Animals.. vaca, capra and barza...

Mr. Rostas and his new cow

Vaca..
Remember the cow (va-ca) I went to see with the man who was interested in owning it? Well, it was delivered to Mr. Rostas (ro-stash) and his family yesterday. He and his wife have 12 children and their daughter and her children also live in their home. So there are many in the family who can take care of the cow.

The cow is back there somewhere!

I asked how a cow is 'delivered' to a family. I learned that people who have special trucks are hired to transport the animals. The man who transported this cow came up to Arad from Timisoara with his special truck. After he unloaded the animal, the cow's new owner asked how much he owed the man for the transport. The man looked around, saw how many children he had and the conditions in which they lived and told him he didn't need to pay him anything.  The cost would have been around 70 USD, which is a lot of money for a poor family.

The cow will have a calf in a few months and I was invited back for his or her birth. Also invited back to taste the cow's fresh milk which all in the family are looking forward to.
Soon RCE will go into partnership with this family on another project- building a new barn.

Capra purchase!  On my very last day in Romania we finally purchased a goat (cap-ra) for a family in the village of Vladimirescu. The village sits just outside Arad. The goat was given to a widow with six children. The Pasca (pash-ka) family has been in partnership for RCE as they build a new house. Mrs. Pasca was so excited when we called her and asked if she would like a goat. It was a challenge to take a picture of the goat with the family because goats don't like to stand still, but I tried. The family will soon enjoy lots of rich goat milk and lots of goat cheese which is a delicacy in Romania. Thanks Mom!

Barza

Romanian word of the day:

Storke= barza (bar-za)

Storks are big in Romania. They have huge nests usually perched on top of telephone poles. They leave this part of Romania for the winter and head south. They are just starting to return now that the weather is warmer. I walked by a store that sold baby things the other day and here's the display I saw. Our storks, you know the ones that bring babies to us, in the US are cartoon like characters. Here in Romania, they look exactly like the real bird. They also sell plastic barzas in the marketplace. You occasionally see them outside of people's homes, in planters, similar to how some in the states have pink flamingos in their yards.