Gems.

I have a lot of stories from the last week or so.  Some are happy and some are sad, so be warned.  But that’s what life is like here: a strange mix of beautiful and horrifying, of grandeur and gloom, of wealth and poverty, of happy and sad.  It’s art.  It’s real.  Or as a famous British writer once said,

“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.”   
[Freya Stark]

So here come the stories.

1)  On Friday, I walked with Andreea and Mădălina to school.  Mădă’s school is at the bottom of Straja Road, about fifteen minutes from the farm, so she leaves at 7:30 to get there (and comes home at noon).  I’d never been to her school, so Andreea took me all the way in to her classroom so I could see it.  It was similar to American elementary schools: tidy groupings of desks, a collection of rocks and pinecones and assorted nature-y things in the cupboards, a few spinning globes, bright posters on the walls.  The only differences were the adorable blue-checkered uniforms of the little girls (and the suits of the little boys) and the fact that everything was in Romanian…

Mădălina had been sick the day before, and in that time they’d switched seats, so her friend informed her of her new spot in the classroom.  And suddenly Mădălina, usually pretty cheerful, turned sullen: she had to sit next to a boy she didn’t like!  I almost laughed out loud at the pouty look on her face… but instead I walked over to her and showed her how to build a wall with her pencil case.  Probably not the most mature response, but it made her smile at least…

2)  Friday:  I got ripped off for being a foreigner for the first time today.  (At least, the first time that I’ve noticed.  It might have happened before, but I’m just clueless.)  It was Friday night, and Marit and I were beginning the long climb back up Straja Road to our host families’ homes after an evening out.  We’d been in this strange little bar under a restaurant in town with a couple of the Romanian girls who had worked at Viaţa this summer, drinking hot chocolate and trying to ignore the progressively-louder catcalls and comments of the drunk guys at the table next to ours.  We left rather early, knowing we had a half-hour hike ahead of us in the dark.  Both of us were hungry, so as we walked away from the smoky little pub towards Straja, we kept looking for places still open to sell food.  We shied away from the first two stores (one was swarmed with 12-year-old boys and seemed to sell only Pringles and candy; the other had two women in it, one plucking the other’s moustache… we didn’t feel like braving either of those situations).  Anyway, right before the shortcut, we came across a EuroRiva (these little non-stop corner stores) that had a fruit stand outside.  I bought a big orange… for almost three lei.  Which is, like, a dollar.  Which is probably more than I’d pay for an orange in the States.  It certainly wasn’t a big deal (and it was 10 o’clock at night, so I wasn’t about to say anything), but it was way more than the price marked on the sign.  Oh well.  It was delicious.  I can’t breathe and chew and climb a mountain at the same time, but the juice dripped all over my fingers and it tasted so good… so it was worth it.

3)  Sunday morning Marit and I went to Father Ciocan’s Orthodox church.  It was pouring rain when we left our homes, so by the time we made it to the main road, we were both pretty wet, even with raincoats and umbrellas.  We stood on the streetcorner to wait for Kadie to join us, but as we got progressively wetter and she didn’t show up, we just decided to go alone.  (Sorry, Kadie.)  We kept walking, trying to speed along in our sodden shoes so we could make it to the service on time, passing a bunch of little old ladies in their practical black all-weather shoes, Marit in (now-hopelessly-squishy) flats and me in… hiking boots.  (I was styling.)  We made it on time somehow, and entered the church’s heavy wooden gate at the bottom of the hill.  From there, a winding cobblestone path leads to the top of the steep hill, where the church is situated.  The hill is covered in graves, most of them adorned abundantly with flowers.  It’s really quite beautiful, if a little sad in the pouring rain.  We followed an old woman up the hill (she was also wearing practical non-slip old lady shoes, I noticed) and entered the church behind her.  Unsure of what to do or where to sit, we stood quietly in the entryway—which ended up being a pretty good strategy, because the sanctuary was already almost full, and everyone was moving around constantly anyway.  Having never been to an Orthodox service before, I was pretty lost—people stand, kneel, sit, walk around, etc., at will (or so it seems to an outsider, anyway).  There are three doors in the front of the sanctuary; the priest, who is adorned in a heavy gold and red robe, enters and exits the middle door frequently, all as part of the liturgy.  The murmur of his prayers and chants, in a resonant baritone, were beautiful, as was the accompanying singing of the congregation.  Though by the end of the service I was antsy from standing for two hours, and though the only thing I picked up from the sermon was the phrase “fishers of men,” the music was glorious.  Heavenly.  Sometime I’ll write a better description… for now, on to the next story.

4)  Caving.  Tibi invited us over for lunch at his apartment on Sunday afternoon (hooray! He’s the best cook I’ve ever met!  And I’ve decided that stuffed peppers are my favorite food…), and after that, he promised we’d go caving.  It was still pouring, so we weren’t sure we’d still get to go, but he assured us that rain wouldn’t stop us.  So the six of us jumped onto a maxitaxi and rode past Uricani, getting off in the middle of the countryside.  We then walked about half an hour along this beautiful gravel road, in the pouring rain, all our clothes plastered to our bodies, thunder and lightning ripping up the sky… it was really epic.  Eventually we made it to the first cave, which we ducked into… and within a minute or two we were army-crawling, slithering through the mud in a passage so narrow that it reminded me of the Cu Chi tunnels in Vietnam.  I was filthy and wet and so, so happy.  It was great.  I could write on and on about the craziness of spelunking, but it’s hard to describe… so suffice it to say it was the best Sunday afternoon ever.  And that our maxitaxi driver gave us some very funny looks on the way back home.

5)  Monday afternoon: Mădălina and I had already played volleyball and kickball with her purple flowered plastic ball for a long time, so I volunteered a new idea—let’s climb up the mountain to the top of the farm and watch the sun set over the mountains.  She was okay with the idea, so we climbed through the orchards, skirting wet spots in the grass from the deluge of the past two days, until we reached the top fence, beyond which the horse was grazing.  We sat in silence for a while, watching the clouds billow and shift over Retezat in the distance, and then Mădălina got antsy.  Standing, she pulled on my arm and, with that now-familiar impish grin, asked me if I want to run down the hill.  Hand-in-hand.  With our eyes closed. 

Uh, no, Mădălina.  I don’t really want to break any bones today, I thought.  But I can’t resist her smile, and she usually brings out the child in me anyway, so I agreed.  I cheated, of course, and opened my eyes for fear of running into a tree… but down the hill we ran (more of an awkward gallop for me), giggling the whole time.  At the bottom we fell to the ground and laughed; before I caught my breath she was up and tugging at me to go again.  And again, and again, until the last time, I stopped and sat down at the top.  Pauza, I gasped.  She agreed and flopped down next to me.  Next thing I know, she’s put her pink checkered baseball cap on my head and rested her head on my shoulder.  We’re friends.  The moment is sweet.  And then she’s up again, jumping at me for the hat, and we raced back down the hill, all the way to the house.

6)  I’ve decided that the radio in our kitchen is possessed by the devil.  Seriously.  I hate that thing.  Andreea really likes it, so she turns it on (loudly) every time she’s in the house, but I have often contemplated turning it back off.  (Or taking a knife to the wire… but that seems a little rude.)  Seriously, though.  Why is one of the phenomenons of globalization that all the crappy American music makes it on to every radio station around the world?  And why do DJs have to play the same six songs over and over and over?  If I’m relieved when Lady Gaga’s “Alejandro” comes on, you know there’s a problem.  Sigh…

7)  There’s a family of dogs who live on Straja Road that Marit and I pass every morning and evening on our way in and out of Lupeni.  They’re adorable.  Originally, it was just the mom and the runt of the litter who’d follow behind us, toenails clicking on the pavement and tails wagging.  One day the whole herd was there: four or five puppies, each soft and cuddly and adorable, plus mom and dad, who followed us vigilantly, making sure we weren’t going to annoy their children.  They’ve become a fixture of my walk to and from school now; I’m no longer worried by them at all.  But today… oh, this is terrible.  This afternoon, as I was walking in to school, I saw one of the puppies lying in the middle of the road, still and quiet, with none of the others nearby.  As I approached, I realized he was lying in a pool of blood.  He’d been hit by a car—one of those stupid reckless drivers on Straja Road, I assume—and was dead.  As I gasped and stopped, suddenly I heard his mom barking from behind the fence: deep, angry, sad barks.  I guess mothers mourn in every species.  It was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  I glared threateningly at every racing car I saw after that…

8)  Recent food adventures: well, for dinner on Sunday night Andreea made spiral pasta with sugar.  It was okay for the first few bites... but after that, I decided I never want to eat sugary pasta again.  Ever.  Then Monday night we had spaghetti—with chunks of ham and onions, in a thin tomato sauce, then smothered in ketchup.  That one was actually pretty good.  And today (Tuesday) I spent the morning making rosehip jam with Andreea.  We poured about a million bags of sugar into rosehip puree and boiled it over a wood fire for two hours, stirring constantly, chatting about everything and nothing as the sun poured in through the open kitchen window... it was heavenly.

9)  This afternoon we talked to Lupeni’s Catholic priest for our Eastern Orthodoxy class to hear what life was like under communism.  We talked for hours—it was after 8 o’clock when we left—but two stories really stuck out.

The first was funny.  At one point he was in a village where the communist leaders were planning to bulldoze down the Orthodox church, and all the villagers were just bemoaning their fate but not doing anything about it.  He spoke to them and encouraged them to do something about it—and not just anything, but to trick the communists.  So they came up with a plan: they hid in the woods around the church with sticks and pots and pans and dogs and anything else that made noise, and when the communists came with their bulldozers, made such a racket that they gave up and left the church intact.  Ridiculous.  Creative.  I love it.

The second story isn’t funny at all.  Skip it if you’re queasy.  He told us about being called to the deathbed Orthodox priest he knew who worked as an informant for the Secretariat.  As he lay dying, this man confessed why he had given in and become a communist spy; the story is appalling.  In the middle of the night, his home was broken into, and he and his wife and son were carted off to be interrogated.  After hours of fruitless questioning, he was given an ultimatum.  They showed him his wife, her head bleeding and her clothes torn apart, and said they’d set her on fire in front of him if he didn’t become an informant for them. 

He signed the papers.

Such is the evil of communism.

10)  Tonight Andreea is working the night shift, and I got back late from class, so Mădălina was already in bed.  Florin and I sat down to dinner (roşii cu sare şi piper, pâine, şi ciorba cu legume… mmm) at about 9 (dinner’s always late here—usually at about 8 pm).  Somehow—I forget how it started—we got to talking about corruption.  Wow.  I’ve never heard Florin talk that much.  Usually my host father is the quiet, gentle type—super nice, obviously kind, quick to smile and easy to laugh, but not one for chit-chat.  He doesn’t speak a whole lot of English, and I don’t speak a whole lot of Romanian, but in our inarticulate mix of the two, we were able to communicate.  And it blew my mind.  Florin, who has never raised his voice, even at the animals on the farm, hates corruption.

It’s all over Romania, very bad, he explained.  In the politics, in the government, up to the president—in the universities, in Lupeni, in the churches—it’s all money, money, money.  I asked him about the mayor here.  A few days ago Andreea and I had walked into town together and she had pointed out a large house under construction along the road.  That’s the mayor’s house, she explained.  One of many.  I understood what she meant—in this place where it costs thousands to build, and where a large portion of the population is still unemployed or barely eking out a living, the fact that the mayor is building one more house is a slap in the face.

Florin continued venting.  Some people have five children, two adults, go into the forest to find food, are very skinny, he said.  No money.  But the mayor, the rich—they have a lot of money.  It’s bad.  Romania is a disaster.

He talked about the churches too, which surprised me.  One pastor, he said, had received some donations from the States—food, clothing, shoes, etc.  And instead of handing it out to people as expected, he brought it to a store to be sold, and received money from it.  Corruption, he said, shaking his head and scowling.  Romania, disaster.

But is it better than it was under communism? I asked.  He shook his head.  Nu, he replied.  During communism, at least it was somewhat organized.  Now it’s just a mess, and the rich get richer while the poor scrape by.  Very corrupt.  His answer surprised me somewhat.  He had just finished telling me about his years in school (in the 1980s) at the end of Romanian communism—how they were physically punished by their teachers by being slapped and smacked with rulers and forced to stand in the corner with their arms stretched above their heads for an hour.  Somehow, when he compared the miseries of life under communism to the economic and political mess in Romania currently, he didn’t think the country was much better off now.

Sad.