Back when a hamster was my only friend

When I was nine years old I lived in Bosnia with my mother and my sister for a year. Neither my sister or I spoke a word of the mother tongue nor did any of the local children speak English. We lived in a three building apartment complex that was almost completely un-touched by the war (I say almost because in that post-war state machine gun bullet holes in every wall was more or less ‘untouched’.) There were numerous families and a semi-functioning playground. The tower we lived in had a mini mart on the ground flower that sold eggs, ham and Kinder Bueno chocolates. Before my sister and I managed to breech the language barrier our only source of entertainment were the toys in the middle of the chocolates. We collected our own circus of toys. There were elephants and monkeys and aliens. It was magical. Sometimes our washing machine would burst open and flood the apartment and in those special moments my sister and I would seize the opportunity to let our toys swim! At some point she decided that her elephant toy was to have magical powers, but when I wanted my elephant to be magical too she shut me down. It broke my heart. Playing with the toys was never the same once her elephant was magical and mine was not.
After my mother realized that we no longer had the same awe for those little plastic toys as we had for the first couple of months of living there she decided to buy us a pet. One day she brought home a little sandy brown hamster. We named him Bobby McGee after my mother’s favourite Janis Joplin song. We used to feed him whole baby carrots and watch him stick them in his cheeks, it was so cute. My mum used to tell us storied about little Bobbie McGee riding out on a hamster-sized Harley Davidson when we were all asleep. I was in awe of the little creature.
Soon enough my sister made friends with some of the local girls. They brought over a Britney Spears poster and signed all their names on it. After that language didn’t matter, my sister and the fellow Britney Spears fans were fast friends. I didn’t quite fit in. Don’t get me wrong, I loved Britney Spears as much as the next crazed 90’s tween, but I still felt uncomfortable in the absence of English. Therefore I opted to stay home with Bobby McGee. Soon the little hamster was my nearest and dearest friend. He even trumped my sister because I was sure he would let both of our elephant toys have magical powers (I told her this once and she was rather un-impressed.)
Now I am happy to say I do have quite a few human friends, but I still remember the look in that little hamsters eyes when we were leaving Bosnia and had to give him away to a friend (my sister’s friend, not mine) and it breaks my heart all over again.