know, the director of the clinic has resigned this week. 65 doctors and nurses are being prosecuted. My friends from the infant orphanage here in Bucharest are distraught. "We need people to help us but when they hear such stories, international money will stop coming in. It's the worst publicity one can imagine." Right he is.

Playing with numbers

"Don't trust any statistic you haven't faked yourself." Even though, I like stats and graphs because sometimes, they can throw your own prejudices back into your face. Or haven't you heard that there are more car thefts in Romania than in Germany? Huh? Everybody knows that, right? At NationMaster.com one can generate graphs about all sorts of odd things. They get their numbers from the UNO, UNESCO, CIA, WHO and so forth and put them into neat little graphs. I've played around some, comparing Romania to OECD countries unless otherwise indicated. Here are some of the -- sometimes rather surprising -- results: 1. Maternal mortality per 100,000 births: Romania 42, USA and Germany 8. Romania is ranked no. 3 after Turkey (130) and Mexico (55). 2. Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births: 1. Turkey (45.77), 2. Mexico (24.52) and 3. Romania (18.88). USA is ranked no. 8 (6.69) and Germany is no. 21 (4.65). The average mortality rate worldwide is 37.08. On this worldwide scale, Romania ranks on place 129, the US 184 and Germany 210. 3. Pupil-teacher ratio, primary level (average number of pupils per teacher in primary education): 1. Turkey (27.7), 5. Romania (19.2), 12. USA (15.4), 14. Germany (14.8). 4. Pesticide use (1996) in kg/hectare cropland: 21. Germany (2085.00), 22. Romania (1617.00), 23. United States (1599.00), and, because it's ranked up front so many times, 25. Turkey (1145.00). No. 1 is Italy with 19288.00 kg. 5. Car thefts per 1,000 people: 1. Australia (7.12), 9. USA (4.09), 22. Germany (1) and Romania, surprise!, comes in last this time: 26. Romania (0.2). 6. Birth rate per 1,000 (2002 estimates): 1. Mexico (22.36 births), 2. Turkey (17.95 births), 3. Ireland (14.62), 7. United States (14.1 births), 17. Romania (10.81 births). Last ones are 30. Germany (8.99 births) and 31. Italy (8.93 births). I like the car theft one best. Of course, maybe it's so low here because everybody has a car alarm? Go figure.

A bit more on Serbia

Meanwhile, whatever government eventually takes over in Belgrade will have nine weeks (until March 31) to produce another batch of war criminals for the Hague. If they don't, they will lose all of the American aid scheduled for 2004-5 -- about US$100 million. It gets better. This time, they're supposed to locate and turn over General Ratko Mladic. Mladic is wanted in the Hague in connection with genocide in Bosnia, the massacre of several thousand civilians at Srebrenica, and miscellaneous and assorted war crimes. Unfortunately, he's still pretty popular in Serbia, and is believed to have been living in Belgrade on and off for the last three years. So finding him probably won't be too hard, but handing him over will be. This deadline is nothing new, by the way. The US government does this every year. By each March 31, the State Department must certify that Serbia is giving reasonable cooperation to the Hague... or, slice, all American aid gets cut off. (And the US stops all support for Serbia in international organizations too, so that World Bank funding starts looking iffy.) In 2001 this provision led to Milosevic being handed over to the Hague at the last moment. In 2002 it led to some complications, but produced a few more war criminals. Last year they more or less got a bye because of Prime Minister Djindjic's assassination (he was killed on March 12). But now the calendar is swinging around once more. I'd love to see Mladic in the Hague, and I'd really hate to see Serbia lose that aid. But it's not going to be easy for any Serbian government to give him up.

Update on Serbia

The new Serbian Parliament will convene tomorrow, but the parties have still not agreed on a government. (If you haven't been following this story, you might want to go back and look at this post. It's three weeks old, but not much has changed.) DSS, G-17 and the Serbian Renewal/New Serbia coalition are all willing to form a government, but they don't have enough votes for a majority. And the Democratic Party is now refusing to support their minority government. The Democrats have hinted that they'd change their minds if suitably compensated (i.e., with the position of Speaker of the Parliament), but the other parties are too annoyed with the Democrats to consider this. Complicating the picture is the fact that the Democrats are undergoing a vicious internal faction fight between supporters of former PM Zivkovic and Defense Minister Tadic. The other parties would be willing to deal with Tadic, albeit at arm's length, but Zivkovic and his friends are persona non grata. This is supposedly because Zivkovic allowed corruption to flourish; in fact, I suspect it's because he's become the scapegoat for all the ills associated with the previous government. In any event, the Democrats are not speaking with one voice, which does make things that much more complicated. The various parties have about twelve more hours to come up with a solution. If they don't, Serbia will enter upon a period of what could charitably be called political uncertainty. If they really can't agree, then new elections will have to be called at some point... but even that gets complicated, because calling new elections is really the President's job, and there is no President. And, of course, it's entirely possible that new elections would simply produce the same results all over again. I'm not sure when was the last time a European country faced this sort of political deadlock. Is it unique? Does anyone know?

More about Ion Ardelean

A couple of weeks back, I mentioned the Ion Ardelean case, involving the beating of a journalist in the western city of Timisoara. Update: the case is still open, and no arrests have been made. However, there has been a great deal of international attention, including a visit to Timisoara by the American ambassador, Bill Guest. The police and the prosecutor's office have said that they expect an arrest in February. Why in February? I don't know either; but I'm not holding my breath. Moving right along.

Sundays at home

So we shoveled some snow today. "We" here means me and Alan. Alan still doesn't like to touch snow, but he's discovered that it's fun to fling it around with a dustpan. Unfortunately, he's still a bit unclear on the purpose of the flinging; he's as likely to throw it onto the newly shoveled and swept front walk, as back onto the drift. But we're both having fun, so, really, who cares. There's supposed to be a requirement that every house in the neighborhood shoud clear the adjacent sidewalk. A few people do; most don't. I've heard that there's some sort of warden or neighborhood watch officer who's supposed to enforce this rule, but he seems to have taken January off. December too, come to think of it. Other than going out to shovel and sweep, we've spent most of the day indoors. Alan is starting to develop preferences in television: he likes animal shows, especially "The Crocodile Hunter", and anything involving big machines and noisy engines. The Discovery Channel has a show called "Scrapheap Challenge", in which two teams compete to build some improbable machine -- a monster truck, a speedboat -- in a few hours, from what's available in a junkyard. It's a big hit. "Vroom! Vroom!"

The next day

The blizzard is passing, leaving more than 30 people dead across the region -- including at least one man who went off the road last night near Galati. So my unpleasant experience was, unfortunately, far from unique. I should add here that the road was not the problem. The road was actually pretty good -- smooth, straight, and usually well engineered (no blind spots, well drained, etc.). It wasn't a very big road, no; in the US or Germany it would be considered a good country road, not the main link between the capital and the nation's third largest city. But the road was OK.

The Blizzard of '04

Eight people are dead in Istanbul so far, and maritime passage through the Bosporus has been stopped until further notice. A ship has been reported sunk by gales off the coast of Crete. Much of northern Greece and Bulgaria has shut down. And in Romania... well, about a third of the roads in Romania are closed right now: in the northeast and east, from the Carpathians down to the Danube Delta. Exactly where I was a couple of hours ago.

On the road again

Well it looks like no snow tomorrow, so we're off to Galati. Galati is supposed to be pronounced Gah-lahts, but most people seem to compress it something like Glatts or Glotz. It's a big industrial city at the far eastern corner of Romania, where Romania, Moldava and the Ukraine come together. From Bucharest it's about 160 miles/260 km, but it's all two-lane country roads, so we're probably talking about 3+ hours.

Much excitement

We had a really exciting day today. David slept through for the second night in a row, and he can sit up now without toppling over after a minute or two. Practically overnight he went from 60 seconds to 15 minutes of leisurely sitting on the carpet and playing. Since he doesn't like to lie on his back 90% of the time, this is making our lives much easier. Then, Alan asked his first real question. "Mo' yogut?" he asked me, ready to spoon more yogurt into my breakfast bowl. Heh. Made me happy. And finally, we had our first real potty experience. I'm sure you want to know all about it but I'm being shy. Let's just say that there was much congratulatory applause and yelling, then a little triumphant march to the toilet where the contents of the potty were flushed by the producer himself, waving bye-bye after them. I just wished that Romanian potty had a, hm, front guard.

Hoping for Snow

Yes, that's very unusual for me. I don't much like the cold white stuff. But I'm supposed to drive to Galati tomorrow, and frankly, I don't want to. I had three hours of driving Romanian roads on Monday, five hours on Tuesday, and seven hours -- two of them in blinding, can't-see-the-marks-on-the-road snow -- yesterday. My enthusiasm for driving in Romania, never high, is at an all-time low. And it's a 3+ hour drive to Galati, each way. But they've invited the prefect of the judet, which is sort of like a US state governor, to meet us. So we can't simply beg off. Oh, well. If we do go, I want to look at the Danube. Galati is right before the Danube Delta, and the river is supposed to be over a mile wide there. Watch this space.

The other one

David complained about not getting as much exposure as Alan. So here's a picture of him: Meanwhile, Doug is in Craiova in Wallachia, about 3 hours drive from here. In good weather. However, it has begun to snow seriously again here in Bucharest. I wonder whether he'll make it back today. Addendum: He did make it back. Much complaining about snow ploughs that don't plough and not seeing the road for snow ("kind of aiming at the most likely bit of flat whiteness"). It was worst around Pitesti, apparently. In the meantime, it has stopped to snow here in Bucharest. More snow announced, though. We'll see.

Calarasi

I went to Calarasi today. Calarasi -- it's pronounced kuller-osh, don't ask -- is the poorest city in Romania. Here's what the Lonely Planet has to say about it: "The surreal entry by road from the northwest beneath an ungainly 'bridge' of rusting conveyor belts forming an intricate maze to the city's steel works, says it all about this city. Largely industrial, the town offers absolutely no reason to come here except to catch the next ferry out -- across the Danube to Ostrov, from where you can cross into Silistra in Bulgaria." This is perhaps a bit unkind. There are at least two reasons to visit Calarasi.

Letter from Belgrade

I got a letter from a friend in Belgrade yesterday. My friend -- I'll call her Anna-- is Serbian, a lawyer, and thirty-some years old. She's an intelligent, lively and (I think) perceptive observer of the political scene there. If you haven't read this post about the elections in Serbia, what follows won't be that interesting. Me, I'm still fascinated by what's going on there, because Serbia seems like a country that's balanced on a tipping point. So. Here follow some of her comments, slightly edited, and my responses.

Problems with Press Freedom

Romania has some problems with freedom of the press. You don't have to speak or read Romanian to realize this. I can read only a couple of hundred words of Romanian... but I can look at a newsstand and count how many flattering pictures of Prime Minister Nastase and (especially) President Iliescu I see every day. Iliescu smiling, Iliescu looking thoughtful and wise, Iliescu accepting flowers from little girls: it's clear that these papers think that they need to give the President favorable coverage, and lots of it. Romanian TV news, same thing. I don't watch it that much, but when I do, Mr. Iliescu is there too, looking good. And I do read the English language press here; and it's... tame. No investigative journalism that I can see, and a strong tendency to rely heavily on government press releases. On the other hand, Romania is not a police state, at all. Opposition parties function openly, and their activities do make the news. I see articles that are openly critical of the government. Editorials and letters pages are full of lively commentary and debate. Problems like corruption are universally acknowledged. There are lots of very feisty internet sites. So, glass at least half full, right? Well... maybe.

Stupid Mozilla

Something about Mozilla interacts with Claudia's laptop in a way that, now and then, causes slowdowns and freezes. A few minutes ago, it started again, just as I was finishing a long post. Alarmed, I hit 'Save'... and the whole damn thing froze solid. I gave it about fifteen minutes before I finally gave up hope and hit Ctrl-Alt-De. Whoosh, gone. I thought it was a pretty good post, too. It was about Ivo Ardelean, the investigative journalist who was beaten in Timisoara last month; my indirect connection to him; and the international attention that his case (and others like it) has attracted. But I just can't bring myself to do it over again. Well, here's a link, and here's another. No arrests have been made, nor are any expected. I'll write about it again sometime, maybe. Stupid mozilla. Bah.

Picture, again

Alan woke up at a quarter to five this morning and wouldn't go back to sleep. I expect the resulting brain freeze on my part to last all day, so here's just another picture of the little monster. (Oh, well - at least he's my little monster!)

Two Good Books

When I was in the US over New Year's, I picked up some books. I would have liked to pick up more, but there was only so much room in the suitcase. (I pulled a muscle as it was.) Since the kids are (cross fingers!) not sick any more, I've had a little time for reading. Last night I managed to finish Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.

An artist in the making

Alan started experimenting with the camera today. Self-portrait:

The cleanest toilet in the Balkans

Is located at the Shell gas station on Route 5 from Ruse to Sofia in Bulgaria, about 8 km from the border to Romania. Why do I know that? Well, it's been three months since we last went to Ruse and the car needed to leave the country again - obviously we haven't been able to organise a Romanian registration so far. We forgot over the business with the kids and only remembered last night -- and discovered that we were already two days past the magic date. Since Doug had a big meeting today, it was up to me to drive across the border, turn and come back with a shiny new stamp in my passport.

Slush

Unseasonably warm today. If it were the end of February, I'd be delighted; but since it's the first half of January, I know better. This is just an intermission, and we still have at least six more weeks of winter. Anyhow, point is, it was all slush today. You commentors who pointed out how much fun snow was, how invigorating and fun: you come to Eastern Europe and slog through several inches of cold, dirty water to the office and back. With drizzle falling all around, the drains plugging up, and a month's worth of dog droppings and cigarette butts bobbing in the mix. If you've been reading this far, you know that we like Bucharest. It's just that the city wasn't showing its most lovely face today.

The American Heritage Index of Economic Freedom

Every year, a US think tank called the American Heritage Foundation publishes something called the "Index of Economic Freedom". The Index claims to measure the economic freedom of the economies of almost every country in the world. Thus, it should give you an idea of whether (say) a Bulgarian in Bulgaria has more economic freedom than a Mexican in Mexico. The Index rates almost every country in the world on ten categories, including things like "Trade", "Regulation", and "Monetary Policy". It gives each category a numerical rating between 1 (best) and 5 (worst). Then it averages the ten and comes up with a composite rank between 1 and 5. This lets it rank the world's countries from best (Hong Kong) to worst (North Korea). Finally, based on the numerical score, it states whether they are "free", "mostly free", "mostly unfree", or "unfree". The Index just came out with its 2004 edition, and Romania didn't do so well. Its overall score was 3.7, it came in 129th out of 180 or so countries, and its rating was "mostly unfree". This has caused a certain amount of consternation here in Romania. Is the Index an accurate reflection of how things are here? Well, it says that it is. "The internationally acclaimed Index of Economic Freedom remains one of the world?s most reliable and authoritative guides to economic growth: an essential resource for anyone who wants to understand why some countries prosper while others still lag behind." Or so says the website. Unfortunately, at least with regard to Romania, the Index is pretty worthless. I think I'd have to do a longer post to explain why in detail, but here are a few reasons.

The Train Station, Again

Sunday morning Alan and I went to the Gara de Nord again. It's about 3 km (a bit less than two miles) from the apartment. Usually that's about half an hour's walk, but with the snow it was closer to an hour. We bundled him up in multiple many layers of clothing, plus blanket and little footwarmer, and put him in the big three-wheel stroller. He couldn't really move, but he rolled his eyes around a lot. It was fairly quiet at the train station -- Sunday morning, I suppose. I bought this week's Economist, then I took Alan out of the stroller and put him up on my shoulders, and we went and looked at trains. Alan watched the loading and unloading with interest, and then waved to the trains going away -- bye bye! After half an hour of this, we went to the McDonalds in the station, and had a cup of coffee (for me) and a large fries (for both of us). Alan is still rather thin after his illness, so I encouraged him to eat; he wasn't terribly interested, but took a dozen or so fries in a spirit of companionship. Then we went and looked at trains again. Two changes at the Gara de Nord. One, there were a couple of security guards at the entrance to the coffee shop, charging the 4000 lei "station entrance" fee. I guess they finally realized that the coffee shop was a loophole in, uh, station security. Second, there was an interesting new train. It's called the Blue Arrow, and it's the "snow train" to take skiers up to to the mountains. It's a small train -- just two cars -- but it looks very modern, all streamlined white plastic. And when it left the station, it left fast. And apparently it gets up to Brasov in less than three hours. Maybe we should give it a try. Alan fell asleep in the stroller on the way back. I put stroller, Alan and all in the quiet spot under the staircase, and he slept for a couple of hours there. And that was Sunday morning.

Others suffer too...

Apt. 11D -- The story of her son's diarrhea is worse than our experiences. Look under January 7th and following. Alan and David are both on the mend, after last night's visit to the hospital. We all hope for a good night's sleep now and a restful and healthy Sunday. Wouldn't that be nice for a change!

In the Clinic

"Please tell me that wasn't the reset button." "Well, I don't know... what's 'reset' in Romanian?" "Well, what does the damn button say?" "It says... 'reset'. And the screen just went dark." We are standing in the doctor's office, staring at the computer. Alan's finger has just lashed out, quick as a chameleon's tongue, and hit the tiny button on the back of the doctor's CPU. We thought we were watching him; we weren't watching him closely enough. "Oh, crud, it shut down. It shut down." "Well... 'reset' is 'reset', right? It should start up again in a second." [pause] "In a few seconds." [pause] "Come on... Alan! No! Not again!" [parent snatches small child away from CPU] [small child squirms, whines] "Hold him!" [small child begins to wail miserably] [SFX: Microsoft startup chime] "Yes!" [long pause] [child continues wailing] "Come on... come on... holy smokes, what is this thing, a 286? What's taking so long?"

The Elections in Serbia

Serbia held Parliamentary elections on December 28. That was almost two weeks ago, but hey, we've been travelling and the kids were sick. Besides, not much has happened since then. You think a Serbian government can form in just two weeks? They're just starting the negotiations. Anyhow, it's generally agreed that the elections did not have a very good outcome. Somewhere between "disappointment" and "catastrophe" is the consensus. I'm now going to discuss the election results in a little detail. If you want to jump overboard and start swimming for shore, now's your chance.

Snow (1)

It's January, we're in Eastern Europe, there's snow on the ground. It's not that there's so very much snow. It's only 20 cm (8 inches) or so. But the streets aren't plowed. (Well, the main streets are, but we don't live on a main street.) And nobody in our neighborhood has cleaned the sidewalk. Nobody, that is, except for the mysterious House Where Someone Important Lives, and I hesitate to walk in front of that house, because it distracts the security guards from their TV. People sweep and shovel from door to sidewalk, but it stops there. So the walk from my house to the office, which is just four or five blocks, has become a slow, careful shuffle. Like a premonition of old age: in thirty or forty years, I'll walk like this all the time. It's also cold. It went down to -10 centigrade last night -- that's about 14 degrees Fahrenheit for our American readers -- and it's going down to -12 for the weekend. Oh, well, at least everyone seems to be healthy again [crossed fingers]. And the snow has brought some interesting changes. The Gypsies who wandered the streets calling for scrap metal and old clothes have gone indoors for the winter. They've been replaced by an old Romanian man who sells brooms. Big ones; he carries a dozen or so over his shoulder, and shuffles slowly along calling out his wares. And our landlord's mother-in-law, who lives in the apartment under us, has started feeding the sparrows. So now there's always a crowd of them, little feathered freeloaders, lurking hopefully in the front garden. Alan doesn't much like snow, by the way. Yow, it stings! Get it away from me. That's my boy.

On the Floor

Last night David rolled off the couch. This came at the end of The Week That Everyone But Me Got Really Sick. Claudia and Alan and David had been in the hospital, and then they seemed to be doing better, so we all went back to Romania, and then Alan started vomiting, and then David had, um, intestinal issues, and then Claudia started getting nausea and belly cramps. I didn't get sick -- still haven't, yet -- but everyone else was varying sorts of miserable. (I did have a nasty case of jet lag, and Alan vomited lavishly all over me. So I was trying.) But after hours of comforting the babies, Claudia had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep. Alan, heavily medicated, was snoring as only a heavily medicated two year old can snore. That left me (jet lagged) and David (fussy). So I took David downstairs and put him on the couch and played with him for a little while: rattle, tickle, belly blast, rattle. After a while he calmed down and seemed ready for sleep. So I decided to lie down on the floor next to the couch, maybe read a little. Outside, the full moon was shining on our snow-covered street. (Bucharest does have snow plows, but not for the likes of us.) I could hear Alan's snores echoing down the stairs. David's breathing had gone slow and regular. I closed my eyes for just a moment... ...and WHUMP the baby hit the floor a few inches from my face. I nearly screamed. I had been sleeping, and David... hadn't. And he'd decided to practice his new "rolling over" skill. He was lying right in front of me, eyes wide open in complete astonishment: he'd been HERE and suddenly he was THERE, and something had HIT him! He opened his mouth... ...and "Oh, you rolled over! What a clever boy! What a clever, clever boy!" I babbled. "You clever, smart... clever baby boy! Aren't you just the clever rolling-over baby David boy! Yes you are!" ...and he hesitated for a long moment, and then broke into a smile. Yes! he said, I am! I am a clever boy! Maybe I'll roll over some more! Well. It has been a long week, especially for Claudia. But it looks, cross fingers, knock wood, it looks like we might be out of it. Alan lost a lot of weight but he stopped vomiting last night and today he was eating and drinking normally. David and Claudia both slept for hours today; David is still fussy but seems pretty much okay. If so, then maybe we can start blogging again. (But if you check back in a day or two and we're not blogging... well, you'll know why.)

Election in Serbia

Serbia held Parliamentary elections on December 28. That was almost two weeks ago, but hey, we've been travelling and the kids were sick. Besides, not much has happened since then. You think a Serbian government can form in just two weeks? They're just starting the negotiations. Anyhow, it's generally agreed that the elections did not have a very good outcome. Somewhere between "disappointment" and "catastrophe" is the consensus. I'm now going to discuss the election results in a little detail. If you want to jump overboard and start swimming for shore, now's your chance.

Happy New Year!

Thanks for all the good wishes, to everyone. Sorry to chime in so late but I spent the last two days at the hospital with the kids. It came very suddenly -- in the night to the new year they suddenly deteriorated and in the morning, I brought them to what we call "the children's ambulance", sort of a not-quite-ER for kids. I had hoped for some miracle drug - you know, the really chemical stuff they won't give you without supervision of a doctor or something. Instead, I found myself struggling to hold back tears as the pediatrician tried to put IV drips into my babies. When your child screams in pain at the top of his lungs, it's hard not to cry, even though you know that it's better for them if you don't. But I digress. We got out today, after two days of drips (long story about why it's not nice to have two kids in hospital, both with IV's, and only one adult to care for them, will follow later, maybe). I'm at the end of my strength - the kids had bad nights, again, but they are much better and I'm hoping for some rest tonight. All in all, I had ten hours of sleep in the last three days. I look very, very bad. So this is all you guys get today, I toddle off to bed and I'll see you all later!