Saving Roşia Montana.

Most of you who read our blog don't live in Romania, so you probably have never heard of Roşia Montana.  (Let's be honest -- I do live in Romania, and I hadn't heard of it until a few weeks ago.)  But you should hear about -- so please read this post.

Roşia Montana is a small community about halfway between Lupeni and Cluj.  And I do mean small -- the area is home to only about 3,000 people.  It's located in the Apuşeni Mountains, and hosts some amazing biodiversity.  It's also the oldest documented community in Romania and is in the process of being considered by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site because of its historical and cultural importance.

Roşia Montana also sits on top of gold.  For many years (since the days of Roman rule, in fact), gold mining has been part of the local economy, usually on a relatively small scale.  But apparently, there are hundreds of tons of gold and over a thousand tons of silver estimated to be extracted, making it potentially the largest gold mine in Europe. The unemployment rate in Roşia Montana is, according to sources I've seen, at 80 percent.  That's oppressively high -- and large-scale mining would certainly provide jobs.

A few years ago, a Canadian corporation called Gabriel Resources made a deal with the Romanian government to buy and start mining gold out of Roşia Montana.  The deal would make a lot of money for the Romanian government and provide a lot of jobs.  But here's the catch: in the process, it would dig out the valley where Roşia Montana sits, thus booting most locals out of their homes; flood another nearby village with a cyanide-poisoned lake; and completely destroy four of the surrounding mountains which are home to such famous biodiversity.

Just a sidenote for those of you wondering about the cyanide: apparently, when there are "fine gold-bearing rocks" (thanks, Wikipedia), it is common practice to grind the rock, mix it with a sodium cyanide solution, and thus separate the gold from the stone.  Unfortunately, this leaves behind the cyanide, which is usually stored in man-made lakes, where there is always high risk of leakage into the groundwater and rivers and streams.  It costs 1.5 million dollars a year to control this waste -- and Romania has a bad history with cyanide waste management.  In 2000, there was a huge cyanide spill from another gold mine near Baia Mare, in northeastern Romania.  The dam holding back the contaminated water broke, causing what is known as the worst environmental disaster in Europe since Chernobyl.

Romanian public opinion is divided over Roşia Montana, and understandably so.  The Romanian economy is struggling, and any promise of foreign investment and jobs is a promise filled with hope.  But over the last few years, more and more Romanians (including many people from Roşia Montana) seem to have decided that the cost and risk is not worth it -- plus, they are angry about the way the government has handled the whole affair.  There have been growing protests, with thousands of people taking the streets in big cities like Bucharest to protest against what they call foreign exploitation and environmental and cultural degradation. 

The more I learn, the more I think I agree.  Living in Lupeni, another mountainous mining community with high unemployment, I can feel the tensions of the Roşia Montana debate in ways I never could before.  But even so, I can't imagine how it would be worth it.  The risks -- the loss of homes and livelihoods, the loss of species and habitat, the risk of water contamination stretching far beyond the limits of Romania, the secretive dealings of the Romanian government with this multinational corporation -- it can't be right.

Most "Western" news sources aren't carrying anything on the Roşia Montana controversy (which, by the way, is currently being stalled by legislative red tape and public protests).  But here are a few articles for you, and a video made by some IMPACT kids and other European youth (cool, huh?).  Please read them.  Please pray for wisdom and transparency on the part of the Romanian government.  Please pray for the voice of the Romanian people to be heard, and for justice to be done.  Please pray for Roşia Montana.

Roşia Montana: Is it worth it?

 

 Helpful articles to read for more information:

• "The Revolution Begins with Roşia Montana"
• "Gabriel Resources CEO Threatens Legal Action"
• "Miners Blocked Underground Refuse to Come Out"
• "Romanians Mobilize in Protest Against Roşia Montana"

Weddings.

Last weekend, there was a wedding at the Pentecostal church across the street from our apartment.  Jack and I often sit and watch the comings and goings of this congregation from our balcony on the fifth floor -- they meet every evening for worship, and we know many of the attendees, so it's fun to wave at friends as they leave the service and we sit outside eating dinner and, occasionally, drinking beer.  (Heathens that we are.)

But anyway.  The whole church thing is a matter for another post.

So, last weekend was a wedding.  We knew the groom a little bit, but we had forgotten that Saturday was his big day -- until we heard the horns.  See, just like funerals, weddings in Lupeni also make a lot of noise.  A lot of noise.  Before the wedding party and guests arrive at the church, they make a few trips through town in their ribbon-festooned cars, blaring their horns as loudly as possible.  It's impossible not to know when a wedding is happening (or two or three, distinguishable only by the various colored ribbons and bows on the cars of the various parties).  You can also tell where the bride lives, as the entrance to that apartment building is adorned the week before the wedding with pine boughs.  It's beautiful and smells delightful (and makes a nice change from the usual stairwell aroma).

I love this, too -- the fact that weddings are occasions of such joy that the whole neighborhood, and in fact, the whole city, gets to hear about it.  (Many times.)  Lupeni is a noisy place all around, with the prolific street dogs and the coal trains that come roaring through town at all hours of day and night.  But this cacophony of joyful horns is a sound I don't mind -- the sound of promises being made and supported by a raucous, enthusiastic "amen."

Beautiful.

Funerals.

Last week, there was a funeral every single day in Lupeni.  I know, because I see the marching band from my desk in the office.

Marching band? you may ask.  Yes.  A marching band.

I haven't yet attended a funeral in Lupeni.  But from what I have observed so far, it seems that the funeral service and the burial in the cemetery are connected by a long parade through town, accompanied by a marching band.  The band, which contains trumpets and clarinets and tubas and a big bass drum, marches slowly in front of the hearse.  The hearse is flanked by pall-bearers, who wear colored bands on their arms and carry enormous funeral wreaths.  Following the hearse is the crowd of mourners, dressed in black, walking slowly to the beat of the big bass drum.  The most bereaved walk in the front, and in the back are usually some stragglers who are chatting and maybe even answering phone calls.  It depends. 

The music is slow and rhythmic.  I would use the word 'stately,' but it just doesn't fit -- there's something almost comical, or at least heartwarming (and not at all stately), about the slightly discordant caterwauling of the clarinets and the strange, repetitive melody the band always plays.  It doesn't make you want to cry.  It doesn't make you want to smile.  It just is -- a slow, steady, honest tune which gets caught in your head, which you find yourself humming while you weed the garden hours later.  It reminds us that death is real, and sad, and a part of life in this broken world, but that it's not the end of all things.  The song is simply too practical for that -- it marches on, slow and steady, with moments of sadness and a groaning tuba followed by moments of smiles, the squawk of a trumpet.  That's how life is, right?  And I think it's appropriate, actually, to be remembering mortality as a community this way, all of us reminded of each other's fragility and sadness and hope through the honest, straightforward strains of the funeral march.

Everyone notices funerals here -- the parade takes up half the street, and cars have to sneak by guiltily, or hover awkwardly behind the walkers until they can turn off the main road.  And that seems right to me too -- that we would all be aware of each other's loss, even as life goes on.  The funeral march goes right by the cell phone store, by the kids playing in the park, by the maxi taxi stop and the street dogs fighting there.  Everyone notices.  Everyone gives deference.  But life goes on.  And that seems right -- because death and loss should be noticed and cared about by communities, even if it takes a marching band to herald it.  But death and loss don't have the last say, and neither does the funeral.  Eventually the music fades, and the parade passes by, and life goes on.  I return to my desk and resume work --glad that death isn't the end.

The first day of school.

Yesterday was the first day of school in Lupeni.  At church on Sunday night the kids were bemoaning the fact that it was their last night of freedom from homework -- but they seemed excited, too, at the prospect of returning to their friends and the rhythms of a new school year.  Fall has already hit Lupeni -- it's cool and cloudy, and the trees covering the mountains are rapidly changing from green to muted bronze and rust and yellow.  Summer is over.  It's time for school.

Apparently it's a Romanian tradition to buy flowers for your teacher on the first day of classes.  All weekend flower sellers were perched on sidewalks and street corners, selling bouquets in crunchy silver foil for 10 lei a piece.  They've disappeared now, just as abruptly as they came.  But yesterday the streets were full of kids walking to and from school buildings in their clean new uniforms, holding parents' hands and clutching tightly their bouquet of flowers.  Little girls wear blue-checked pinafores with white lacy collars; little boys wear tiny black suits and sometimes ties.  The older students don't have uniforms, but they were decked out too, everyone in their very best for the start of the year.

It made me nostalgic for my own first days of school -- lunchbox clutched in one hand, the obligatory picture by the front door, then walking off to explore my way through hallways and schedules and new teachers and old friends.  It's funny how some things are so universal.  So for all of you who are at the beginning of a new year:  Spor la şcoala!

10 students and 6 other folks in the wilderness.

Kelly simply cannot stay out of Retezat National Park. This is the second time she's been there in about a month, but this time I got to go with her.

The students who study here in the fall always go on a 5 or 6 day trip in Retezat for bonding-and-introduction-to-outdoor-educational purposes. And we got to go with them. 

The first mountains...

Our intrepid heroes...

Lake Bucura.

Lake Bucura from above.

On the big peak! We climbed Peleaga on a wonderfully clear day.

Some tired people on top of a very big mountain.

"How big?" you ask?  Big enough to see the smoke from Târgu Jiu, 40km away.

On the way down from Peleaga, it's really beautiful.

They still love each other...

...and are still going strong!

Look at those muscles!

What a group.

Mountain goats!

See you next time, Retezat.

The street dog project.

As you've probably read in previous posts, Lupeni has a bit of a street dog problem.

Well, "a bit" is an understatement.  Lupeni has a lot of street dogs -- some of them adorable, clumsy puppies who waddle around the sidewalks to the amusement of people passing by; others the nasty, mangy type with snarling teeth and matted fur who bark aggressively at anyone who enters their territory.  The other day, walking home from church in the evening, we counted 32 -- on just the main road on our usual Sunday evening walk.  There are hundreds of them, and every year lots of people get bitten.  When I was a student in Lupeni in the fall of 2010, my host mom was attacked and bit on her thigh quite seriously.  The ensuing rabies shots and other treatment added to the trauma so much that she now carries a tazer with her, just in case.

But!  Some of the IMPACT kids in town have decided that this is their next project: to try and contain the problem.  They spent time this spring doing hundreds of surveys (which you can read about here), spent the summer slowly processing results, and now are organizing and petitioning local officials to create a shelter and fund a mass sterilization campaign.

And it's working!  Slowly but surely, even the notoriously inefficient and corrupt town hall of Lupeni is paying attention.  In the last week, some of the IMPACT members and our fellow staff member Gratiela have been interviewed on local television, held a round-table meeting with local officials and wealthy benefactors, and have secured a space to use as an animal shelter.  Next comes the cleanup and finding vets (and funding) to do the capture and sterilization campaign, so there's a lot of work left.  (Any vets reading this and want to volunteer your services?)

But still.  I'm pumped... and so, so proud of them.

Larisa, Gratiela, and Rebeca talk about the IMPACT 

street dogs project on local TV.