Our hotel is literally only 1 of 2 hotels in this town.  The receptionist when we checked in was proud to tell us that the hotel was 1.full 2. with workers from the tire manufacturing plant and 3. where border guards from Germany stay.

These are not “ordinary” cops, and the 4 VW Vanagans they plug in with satellite dishes

on their roofs, no windows- not ordinary VW’s.  No mind- just interesting 2 aid workers working with the population these police use excessive force with on an hourly basis.

Yesterday one of the camp managers (not the head guy, but one who is on the campus almost daily) when asked what the camp needed said “deworming medication, flea medication and tick medication for the dogs on camp”.  Done.  We stopped at the vet office and picked up those items plus the hugest bag of dog food we could find.  If the camp manager is happy……….then the refugees are happy.

Edin and Anita are glad for the car rides, not only does it cut 2 hours from their day they

would have to do to walk to and from the camp, we used the van to haul supply items they can put into the cabinets we bought.

We put the medicine on the mama dog and her 5 puppies, they are NOT going to be feeling well tonight!

Amanda and I taught the children their English class- we totally get into it.  These kids are so dang smart and want to please us.  I gave most of them all homework to practice writing their vocabulary words- so cute.

We left the camp about noon and headed the hour drive East to Bulgaria.  We were to close to pass up a new stamp in our passports.  It was an easy drive- parallel to a brand new 4 lane high way.  No worries- we are fine with the goat/sheep path you call a 2 lane road we can share with the semi-trucks on the road.

We wound our way to the center of the city- parked.  We actually took someones spot.  Because globalization is a real thing

in Sofia, Bulgaria we:  first had gelato from Italy (it looked really good), then we had French crepes then got back in our Serbian made car to drive back to Serbia.  Well first we had to pay the nice parking man his fine for parking and not calling/texting the city.  He wanted 40euro, we didn’t that many euro.  We offered him 20Euro and $10USD.  He took it and we were off and on our way back to Belgrade.

Almost to the border with Serbia we were pulled over – the immigration/border officer was very nice.  He had never met 2 girls from Canada and the US.  We are traveling in a big van.  He was looking to see if we were smuggling refugees.

As he took our passports to his waiting van we slowly tucked away all of the kids drawings we had gotten as gifts

from the kids.  Our van already has that lived in look that only these trips can do to a vehicle interior.  It could be we eat and nap in them almost daily!

In most countries in Europe besides Italy and Greece, when refugees are caught by the police they are beaten, their phones are broken and they are often put into detention centers.

We were free to go, we made our way to Belgrade being followed by a very big thunderstorm.