From BuBu’s great wisdom

Our Swedish experience will soon come to its end. We feel that Kopparbo camp was a great place for us and we have been experiencing new things that helped us discover us better and grow. We also feel that our presence here was important both for our family and for the Swedish people that are connected to the camp.

These four months at Kopparbo camp helped us achieve a great deal of a different kind of life experience. By far, the most important achievement was Bubu’s transforming from a quite shy girl and mamma’s baby into a brave, courageous and open mind young lady. There are as well some important physical changes about her as she has become now taller, bigger.

But what it strikes us most all the time is her perspicacity and sharpness that leave us with no words whenever she says something. We put together some of her “pearls” that made people around her burst into laughter (and made me want to have another baby).

1.It is a big difference!
BuBu: I think there is a big difference between Romania and Sweden…
Vali: Yeah, what would that be?
BuBu: In Romania I don’t have my own lake!

Comment: Bubu fell in love with the water, when the weather was good she would have been gone swimming even three times a day. Last year she didn’t even wanted to go in and now she can swim really well (using a swimming ring, of course).

2.What do we do with Mom?
Vali: Bubu, would you like to take Annelie with us when we go back to Romania?
BuBu: Yes, sure, but what do we do with mom?

Comment: Annelie, our Swedish colleague and friend here at Kopparbo, was so nice and lovely to us and especially to Bubu and her behavior made Bubu think of the possibility of taking her with us in Romania.

3.We don’t talk about it!
Vali: Bubu, when we go back home you will have to go to the kindergarten so mom could go to work.
Bubu: Stop it! We don’t talk about it! Not now! Not ever again!


Comment: Bubu going to kindergarten has always been a delicate issue. The “don’t talk about it” attitude was always the response and she continued to use it in any other kind of situation that she did not like. Yet, recently, she said to Monica that she would like to go to a kindergarten that would be close to her work place.

4.I have bigger eyes!
Sitting around the table in the kitchen, having lunch. Bubu is pointing out of the window, saying to Ida:
Bubu: Look, there’s a big pig behind that three!
Ida: Where is it Bubu, I can not see any?
Bubu: Well, I think I have bigger eyes, that’s why I can see it and you can’t.

Comment: Ida, one of the volunteer that worked at Kopparbo this summer, was so close and friendly to Bubu all the time…and mostly, she was really patient and taught Bubu some Swedish and played with her a lot.

5.Stupid...I’m sorry! Stupid...I’m sorry!
We are all in a canoe, paddling on our way back to the camp after spending few hours on the lake. Bubu continues to put her hands in the water getting more wet, even after her mother had told her before to stop doing it.
Vali: Can’t you understand? You get wet and you will start crying because you will be cold.
Bubu: You’re stupid! (“prost” in Romanian)
Vali: What did you say? How dare you to say such a word to me? That’s a really bad word; you don’t say this to anyone!
Bubu: I heard Mom saying this word before.
Monica: Dad is right; this is a really bad word. I am sorry to have said it.
Bubu (to Vali): Stupid...I’m sorry! Stupid...I’m sorry!

Comment: NO COMMENT

6.It’s your fault!
This is one of the mornings when Bubu wakes up and she can not see Monica in the room. We are both still lying in bed, I just opened my eyes and Bubu spoke out her first words for the day.
Bubu (almost crying): Where is Mamma? Why is she not here?
Vali: I don’t know where she is. I just woke up.
Bubu: It’s only your fault. I did not want to come to Sweden.

Comment: After her last line, I suddenly burst into laughter. Of course she did not mean it because she likes the place as much as we do; she was just upset because her mother was missing. Later on I had another little talk with her:
Vali: Ok, you said it is my fault to be here in Sweden and because you don’t like we go back home tomorrow. So, today you have to pack!
Bubu: Stop it! We don’t talk about it!

7.She is my mother and my wife!
Bubu (to Vali): Take your hands off Mom. She’s mine!
Vali: But she’s mine too. She is my wife and your mother. She belongs to both of us.
Bubu: No! She’s my mother, and my wife!
Comment: Bubu loves her mother. From what she keeps saying, she loves her until planet Pluto and back. In Romanian, Bubu’s line is so much more fun: It sounds like that: “E nevasta mea si sotia mea si mama mea si ma-ta mea si Popeasca mea!”

8.I’m not your baby!
Vali (to Bubu): Oh, my sweet baby…
Bubu: I’m not your baby! I am mammy’s baby... She made me.
Vali: But I helped her too…
Bubu: How?
Vali: …You should go and ask her.

Comment: Bubu knows from Monica everything about everything. Even how babies come out from their mothers’ bellies. She does not know yet how they get there.

9.Now, we make more money!
We have tried to explain to her that we need to earn more money, so we can buy things that we need. For this, it will be necessary that Mom gets a job also. In order for Mom to have a job, Bubu has to go to the kindergarten.

One day at Kopparbo, Monica and I were preparing a piece of land to be spread with grass seeds. Bubu takes a shovel and says:
Bubu: Now, as I am helping you here and all three of us are working, we will make more money!

Comment: I could not do any work for the next 10 minutes. Neither Monica could.

10.They can not hear us anyway!
Few days ago we went to the closest town and had a walk around. Eventually, we went and visited a cemetery, attracted by the beauty of so many flowers and really nice graveyards, totally different from those we are used to back home in Romania.
At some point, Bubu is shouting after me because I was at some distance from her.
Monica: Hey, we should be quiet here. We are in a cemetery and we are not supposed to speak loud.
Bubu: But why?
Monica: Because it is not nice. There are dead people here.
Bubu: But they can not hear us anyway!

Comment: Bubu has a “killing” sense of reality. Later on, after looking at the graveyards, reading names of persons and the ages when they were alive, Bubu realized:
Bubu: From all these people here, I only know Jesus and Grandma Viorica (! my mother). I do not know anyone else.

11.I tried!
Bubu (to Vali): Can you bring me a chewing gum?
Vali: I think you should ask Mom if you are allowed…
Bubu (to Mom): Mom, can I have a gum?
Monica: No, you barely ate something today and you already had chewing gum so far.
Bubu (to Vali): That is true, but I tried!

Comment: SHE IS SMART!