I met the cutest 3-year-old girl today. Her grandmother works at the store where I stop for my daily soda break, and I befreinded her by letting her hit me with a stick. She thought that was hilarious.
No matter how many times she said her name, I could never understand. She had me repeat it over and over. Only when I slurred “Dohnitsa?” did she beam, satisfied. So I guess that’s her name. She didn’t seem to believe my name is Lindsay, so I switched to Eliza, the closest Romanian equivalent.
When I wouldn’t let her hold my Kindle in her strawberry-sticky fingers, she started bringing me spare scraps of metal, holding out her hand and saying, “5 lei!” (Five lei is equivalent to under 50 cents.) I paid her in invisible money until she seemed satisfied.
She let me take a picture of her. I counted, “1, 2, 3!” in Romanian, and she finished with, “5, 6!” Then she took the camera and tried to take a picture of me. She didn’t understand the camera had to face me or that counting alone is not sufficient for a picture to be taken, but she seemed pretty proud of herself anyway.
I’m diggin’ the velcro shoes…pretty darn cute!