Hi friends. Sorry you haven't heard from me in a while.
I'm writing this while sitting in a room in Iași, Romania, that belongs to a guy who works for the Orthodox Church office that covers the Moldova and Bucovina areas of Romania. Tomorrow, I'll be heading to Chișinău, the capital city of the Republic of Moldova. I'll explain.
About three weeks ago, Kelly and I hopped into Ilie's (my boss) car to go to Deva, the county seat, to renew our residence permits. We had the papers necessary, we were doing it on time, and our accountant, Ibrian, had already called ahead to ask if the county police's computers were up and running (if you remember a year ago, software malfunctions prevented us from applying for residence permits on our first try). It's an hour and a half drive, so we don't go to Deva often. Just for business.
As soon as we arrived, Ibrian went to the county police station to ask if we had authorization to begin the process. He was unsure if we would be able to since we hadn't paid health insurance to the county since last March. When we tried, the insurance people told us that we weren't in the tax system, so we couldn't pay. When we asked the tax people, they asked, "Well, how can they not be in the system?" Ibrian's question for them was, "Yeah, how could they not be in the system?" He was amazed that they were so adamantly refusing to take money. "I mean, we're trying to pay them!"
I don't know.
He came out of the police station and said, "Okay guys, bad news." I figured this meant we had to return to the Jiu Valley and pay our insurance there before we could even think about applying. But I was wrong. "They told me that the law just changed, and that you can't hold a permit for volunteering purposes for more than one year now, and since all the papers we have are for you to be volunteers, they aren't helpful anymore. We have to find another way to get a permit for you."
I was disappointed, but I had almost expected something like this. An impediment in our process of prolonging residency. I mean, it's an awfully difficult and expensive process to get even a visa to enter US territory for a Romanian, so why should we expect it to be a simple process for us? Even so, at least they could have told us about the law change before we went there and prepared all the papers. A small headache.
The bigger headache was now, what do we do? Our permits were going to expire in three weeks, and we didn't have enough time to try to apply again before they did. If we were caught with expired permits, we'd be, at the least, kicked out of Romania for 6 months, and probably fined on top of that. What made this urgent was that Kelly was scheduled to go to Nicaragua and Haiti for three weeks, right as our visas were expiring, to do some IMPACT trainings. What if she was caught with an expired permit in the Bucharest airport? We were really worried for a few days until we got the facts.
Kelly's trip would actually be great. We have to be out of the country when our permits expire so that we're not violating out legal stay. After that, we're just like any old American who wants to get into Romania, who has 90 days from their entry point to either apply for longer residence or leave. The only thing then was to figure out where I should go.
Ilie and I had a meeting in Durău, in the north-east part of Romania, scheduled for this week, so I figured my best bet is going to the Republic of Moldova, just another 100 kilometers or so east. This meeting was with two guys and a woman (who used to work at VIATA, actually) to talk about building ropes courses for their camps in Durău and in Nemțișor, by a big monastery. Ilie and I stayed in the monastery in Durău the night, ate there, went with these guys to Nemțișor and ate at the monastery there, and then talked about the ins and outs of adding a ropes course to their activities. The Orthodox network of monasteries made an impression on me - it seems that within a day's drive, but maybe even as close as an hour away, there is a place with people who are willing to receive you, feed you, put you up for the night, talk, show their place's history. The Church was receiving us, and I felt taken care of.
A crazy thing is that the Nemțișor Monastery has on its grounds one of Nicolae Ceaușescu's hunting lodges still on it. It's a nice, modest building with a good terrace for viewing the terrain and comfortable rooms. But I walked in a place where the dictator used to walk. Stood on his balcony. Made fun of his lodge having bugs inside it. I never thought I'd get to do something like that.
Vlad, one of the guys we were meeting with, offered to put me up at his place while I'm in transit to Rep. Moldova. He's not much older than me, and we had a good conversation this morning about childhood development through challenge, and how the pain or shame in our lives is an agent of improvement by God's hand. Again, I've been received.
And now, I will hopefully go on to be received again by our friend Rachel, whom we met at an IMPACT training last May. She works with Word Made Flesh in Chișinău, and I'll stay with her and her husband Vitali, a Ukrainian, for the few days I'm there. Incidentally, if Vitali's nationality made you think about the unrest and confusion in Ukraine, read about the developments the Russian annex of Crimea has done to heightened concerns of a similar thing happening in the Republic of Moldova and Transnistria (http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/russia-to-annex-transdnistria-/80127.aspx). This concern caused Romania's president and Rep. Moldova's president to have a talk about Moldova speeding up its process of joining the EU. Let's all pray this annexing and protesting keeps violence to a minimum, or non-existant.
There's my story. Hopefully, Kelly and I will have no problems coming back into Romania and applying for Religious Work permits through our church. We'll keep you all updated.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Pizza parties.
Last night, Jack and I hosted 20 kids from our IMPACT club for a pizza party at our home.
For those of you who have visited Apartment Lucy, you'll know this was quite a feat. Our apartment isn't very big, with reasonable seating for about 6 in the kitchen and 8-10 in the living room (including sitting people on the bunk beds). But the IMPACT kids had been clamoring for a pizza and movie evening, and as the only leaders with a functioning oven, we were it.
It was really fun, actually. At 5:30 precisely we heard the sound of laughter and footsteps coming up the stairs, and soon there were 20 pairs of shoes littering the entryway, smiling faces and talkative preteens passing olives and canned corn and sheep cheese onto the kitchen table. We quickly assigned tasks, setting the kids to work chopping and spreading sauce onto the five pizza pans we'd procured from friends, and soon the kitchen was abuzz with laughter and conversation and queries: how should we chop these mushrooms? Where is the grater? Could you please pass the ham?
Eventually the preparation frenzy passed, and we slipped the pizzas two-by-two into the oven. As the smell of dough and cheese filled the apartment, we played a crazy game of Fishbowl, Jack slipping out periodically to pop new pizzas into the oven. (We made 10 pizzas, by the way. I used every single bowl in our apartment to hold the dough as it was rising.) Finally we ate, smacking contentedly as we balanced paper plates on our laps (we don't have anywhere close to 20 plates) and doused our pizza in ketchup (...it's a Romanian thing). Eventually we settled down to watch Frozen with Romanian subtitles, squeezed on to the bunkbeds and couches in our little living room, full and happy.
It was really fun. Tiring and messy, but fun. (I still haven't remade the bunkbeds in the living room -- they were such coveted locations that the sheets and pillows all got ripped off and thrown around, and I just haven't mustered the energy to start untangling yet.) Jack and I agreed, once again, that we weren't ready to have kids quite yet -- at least not 20 of them at once, and definitely not a dozen between the ages of 11 and 13. But despite the slightly-overwhelming-chaos of the whole evening, we really had fun. We're learning a lot about how to be good youth leaders -- how to provide space for fun but still maintain safety and authority, how to look out for their minds and their hearts. It's tiring, and maybe a little bit more than I bargained for -- but I'm glad for it. And super glad that this learning curve contains so much pizza.
For those of you who have visited Apartment Lucy, you'll know this was quite a feat. Our apartment isn't very big, with reasonable seating for about 6 in the kitchen and 8-10 in the living room (including sitting people on the bunk beds). But the IMPACT kids had been clamoring for a pizza and movie evening, and as the only leaders with a functioning oven, we were it.
It was really fun, actually. At 5:30 precisely we heard the sound of laughter and footsteps coming up the stairs, and soon there were 20 pairs of shoes littering the entryway, smiling faces and talkative preteens passing olives and canned corn and sheep cheese onto the kitchen table. We quickly assigned tasks, setting the kids to work chopping and spreading sauce onto the five pizza pans we'd procured from friends, and soon the kitchen was abuzz with laughter and conversation and queries: how should we chop these mushrooms? Where is the grater? Could you please pass the ham?
Everyone working!
Mm... Romanian-style pizza (though we conveniently left off the eggs...)
Kelly with Roxana, Adina, and Eliza, after the crowd had cleared.
Eventually the preparation frenzy passed, and we slipped the pizzas two-by-two into the oven. As the smell of dough and cheese filled the apartment, we played a crazy game of Fishbowl, Jack slipping out periodically to pop new pizzas into the oven. (We made 10 pizzas, by the way. I used every single bowl in our apartment to hold the dough as it was rising.) Finally we ate, smacking contentedly as we balanced paper plates on our laps (we don't have anywhere close to 20 plates) and doused our pizza in ketchup (...it's a Romanian thing). Eventually we settled down to watch Frozen with Romanian subtitles, squeezed on to the bunkbeds and couches in our little living room, full and happy.
Some of the boys on the top bunk...
It was really fun. Tiring and messy, but fun. (I still haven't remade the bunkbeds in the living room -- they were such coveted locations that the sheets and pillows all got ripped off and thrown around, and I just haven't mustered the energy to start untangling yet.) Jack and I agreed, once again, that we weren't ready to have kids quite yet -- at least not 20 of them at once, and definitely not a dozen between the ages of 11 and 13. But despite the slightly-overwhelming-chaos of the whole evening, we really had fun. We're learning a lot about how to be good youth leaders -- how to provide space for fun but still maintain safety and authority, how to look out for their minds and their hearts. It's tiring, and maybe a little bit more than I bargained for -- but I'm glad for it. And super glad that this learning curve contains so much pizza.
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Pickles in the stairwell (and other thoughts on neighborliness).
Our stairwell smells like pickles.
Just to clarify, there are no pickles there -- it's actually our neighbor's woodpile. For some reason the wood they burn in their stove to heat their apartment is extremely pungent, and it really, really, really smells like pickles from the instant you hit the second floor on up. But it's not that bad -- funny, really, and a better alternative than the more typical dank-mold-stench that wafts from the basement of most apartment blocs.
Anyway, that's not really the focus of this post. As many of you who read this blog know, it has been one of our consistent prayers and dreams to get to know the neighbors in our stairwell -- those eight apartments we pass by on the way to our own, the last apartment on the top floor. Our neighbors directly across the hall have been a source of a bit of sadness and stress for me, as they are quite standoffish and unfriendly, and tend to leave their trash/shoes/bicycles/wood/couch/ladders/etc. scattered across the landing in front of our door. But we're making progress on that front -- we're taking turns putting in new lightbulbs when the landing goes dark, and nodding in acknowledgment of each other on the street. Each time feels like a little victory for me.
Our downstairs neighbors, though -- they've been much more friendly! It's not typical in Romanian culture to get to know your neighbors, to chat and exchange recipes or borrow cups of sugar -- and that's something I've missed since leaving our lovely neighbors on Calkins. I've lowered my expectations for neighborliness -- no more shared compost piles and community dinners in this stage of our life (at least not yet!). And that's what has made the past few weeks so sweet.
In the last month, we've been invited into two of our neighbors' homes: the elderly couple on floor 2 who we sometimes help carry groceries for, and the superintendent and his wife on floor 3, who I was totally intimidated by when we first moved in. The Dreptates (they're the elderly couple on the second floor) invited me in one day after work, and then when Jack arrived a little later they brought him in too, pouring us tall glasses of homemade wine and sitting down to talk for almost two hours. They've lived in this bloc for over 30 years, ever since it was first constructed, and they were happy to tell us about the other neighbors, the two empty apartments, the changes they've experienced in the building and in the community since they first moved in to bloc A2. It was lovely, and we all promised to do it again sometime -- but even if it doesn't happen, it was wonderful to feel like we'd been welcomed for the first time by our neighbors. Now we often see Mr. Dreptate outside, playing parcheesi with a group of old men, and greeting him by name is a delight.
Then, just a few days ago, we stopped at our superintendent's door to mention that our doorbell/intercom wasn't working. He invited us in to explain the problem, and we got to talking, until finally his wife scolded him to let us come sit down. She made us tiny cups of strong coffee and we talked about Lupeni for long time while our groceries wilted by the door and their grandkids ran in and out of the kitchen. They were really understanding people, interested in and appreciative of the work of FNO and youth development. And again, I left with a grin on my face, promises of coffee in our own apartment sometime.
I am trying to keep my optimism at a realistic level about life in bloc A2. But these two encounters have been balm for my soul, a small taste of acceptance and welcome, a delight. Now the superintendent is working to get the basement cleaned out and sanitized, with all the neighbors chipping in money to pay for the removal of the mold and muck. I was so happy to be asked to pay our portion -- because for now, these are our neighbors and this is our neighborhood. And now it's starting to feel like it. Pickle smell and all.
Just to clarify, there are no pickles there -- it's actually our neighbor's woodpile. For some reason the wood they burn in their stove to heat their apartment is extremely pungent, and it really, really, really smells like pickles from the instant you hit the second floor on up. But it's not that bad -- funny, really, and a better alternative than the more typical dank-mold-stench that wafts from the basement of most apartment blocs.
Anyway, that's not really the focus of this post. As many of you who read this blog know, it has been one of our consistent prayers and dreams to get to know the neighbors in our stairwell -- those eight apartments we pass by on the way to our own, the last apartment on the top floor. Our neighbors directly across the hall have been a source of a bit of sadness and stress for me, as they are quite standoffish and unfriendly, and tend to leave their trash/shoes/bicycles/wood/couch/ladders/etc. scattered across the landing in front of our door. But we're making progress on that front -- we're taking turns putting in new lightbulbs when the landing goes dark, and nodding in acknowledgment of each other on the street. Each time feels like a little victory for me.
Our downstairs neighbors, though -- they've been much more friendly! It's not typical in Romanian culture to get to know your neighbors, to chat and exchange recipes or borrow cups of sugar -- and that's something I've missed since leaving our lovely neighbors on Calkins. I've lowered my expectations for neighborliness -- no more shared compost piles and community dinners in this stage of our life (at least not yet!). And that's what has made the past few weeks so sweet.
In the last month, we've been invited into two of our neighbors' homes: the elderly couple on floor 2 who we sometimes help carry groceries for, and the superintendent and his wife on floor 3, who I was totally intimidated by when we first moved in. The Dreptates (they're the elderly couple on the second floor) invited me in one day after work, and then when Jack arrived a little later they brought him in too, pouring us tall glasses of homemade wine and sitting down to talk for almost two hours. They've lived in this bloc for over 30 years, ever since it was first constructed, and they were happy to tell us about the other neighbors, the two empty apartments, the changes they've experienced in the building and in the community since they first moved in to bloc A2. It was lovely, and we all promised to do it again sometime -- but even if it doesn't happen, it was wonderful to feel like we'd been welcomed for the first time by our neighbors. Now we often see Mr. Dreptate outside, playing parcheesi with a group of old men, and greeting him by name is a delight.
Then, just a few days ago, we stopped at our superintendent's door to mention that our doorbell/intercom wasn't working. He invited us in to explain the problem, and we got to talking, until finally his wife scolded him to let us come sit down. She made us tiny cups of strong coffee and we talked about Lupeni for long time while our groceries wilted by the door and their grandkids ran in and out of the kitchen. They were really understanding people, interested in and appreciative of the work of FNO and youth development. And again, I left with a grin on my face, promises of coffee in our own apartment sometime.
I am trying to keep my optimism at a realistic level about life in bloc A2. But these two encounters have been balm for my soul, a small taste of acceptance and welcome, a delight. Now the superintendent is working to get the basement cleaned out and sanitized, with all the neighbors chipping in money to pay for the removal of the mold and muck. I was so happy to be asked to pay our portion -- because for now, these are our neighbors and this is our neighborhood. And now it's starting to feel like it. Pickle smell and all.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Sochi.
It's been interesting to be living abroad for the Olympics this year. I have to say it's actually pretty refreshing -- the coverage is nonstop on Romanian television, with a lot fewer athlete interviews and a lot more sports, and far more even coverage of athletes from all over the world, rather than only the Americans. I miss the NBC trumpet fanfare, but other than that, I think I'd take this vantage point any day.
But it's also been interesting to watch some of the comments on Sochi -- the city itself, the messy and unfinished hotels, the dirty water, the corruption. Through the grapevine of social media and John Stewart, Jack and I have quickly come to realize that Sochi has become a bit of a laughingstock to a lot of Americans.
And it makes me mad.
I know that cross-cultural experiences have their fair share of humor. Mistakes in translation, new foods that startle our palate, and new experiences where we are entirely out of our element -- these things make us laugh, and help us see the world with delight. But there's an important distinction between this sort of delighted-wow-this-is-crazy laughter, and the laughter of disdain and sarcasm, directed at problems you have no intention of becoming involved in.
Corruption isn't funny. Dirty tap water isn't funny either. The fact that the Russian government couldn't even put on a facade to cover these problems, despite the investment of over 50 billion dollars, should make us react not with judgment and ironic humor, but with alarm and sorrow -- because if this is what the "cream of the crop" is getting, what's the reality in the rest of Russia? How dare privileged athletes and journalists from the richest country in the world poke fun at a culture and people they hardly know? (And while I'm at it, how dare they forget that in many communities in their own country, the conditions aren't much better...)
We seem to have forgotten that the struggles of the rest of the world aren't fodder for jokes. The dirty water thing, for instance. Yes, you could joke about it... but the reality is that the water has been polluted because the Russian corporation in charge of much of the Sochi construction set up a huge illegal dump for the waste from its construction project near a local village. The dump dried up the entire village's water supply, and now the wastewater from the dump is seeping into the river which serves as the primary source of drinking water for Sochi. (Learn more here.) Once you hear that, it becomes a lot harder to laugh it off. Sure, it's a problem for the athletes and journalists and spectators who traveled to the Olympics this year. But it is surely not a cause for laughter -- particularly because in two weeks, the Olympics end. But everyone whose drinking water has been ruined by this exorbitantly expensive endeavor? Their water supply remains the same -- dirty, undrinkable, unsafe.
I don't mean to point a finger at Russia. Living in Romania, watching the protests in Ukraine, hearing the stories of this entire bloc of Eastern European countries, has been lesson enough that Communism takes a long, long time to recover from, and that corruption is a really big, horrible, insidious thing. (And no, the issues in Sochi are not entirely the fault of Communism or corruption.) But still, the stories of corruption should disturb us. The unpaid workers used to build the beautiful Olympic Village, without adherence to labor laws, should anger us. The extravagance and expense of the Olympics should alarm us (and that's not just Sochi... that's all of 'em, and all of us).
I love the Olympics. I want them to last, to live up to their ideals, to be a place where we learn about our neighbors around the world, where we feel the best sort of patriotism, where miracles still happen, where beauty and grace and skill are admired by all of us, all around the world, regardless of who demonstrates it. But this part? This ugly part, with the condescending attitudes and insensitivity to the local effects of waste and corruption? This reaction of mockery instead of concern? That I don't like.
So here's to you, Sochi. Thanks for putting on the Olympics. And hang in there.
But it's also been interesting to watch some of the comments on Sochi -- the city itself, the messy and unfinished hotels, the dirty water, the corruption. Through the grapevine of social media and John Stewart, Jack and I have quickly come to realize that Sochi has become a bit of a laughingstock to a lot of Americans.
And it makes me mad.
I know that cross-cultural experiences have their fair share of humor. Mistakes in translation, new foods that startle our palate, and new experiences where we are entirely out of our element -- these things make us laugh, and help us see the world with delight. But there's an important distinction between this sort of delighted-wow-this-is-crazy laughter, and the laughter of disdain and sarcasm, directed at problems you have no intention of becoming involved in.
Corruption isn't funny. Dirty tap water isn't funny either. The fact that the Russian government couldn't even put on a facade to cover these problems, despite the investment of over 50 billion dollars, should make us react not with judgment and ironic humor, but with alarm and sorrow -- because if this is what the "cream of the crop" is getting, what's the reality in the rest of Russia? How dare privileged athletes and journalists from the richest country in the world poke fun at a culture and people they hardly know? (And while I'm at it, how dare they forget that in many communities in their own country, the conditions aren't much better...)
We seem to have forgotten that the struggles of the rest of the world aren't fodder for jokes. The dirty water thing, for instance. Yes, you could joke about it... but the reality is that the water has been polluted because the Russian corporation in charge of much of the Sochi construction set up a huge illegal dump for the waste from its construction project near a local village. The dump dried up the entire village's water supply, and now the wastewater from the dump is seeping into the river which serves as the primary source of drinking water for Sochi. (Learn more here.) Once you hear that, it becomes a lot harder to laugh it off. Sure, it's a problem for the athletes and journalists and spectators who traveled to the Olympics this year. But it is surely not a cause for laughter -- particularly because in two weeks, the Olympics end. But everyone whose drinking water has been ruined by this exorbitantly expensive endeavor? Their water supply remains the same -- dirty, undrinkable, unsafe.
I don't mean to point a finger at Russia. Living in Romania, watching the protests in Ukraine, hearing the stories of this entire bloc of Eastern European countries, has been lesson enough that Communism takes a long, long time to recover from, and that corruption is a really big, horrible, insidious thing. (And no, the issues in Sochi are not entirely the fault of Communism or corruption.) But still, the stories of corruption should disturb us. The unpaid workers used to build the beautiful Olympic Village, without adherence to labor laws, should anger us. The extravagance and expense of the Olympics should alarm us (and that's not just Sochi... that's all of 'em, and all of us).
I love the Olympics. I want them to last, to live up to their ideals, to be a place where we learn about our neighbors around the world, where we feel the best sort of patriotism, where miracles still happen, where beauty and grace and skill are admired by all of us, all around the world, regardless of who demonstrates it. But this part? This ugly part, with the condescending attitudes and insensitivity to the local effects of waste and corruption? This reaction of mockery instead of concern? That I don't like.
So here's to you, Sochi. Thanks for putting on the Olympics. And hang in there.
All hail the cab.
We had quite the adventure yesterday.
We had spent a lovely weekend in Târgu Mureş, reconnecting with friends and a city we hadn't seen in quite a while, and Monday morning it was time to make the 8-hour bus trip back home to Lupeni. Our bus was leaving at 7:30, so we woke up around 6:30 to pack, eat breakfast, and say goodbye to Otilia, our delightful host mom who generously let us stay with her again. Of course, she made us breakfast (eggs, fried potatoes, and salty sheep cheese, paired with sweet fruit tea and slices of white bread), and we stayed and chatted a little too long. We left the house at about 7:20, walking briskly to the stop to catch our bus to Turda. The Rocada bus company has had a little stop in Otilia's neighborhood for years, and it's only a 7-minute walk, so we weren't too worried... until we arrived and saw the sign posted, saying that it had moved.
With only about 4 minutes until our bus was supposed to leave, we frantically skimmed the sign in Romanian, noting that the stop had stopped being used a month earlier and was now located at the bigger bus station on the other side of town. Jack and I looked at each other and took off running, diving into a nearby taxi. "Do you know where the new Rocada station is?" we asked him in garbled, rushed Romanian. He did, and we asked him to take us there as fast as possible.
The taxi driver nodded and took off, skirting the edge of town to get us there as directly as possible. As 7:30 flashed on to the clock, I held my breath and looked out the window for the big white-and-blue Rocada bus. We were just a few blocks from the station when we saw it, already moving. We'd missed it. But the sign said the bus also made one final stop in the city, at a nearby grocery store. "To Kaufland!" we cried. "The bus also stops there!" The taxi driver looked at us, confused, and I explained -- "We just passed our bus. We missed it. It's already moving."
He nodded again and sped up, speeding past the now-unhelpful bus station and onto a busy main street. We could see Kaufland in the distance, but we were in the wrong lane. As we watched, the Rocada bus pulled up to the stop. We held our breath as the taxi driver whizzed through a roundabout to get us turned around. But the bus pulled away just as we pulled in behind it. We were too late.
I sighed -- but that taxi driver wasn't done. He gunned it and pulled up beside the bus as it sped along, honking and waving at the driver. And miraculously, the bus pulled over. The taxi came to a stop and our driver jumped out, gesturing to the bus driver that we wanted to get on. And so we piled out of the taxi, stuffed our fare into the hands of that amazing cabbie, and got on the bus, relieved and a little giddy.
Whew.
We had spent a lovely weekend in Târgu Mureş, reconnecting with friends and a city we hadn't seen in quite a while, and Monday morning it was time to make the 8-hour bus trip back home to Lupeni. Our bus was leaving at 7:30, so we woke up around 6:30 to pack, eat breakfast, and say goodbye to Otilia, our delightful host mom who generously let us stay with her again. Of course, she made us breakfast (eggs, fried potatoes, and salty sheep cheese, paired with sweet fruit tea and slices of white bread), and we stayed and chatted a little too long. We left the house at about 7:20, walking briskly to the stop to catch our bus to Turda. The Rocada bus company has had a little stop in Otilia's neighborhood for years, and it's only a 7-minute walk, so we weren't too worried... until we arrived and saw the sign posted, saying that it had moved.
With only about 4 minutes until our bus was supposed to leave, we frantically skimmed the sign in Romanian, noting that the stop had stopped being used a month earlier and was now located at the bigger bus station on the other side of town. Jack and I looked at each other and took off running, diving into a nearby taxi. "Do you know where the new Rocada station is?" we asked him in garbled, rushed Romanian. He did, and we asked him to take us there as fast as possible.
The taxi driver nodded and took off, skirting the edge of town to get us there as directly as possible. As 7:30 flashed on to the clock, I held my breath and looked out the window for the big white-and-blue Rocada bus. We were just a few blocks from the station when we saw it, already moving. We'd missed it. But the sign said the bus also made one final stop in the city, at a nearby grocery store. "To Kaufland!" we cried. "The bus also stops there!" The taxi driver looked at us, confused, and I explained -- "We just passed our bus. We missed it. It's already moving."
He nodded again and sped up, speeding past the now-unhelpful bus station and onto a busy main street. We could see Kaufland in the distance, but we were in the wrong lane. As we watched, the Rocada bus pulled up to the stop. We held our breath as the taxi driver whizzed through a roundabout to get us turned around. But the bus pulled away just as we pulled in behind it. We were too late.
I sighed -- but that taxi driver wasn't done. He gunned it and pulled up beside the bus as it sped along, honking and waving at the driver. And miraculously, the bus pulled over. The taxi came to a stop and our driver jumped out, gesturing to the bus driver that we wanted to get on. And so we piled out of the taxi, stuffed our fare into the hands of that amazing cabbie, and got on the bus, relieved and a little giddy.
Whew.
Monday, February 3, 2014
Drying days.
Looking out the window at the city park, I see white sheets snapping in
the breeze, like big sea gulls flapping their wings over the snow.
There are kids pulling each other on a runner sled, running slowly over
the field of white, their puffy pink- and red-clad legs moving too fast
for the speed they're going on the slippery surface. Behind them, four
of the five floors of the apartment building are sporting colorful
laundry, hanging from south-facing balconies and fluttering gently in
the breeze. It's February 3rd, but it is sunny outside -- so it's a
drying day.
I haven't met a single person in Romania who has a clothes dryer. Washers, yes -- but when it comes to drying, it's good old clotheslines and drying racks, and none of the electrical, mechanical fluffy warmth I grew up with in the States. Most of the time I'm fine with this -- I like hanging clothes to dry on the balcony on a warm summer day, bringing them inside toasty from the sunshine. In the winter, though, this gets more complicated. Before we had heat in our apartment, it would take our laundry days to dry -- usually three or four, with collars and pocket linings seemingly still damp a week later when you wore the item again. And the apartment has mold issues, so we were always nervous -- begging the laundry to hurry up and dry out so that the humidity level would decrease. Now we have heat, so things go a lot faster -- and we recently got our dehumidifier fixed too, so we feel like we're living in the lap of luxury -- but still, it feels like the drying rack is always, always out.
And so sunny days with a bit of a breeze? Those are good drying days, and we seize them. The laundry goes in first thing in the morning, to be hung on the balcony (freshly-shoveled to be clear of snow for this very purpose) before we leave for work. And our home's laundry joins the hundreds of others, flapping happily in the mid-winter breeze. Drying. Hooray!
I haven't met a single person in Romania who has a clothes dryer. Washers, yes -- but when it comes to drying, it's good old clotheslines and drying racks, and none of the electrical, mechanical fluffy warmth I grew up with in the States. Most of the time I'm fine with this -- I like hanging clothes to dry on the balcony on a warm summer day, bringing them inside toasty from the sunshine. In the winter, though, this gets more complicated. Before we had heat in our apartment, it would take our laundry days to dry -- usually three or four, with collars and pocket linings seemingly still damp a week later when you wore the item again. And the apartment has mold issues, so we were always nervous -- begging the laundry to hurry up and dry out so that the humidity level would decrease. Now we have heat, so things go a lot faster -- and we recently got our dehumidifier fixed too, so we feel like we're living in the lap of luxury -- but still, it feels like the drying rack is always, always out.
And so sunny days with a bit of a breeze? Those are good drying days, and we seize them. The laundry goes in first thing in the morning, to be hung on the balcony (freshly-shoveled to be clear of snow for this very purpose) before we leave for work. And our home's laundry joins the hundreds of others, flapping happily in the mid-winter breeze. Drying. Hooray!
Monday, January 27, 2014
The hunger games.
When we were visiting the States, Catching Fire came out in theaters and Kelly, her sister Kendra and I went to see it. It broke us open. Many of the scenes look like the pictures and videos in the news these days of Syrian opposition and government forces fighting in Aleppo or protesters being beaten back by the police in Egypt. Between that and a reality show where the contestants kill each other for entertainment. The games' tagline is, "May the odds be ever in your favor." You see graffiti protesting, "The odds are never in our favor."
I find it hard to believe that one could watch this movie and come out of the theater feeling good about life (unless you can completely divorce what your eyes see and what your body and mind encounter in the world around you). For one, you just spent 8 dollars on a ticket to keep a multi-billion dollar industry going that uses violence as entertainment. Perhaps you could have bought a burrito or a sandwich for someone for whom the odds are never in their favor. Kelly says that she can't think of that story as removed from the world that we live in, especially since we live in a post-industrial, post-authoritarian region of the world. Here's one story of why.
We were going into the fancier of the two "supermarkets" in Lupeni one evening a few months ago when we met a girl. There are always little Roma girls asking for 10 bani or milk or bread outside of this supermarket, and we usually oblige them. This girl was different. We'd met her in church last week, and we both recognized each other. She asked for some milk for her baby sister, and we gladly bought her some. I forget if we asked her name or not, but I regret not asking. It feels like we've known each other too long now.
We started seeing her often around the city. Not at church anymore, but outside the meat store, outside the Italian restaurant, with her little brother in our stairwell one night. She has a large family, I think 5 or 6 siblings, and she's the oldest at 11. She's with her little, little sister a lot, holding this little, sleeping bundle of clothes and baby. Her brother is full of energy and really talkative once he gets over being shy. She's confident and strong, the oldest child who acts as a second parent. Their mom is a short woman with crooked teeth and a lined face, though I doubt she's much older than 30. It's just her and the 6 or 7 kids, like many Roma families. you receive more government help if you have kids out of wedlock, and since few Roma men can get jobs anyways, it makes some sort of sense.
The mother seemed harsh and controlling to me at first. She was hard on the kids, and the girl has told us several times that she's not allowed to go home and start her homework without milk. I felt anger at their mother for giving this harsh responsibility, and pity for the children. One of the little girls' feet are twisted, so that one points directly towards the other foot and the other is turned almost all the way backwards. I've seen the mother trying to hurry this little girl up as they walk through the city, and I was afraid she would fall for lack of balance and care. I'll sometimes try to avoid them when the mom's around. We're respectful to each other, but I don't trust her. She seems like she's hiding things. But few people aren't.
Last week, the girl and her brother were by the Italian restaurant where our out-of-town colleagues were having lunch. I stopped to talk to them on the way in. They were running down the ramp outside and trying to jump into the square of red bricks in the sidewalk. It was raining a bit, and slippery, but they didn't care. When they invited me to try, I gingerly ran down the ramp and jumped easily into the square. She asked me how you say "taci" in English--she had learned but forgotten. "It's something like 'shuddup,' right?"
"Yeah, you say it, 'shut up.'"
"Yeah, that's it. Thanks." She said thanks in English. She then asked how to say, "ce faci?"
"How are you?"
"Houraou? Oh man, I can't say that. Say it again?"
"How are you." Too hard. Oh well. She told me they also speak Hungarian, and I congratulated her. Hungarian is a hard language. She said that they got cold easily. It was raining, on the verge of freezing, and they only had a plastic bag as a shield and no gloves. I promised to look for gloves and more bags, and then went inside the restaurant to eat a nice, warm lunch in a nice, warm restaurant with our nice, warm friends. I felt like saying bad words the whole time just to express how sad I felt to leave them out there. They kept making faces at us through the window, and it hurt a little more each time.
When I was leaving, they asked me for 1 leu for milk. I didn't have 1 leu, only bigger bills, but I was going to buy some black beans that we had specially ordered, so I could bring back 1 measly leu when I returned. Affirmative. Hopeful. Kelly had already told them she'd buy them some bread. I got to the health food store and the beans hadn't come. No big bills broken. I decided to just buy a liter of milk. Easier that way. They were thankful when I gave it to them. Hopefully, that meant that they could go home and do their homework.
Today, as I was walking back to the office from lunch, I saw their mom outside of the meat store. She saw me too, and beckoned me over. I went, though I didn't want to. She pulled two half-sheets of paper from her pocket and told me that one of her kids was sick with this problem, and another was sick with this problem. She tells me that often and asks for money. I feel so uncomfortable giving money to people begging at this point in my life that I almost always just buy her a bread or say, "I'm sorry, but I can't today." But today, she told me it was only 15 lei for the medicine that was prescribed on this paper, and where in the world would she get that money? I told her that I didn't quite understand what she wanted, but I would go to talk with a colleague who would.
I went to the office, talked to my boss/kind of big brother here Ilie about it. He buys medicine for a Roma guy every month, and it's not cheap stuff. We talked a bit, and I told him I wasn't sure how much to trust her. He told me that especially in Romania, nice, trusting people are sadly seen as stupid and exploitable. Yeah. I know. But I've been recently trying to err on the side of love. I called Kelly and asked her if she was ok with me buying some medicine. She said yes.
I went back down to the mother and clarified what the she wanted me to do. She gave me her ID card and said all I had to do was ask for the medicine and her baby would be fine. While she was digging out her ID card, she asked me to hold the baby. She's probably 8 months old, sleeping, so beautiful from what little of her isn't covered by her snowsuit. I walked to the pharmacy, bought the medicine, and came back, quietly triumphant. The mother thanked me "from her soul," as you say here. I asked her baby's name. "Ana."
"She's beautiful."
"Yeah, I hope this medicine helps her."
"Me too. May God help you."
"May God help you. Thank you."
We all do what we can to survive. Some of us have to work harder at it than others, so that means some of us can help out more. She's not just a controlling mother. She wants to increase her family's odds. I'm glad to have done what I could to help today.
I find it hard to believe that one could watch this movie and come out of the theater feeling good about life (unless you can completely divorce what your eyes see and what your body and mind encounter in the world around you). For one, you just spent 8 dollars on a ticket to keep a multi-billion dollar industry going that uses violence as entertainment. Perhaps you could have bought a burrito or a sandwich for someone for whom the odds are never in their favor. Kelly says that she can't think of that story as removed from the world that we live in, especially since we live in a post-industrial, post-authoritarian region of the world. Here's one story of why.
We were going into the fancier of the two "supermarkets" in Lupeni one evening a few months ago when we met a girl. There are always little Roma girls asking for 10 bani or milk or bread outside of this supermarket, and we usually oblige them. This girl was different. We'd met her in church last week, and we both recognized each other. She asked for some milk for her baby sister, and we gladly bought her some. I forget if we asked her name or not, but I regret not asking. It feels like we've known each other too long now.
We started seeing her often around the city. Not at church anymore, but outside the meat store, outside the Italian restaurant, with her little brother in our stairwell one night. She has a large family, I think 5 or 6 siblings, and she's the oldest at 11. She's with her little, little sister a lot, holding this little, sleeping bundle of clothes and baby. Her brother is full of energy and really talkative once he gets over being shy. She's confident and strong, the oldest child who acts as a second parent. Their mom is a short woman with crooked teeth and a lined face, though I doubt she's much older than 30. It's just her and the 6 or 7 kids, like many Roma families. you receive more government help if you have kids out of wedlock, and since few Roma men can get jobs anyways, it makes some sort of sense.
The mother seemed harsh and controlling to me at first. She was hard on the kids, and the girl has told us several times that she's not allowed to go home and start her homework without milk. I felt anger at their mother for giving this harsh responsibility, and pity for the children. One of the little girls' feet are twisted, so that one points directly towards the other foot and the other is turned almost all the way backwards. I've seen the mother trying to hurry this little girl up as they walk through the city, and I was afraid she would fall for lack of balance and care. I'll sometimes try to avoid them when the mom's around. We're respectful to each other, but I don't trust her. She seems like she's hiding things. But few people aren't.
Last week, the girl and her brother were by the Italian restaurant where our out-of-town colleagues were having lunch. I stopped to talk to them on the way in. They were running down the ramp outside and trying to jump into the square of red bricks in the sidewalk. It was raining a bit, and slippery, but they didn't care. When they invited me to try, I gingerly ran down the ramp and jumped easily into the square. She asked me how you say "taci" in English--she had learned but forgotten. "It's something like 'shuddup,' right?"
"Yeah, you say it, 'shut up.'"
"Yeah, that's it. Thanks." She said thanks in English. She then asked how to say, "ce faci?"
"How are you?"
"Houraou? Oh man, I can't say that. Say it again?"
"How are you." Too hard. Oh well. She told me they also speak Hungarian, and I congratulated her. Hungarian is a hard language. She said that they got cold easily. It was raining, on the verge of freezing, and they only had a plastic bag as a shield and no gloves. I promised to look for gloves and more bags, and then went inside the restaurant to eat a nice, warm lunch in a nice, warm restaurant with our nice, warm friends. I felt like saying bad words the whole time just to express how sad I felt to leave them out there. They kept making faces at us through the window, and it hurt a little more each time.
When I was leaving, they asked me for 1 leu for milk. I didn't have 1 leu, only bigger bills, but I was going to buy some black beans that we had specially ordered, so I could bring back 1 measly leu when I returned. Affirmative. Hopeful. Kelly had already told them she'd buy them some bread. I got to the health food store and the beans hadn't come. No big bills broken. I decided to just buy a liter of milk. Easier that way. They were thankful when I gave it to them. Hopefully, that meant that they could go home and do their homework.
Today, as I was walking back to the office from lunch, I saw their mom outside of the meat store. She saw me too, and beckoned me over. I went, though I didn't want to. She pulled two half-sheets of paper from her pocket and told me that one of her kids was sick with this problem, and another was sick with this problem. She tells me that often and asks for money. I feel so uncomfortable giving money to people begging at this point in my life that I almost always just buy her a bread or say, "I'm sorry, but I can't today." But today, she told me it was only 15 lei for the medicine that was prescribed on this paper, and where in the world would she get that money? I told her that I didn't quite understand what she wanted, but I would go to talk with a colleague who would.
I went to the office, talked to my boss/kind of big brother here Ilie about it. He buys medicine for a Roma guy every month, and it's not cheap stuff. We talked a bit, and I told him I wasn't sure how much to trust her. He told me that especially in Romania, nice, trusting people are sadly seen as stupid and exploitable. Yeah. I know. But I've been recently trying to err on the side of love. I called Kelly and asked her if she was ok with me buying some medicine. She said yes.
I went back down to the mother and clarified what the she wanted me to do. She gave me her ID card and said all I had to do was ask for the medicine and her baby would be fine. While she was digging out her ID card, she asked me to hold the baby. She's probably 8 months old, sleeping, so beautiful from what little of her isn't covered by her snowsuit. I walked to the pharmacy, bought the medicine, and came back, quietly triumphant. The mother thanked me "from her soul," as you say here. I asked her baby's name. "Ana."
"She's beautiful."
"Yeah, I hope this medicine helps her."
"Me too. May God help you."
"May God help you. Thank you."
We all do what we can to survive. Some of us have to work harder at it than others, so that means some of us can help out more. She's not just a controlling mother. She wants to increase her family's odds. I'm glad to have done what I could to help today.
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