A new baby

sO I know its been a while since my last post. A lot has happened. On Cinco de Mayo, but host sister had a baby. 10 fingers, ten toes, good length, good weight. All good. Yet, I have not seen the baby yet. No, its not because I haven’t been home. Its not because the baby is an alien baby that has been taken back to its home planet. Its because, by Russian law, all babies must remain in the hospital, along with their mother’s, for a minimum of 6 days after the birth. Maybe this is Russia’s way of curbing disease. I mean the idea makes sense. Keep the baby under lock and key, monitor the baby. Keep the mother for six days, completely bored. Not even being able to see the baby until day two, for fear that the mother has some disease. Of course, Russia could just fix this problem of extended hospital stays by having cleaner hospitals. Just a thought. In fact, most children in Russia are very sickly. One day in one of my classes we were discussing illness and missing school. Our teacher was shocked when we told her that when we are sick as youngsters with the cold, we will miss one or two days of school. This is a combination of the fact that our parents usually cant take off my than that many days of school, and that in a couple of days we are all better. My teacher was shocked. In Russia, when a student is ill it is a mandatory 10 days off from school. And one of the parents also takes off work, although, in Russia, it is usually always the woman. I mean really, 10 days for the cold? If I had to be out of school for ten days, then I would have been in the hospital, ie, with some serious disease or ailment. But I think it comes from a different perspective on life. Russians describe themselves as having a national character of “laziness” so maybe that is the root of all of this.