Chapter 15
8-9-14 – Everyday I’ve been taking the kids to the lake. It is refreshing for them, though personally, I will not go in that water. It is disgustingly dirty, I have no idea ‘where’ that water comes from, what runs off in it, and what people are doing in it, but the kids are fine with it. There are no areas where you can see ‘bottom’, and that is one thing I was taught, don’t swim where you can’t see some bottom. Though we contemplated not going today due to it being Saturday thinking it would be crowded, today was like any other; about 40 random people, a mixture of young and old, enjoying the lake on a 90 degree + day. Kids were frolicking in the water and working on their swimming skills.
About 4:00 a group of gypsies arrived. They placed their blanket about 10 feet from me. There were 7 adults, and 11 children, several under the age of 5. The kids immediately wanted to go in the water, as kids would have…and the adults went in with the little ones. After about 30 minutes the adults emerged from the water, and started to prepare their picnic, pulling 2 benches together working on both sides of the bench, with some working towards the water, others their backs to the water. I was busy watching our kids, Nastia, Angel, Artur and Rada can’t swim, so I keep a close eye on them. Never far from my mind is the death of my friend Oleg Shafer, just 21 and he knew how to swim…so here I am with other people’s kids, I’m going to be extra careful to watch them…
The gypsies aren’t watching their kids, and I remember they had one little girl, Erica (they called her name several times), blonde and blue eyed, about 14-15 months old. All of a sudden the patriarch of the family says, ‘Erica, Erica.’ and goes running towards the water…the child is floating face down in the water. He snags her from the water, flips her limp body over, and started smacking her on the back…I so much wanted to get up and help them, as they did not have the child at the right angle to get the water out of her lungs. She didn’t respond. He just kept smacking her, and finally, she threw up a lot of water. Looking at them, she still did not respond to them…they brought her over to the blanket area, and held her upright…not a good idea, and she was limp and did not respond. She appeared to be in shock, and could not breath…they turned her over and smacked her again and again on the back and she threw up again, and this time, she started to cry, …good sign…though they accomplished it in a very odd way, it worked.! I wanted to help, but did not, I just silently prayed for that child, that she would survive this ordeal. The grandfather was extremely upset that no one seemed to be watching the children, and he verbally scolded all the adults. They were well ‘shamed’ for their lack of attention to the little ones in the water…but for today, it wasn’t Erica’s day to go to the Father.