ROMANIA? WHY ROMANIA? - NEW BEGINNINGS

I let the hand brake off and set off out of the driveway. 

Suddenly the rear of the car lifted and then bumped back down as if I had run something over. Having no idea what was going on I got out again to check and there sitting in the driveway behind the car was a laptop bag which contained both of our laptops and all of the peripheral bits and pieces. I picked the bag up and pushed it into one last remaining tiny gap in the back, "I'll check it when we get to Mums"

I found out later that both were destroyed, although we did manage to retrieve the most important stuff that we needed from Ali's laptop.

Then we left hoping that this was our one disaster for the trip and that it wasn't a portent of things to come. I said a little prayer to that effect as we passed out of the gateway onto the High Street and turned southwards.

It felt to me like we had been packing for weeks. There were still a few bits and pieces around to be boxed and packed but I really had just wanted to get going.

The top box on the car was full, the back seat of the car was packed with cases and boxes and our German Shepherd Florica had leapt happily into the relative luxury of the only real space remaining in the back of the car behind her dog guard.

The car was an eight year old Suzuki Grand Vitara, bought especially for this trip and for our future life in Romania, and particularly for the winter that was already on its way. We raised the money to buy it by selling both of our cars through WeBuyAnyCar  and pooling the cash to get the best left-hand drive car we could afford.

With Florica barking happily in the back we strapped ourselves in, closed our doors and set off.

We had a journey of about 1400 miles ahead of us, overnighting first at my parents house in Kent before getting the train through the tunnel early the following morning.

We had done the journey across Europe on a few occasions, the last one with a hired van to take the first of our larger possessions over to our house in the lovely little village that was to become our home for good.

The remainder of our larger things had already gone to be stored in my parents garage and the plan was that I would be back within a few  months to collect it all. The truth is though that half of it is still there over 9 years later.

No looking back, no regrets, whatever was to come would come, but it was a chance of a totally fresh new start in life and an opportunity we would never get if we stayed in Britain.
The corporate life had moved on and left us behind, or if the truth is told we had both outgrown it. Neither of us had any regrets about leaving that behind, no longer having to endure the shear nastiness that we had been forced to endure over the previous couple of years. What had once been a great life had become dominated by small minded jumped up little shop boys and evil minded older colleagues who were intent on gaining revenge for some imagined past 'wrongs' they perceived were done to them.
Enough was enough.

After spending about six months as a housewife while I finished off my time with Sainsburys Alison had found a job.

A simple web search for Project Management roles in Romania had come up with a job description that described Ali to a T. We knew from the first moment of reading it that it would be Alis job even before she applied and we both took it as another sign that our future lives were meant to be in Romania. The job was for one of the worlds largest volunteering companies, Global Vision International, and they wanted an experienced Project Manager fluent in both English and Romanian to set up new projects for them in Romania.and that's what we were setting off to do. It seemed like another sign that it was the thing we were meant to do too. The salary was based on Romanian norms, not English (i.e not very much) but it was sufficient to get us started in our new life in the house that Ali already owned and had greatly extended and improved (But it still needed a lot of work)

This later picture of Suzi Q in the driveway gives some idea of how much work was needed.

The night spent at my parents house was a small piece of much needed relaxation before our trip, although our departure in the morning was a little emotional.

After that the journey was pretty uneventful. It is a total of 24 hours driving time, with breaks taken as best as we could sitting in our seats. Thankfully the portion through France was short, into boring Belgium (Sorry, but from the motorways it is boring and when we did try to visit for a short stay, it was closed)
Then a brief sojourn in The Netherlands before the long trek through Germany.

Florica was surprisingly quiet in the back, her normal habit in the car was to bark at anything or anyone who came within 20 feet of us, but she was silent in the back, so quiet that we had to stop a few times to get her out of the car and check that she was OK.
She peed on Belgium, she pooed on Germany, refused anything to eat and drank only a little, all she wanted to do was get back into the car. It was almost as if she was impatient to get the journey over too.

(When we were unloading the car a couple of days later, we found that she had managed to drag the seat belts through a gap at each side of the rear seats and was happily laying there gnawing at them. They cost 350 Euros to replace, so they were pretty expensive dog chews! To add insult to injury we found out later that they weren't considered necessary in Romania so we didn't need to replace them to pass the Romanian equivalent of an MOT after all)

As the journey continued on into Eastern Germany the countryside surrounding the Autobahn became much more attractive and that is the area around which you can start to relax into the journey and just let the kilometres roll by.

Though Austria, skirting Vienna and then on into Hungary.

In those days the motorway ran out not far South of Budapest and the rest of the journey, still about 450 kilometres, would be on single carriageway roads. If you got caught up behind lorries the best thing to was just sit behind them and relax, but you have to keep a wary eye open for the local drivers and their crazy overtaking manoeuvres, which often just look suicidal and they appear to have no qualms about side swiping an unsuspecting motorist out of the way if they need to swerve in to avoid oncoming traffic.

Passing through the villages as you approach the Romanian border you used to be greeted by an amazingly beautiful sight, the residents of all of the villages had brightly coloured stalls out at the side of the road selling whatever fruit and vegetables they had grown. Everything looked so fresh and clean and the colours were amazing, so much nicer than a supermarket display and I know it all tasted much better too.

We arrived at the border at Nadlac, thankfully there was only a short queue of traffic before we finally crossed over into Romania. Unusually the Hungarian and Romanian border guards were standing together. They were easily distinguishable. The Hungarian guard was young, his uniform well fitting and well pressed and he had an easy smile as he checked each passport and briefly surveyed the interior of the vehicles passing through. The Romanian border guard on the other hand was older, looked tired, or maybe hungover, his uniform hung loosely from him looking as if it hadn't seen an iron for weeks and he just looked bored with the whole repetitive procedure.

When it was our turn I pulled up alongside these two and the Hungarian immediately said "Hello".

(It has never ceased to amaze me that we Brits are apparently immediately recognizable, and our car had a French number plate too)

I handed 3 passports out through the open window to the Hungarian. He looked them all over and then handed them to the Romanian who looked at mine, then Ali's and then he looked at Floricas.

"Whats this?" he exclaimed waving Floricas rabies passport around in the air as he spoke.

The Hungarian border guard explained what it was quietly and patiently whilst pointing at the still quiet Florica in the back and then the Romanian almost threw all three back through the window whilst saying loudly,

"As if we haven't got enough dogs in Romania!", then with an expansive sweep of his arms in the general direction of travel he shouted "Good luck!" and we passed on our way.

Finally, we were in Romania, still about 250 slow kilometres to go before we reached our new home, but the journey had been relatively easy and we were just glad that it was nearly over. 

It took about another 3 hours before we arrived in the village, thanks to all of the freight vehicle on the road and when we drove into the village we got our first surprise, The main road, which had always just been a dirt track had been covered with tarmac.

Another 100 metres and we were outside our house with a couple of interested locals staring at this strange car and its' even stranger occupants. Even though they seemed to half recognize Ali, not quite being able to place where from though. She had been away for about three years.

Ali climbed out of the car and opened the gates to be welcomed by our Romanian dog, Joli, who had been cared for by neighbours.
(Her story can be found in my very first Blog from 2012)

I drove the car in and Ali closed the gates. Joli was dancing all around Ali, and all around the car, so happy to see us. I climbed out of the car, stiff from the journey but pleased to be able to straighten up again. Joli was still dancing and, at last, Florica was yapping excitedly in the back of the car.

We had no idea about how the two dogs would react to each other but there was no other way to find out than just to open the back door. Florica immediately leapt out and she and Joli just ran off chasing each other around the large garden, Joli easily taking the lead in the gallop with Florica trying very hard to keep up or cut her off at the corners, tails wagging furiously as they very quickly got to know each other. From that moment on they were the best of friends.



So here we were starting our new life. October 2009 with a very cold Romanian winter fast approaching and no idea how we were going to keep warm, but we were here at last and it really did feel like home.

Steve

ROMANIA?????? WHY ROMANIA??????

After two years of inexcusable absence from Blogging it's about time to start again.

I have it in mind to compose a series of roughly chronological anecdotes taking our story right back to the very beginning of our exodus to Romania, all under the general title of...…..
……………………..ROMANIA????? WHY ROMANIA??????

II hope the answer to that question will become clearer but it is the question we are most often asked when a Romanian discovers that we have moved here permanently.

A large number of Romanians seem to simply want to leave this beautiful country which has so much to offer, but they can't see it. All they see is a 'better' life abroad in countries like France, Germany, Italy. Spain, the USA and of course the UK...…..until recently that is. Emigration to those countries has been in such high numbers that as a result Romanias' population has reduced over the years we have been here.

My standard answer used to be "Because life here is so real" (that will hopefully become clearer in later ramblings). Or another answer I have used is "Well someone had to try and balance out the numbers of you lot going to Britain!!!. 
At least now I have a new answer....…………...….....BRITAIN????? WHY BRITAIN??????

{I am, of course, hinting here at the national embarrassment of the debacle of Brexit and when I first tried to compose this introductory page it became a rant about my true feelings about this shameful waste of time that the UK has put itself through and it will take many many years for Britain to recover from the total loss of respect that is the result. Britain has become a laughing stock around the world...…………………………………………………….. After a calming beer and a cigarette though I threw my soap box onto the pile for firewood and decided to leave well alone...…...for now}

Alison has had Permanent Residency of Romania for a number of years and now I have that honour too. The natural next step is Citizenship which we both greatly desire, but I have to learn a lot more of the Romanian language, learn all about its' rich history and also every one of the eleven verses of the National Anthem! 

Enough of a re-introduction, better get on with it.

Steve

THE REAL POWER OF ROMANIA

We went to Sibiu this weekend.

The trip was primarily to meet members of Sibiu Ballet Company, who would like to do something to help support the Special Needs Centre that we work at, or even to do a performance to raise some money for them. They are really lovely people and we had a great time with them.

While we were there though we also had a little time to relax.

When we have had city breaks in the past, relaxation during the day happened by finding cafes frequented by the locals, not the tourist ones, and sitting in them and just to watch the world go by.

That's exactly what we did in Sibiu. We found a cafe overlooking the beautiful main town square, went in and sat down at a table in the window. We drank great coffee, chatted, and watched the world go by as people went about their business in the square in front of us.

As usual we talked about the people we could see and speculated occasionally about what they might be doing or where they might be going.

After a few minutes a pair of street sweepers came into view, a middle-aged woman and an older man. They were both dressed in dark coloured waterproof jackets and trousers with high visibility bands around the arms and legs. The woman was brushing hard at the cobbles, really having to make an effort to get the dirt and cigarette butts out form the cracks between them. All she had to work with was a Besom Broom, you know like the famous 'witches broomstick', which seemed to make the work twice as hard as it needed to be, but she just kept on going without resting, really working the broom into the cracks between the cobbles.

Road sweepers throughout Romania use these brooms, but most are sweeping tarmac or smooth paving, not ancient cobbles.

As I watched I thought about the road sweeping machines that they use in other 'better developed' cities in the world and wished that this poor lady could have one. Then I realised though, that if the city of Sibiu did have one, she would probably be out of a job and it would be the man she was 'working' with  who would probably be driving the machine around the square and making a nuisance of himself among the many pedestrians.

Piata Mare, Sibiu

His task this day seemed at first to be one of just leaning on a floor brush next to a wheelie bin, and watching as the woman swept and swept at the rough paving, occasionally making a comment or pointing at something she had missed. He stood watching her for about ten minutes, then suddenly he leaped into action. He took a shovel from his wheelie bin, swept the pile of dog-ends and litter that the lady had made up into the shovel and then almost ceremonially emptied the shovel into the wheelie bin before tapping it on the side and then throwing it and the brush inside. He then strode off, at pace, pushing the wheelie bin towards the other side of the square.

I craned my neck around to look out of the corner of the window and I could see that another lady was on the other side of the square brushing just as vigorously at the cobbles over there. Once the man arrived next to her, he took his brush from the bin, leaned on it and stood watching her, just as he had been doing when I first saw him.

Another lady, completely different place, same hard
work, similar broom.

I looked back at the first woman and she was still working her broom furiously, making neat piles of rubbish, and I suspected that she might be trying to get far enough ahead of her task so that the man didn't have any time just to stand and watch whenever he returned.

As she brushed I saw a young man walk past her and then casually discard a cigarette end onto the paving where she had already brushed, not even glancing at the woman, or caring that she was working so hard.

It was then that it struck me that this really is a never-ending task for these ladies, and a task that would never be finished.

As a story I think this is also indicative of Romanian life generally. there are so many fit and healthy old ladies in our village, in their 80's and 90's they always greet us with a cheeky grin, a happy hello, and often a risque comment too! They are so full of life. The women are on their own, they are all widows, there are no men of similar ages.

It was Ali who pointed it out, and stressed that it is no surprise. After all it is usually the women who do all of the hard physical work, spending all day bent over, planting or picking or weeding in the fields, and then return home at the end of a long hard day to cook, wash, clean and raise their children.

They live a life that has kept them a lot fitter.

The men tend to supervise, just as the male road sweeper was doing.

Either that or they spend their time in local bars smoking, drinking coffee, beer or Tuica 'doing business,' or just talking about what needs to be done at any particular time of year. They might even discuss the big issues of the day, and of course, all will have an answer to them that no-one else has thought of.

Even the younger women who work long hours in bars, cafes or offices in the City have to return home to do the cooking, cleaning, etc., so modern day life hasn't changed things greatly.

So it's no wonder that it is the ladies who have the longevity, they have been kept fit all their lives by the amount of work they have to do, whilst the men live  a far less healthy existence.

It is the women of Romania who are the power houses, who break their backs to try and ensure that their children, and their men, are fed, clean and presentable, and women have lived this lifestyle here for hundreds if not thousands of years.

The same is true in other less-developed parts of the world too, and I know that I am generalising and that this isn't true of all men and women, but from my observations of everyday Romanian life, it is the way the great majority of women live.

It's the woman who are the real power.

Steve

www.volunteerromania.co.uk

SO? HOW DID OUR CHRISTMAS GO?

So now it's those few days after Christmas, when all that is left to do is clear up, take down the decorations and eat all of the the left-overs.
Well, for those of us lucky enough not to have to work these horrible days between the two festivities that's all there is to do anyway. I used to hate being in the office over this period when I was in the corporate world, it just seemed so pointless.

Our Christmas dinner was delicious. perfectly cooked Turkey, wonderful roast potatoes, gorgeous fresh Brussels sprouts, carrots, and parsnips (served both roasted separately and boiled and mashed together), homemade sage and onion bread stuffing balls, pork stuffing loaf, cranberry sauce, homemade gravy AND the most spectacular homemade Yorkshire puddings that were so light and fluffy they grew like Dr Who monsters in the oven!!!





With Christmas Crackers, silly hats, stupid jokes and tokens and a fantastic Romanian light red wine to wash it all down it was a fantastic meal for this most special day of the year.
Our long and arduous planning and preparation for Christmas served us well, and was all very worthwhile.
Our Boxing Day meal was the one we promised ourselves of cold turkey, cold ham, mashed potatoes and pickles, and ooooh those pickles, they are absolutely delicious. The chutney is sweet and sour and perfectly balanced, the onions crisp and tangy, and the picallili is perfect. I will never ever buy another jar of shop bought pickles again, they were perfect, and making them wasn't that difficult at all!
They were also perfect with our tangy blue cheese, cheddar and crackers that we can now source locally (and thank you Romfoody for reminding me that they were there!)
We have even given a couple of jars to Romanian friends and neighbour's  who have become real fans of this mustardy tangy treat filled with crispy vegetables and they love it with their Mici in place of the usual sweet American style mustard.

With the left overs we have made a wonderful turkey soup as well as a turkey, ham and stuffing pie, and both are deliciously different from the meals that gave them reason for their existence.
Accompanied by the bell from the church on the hill, constantly hearing 'Craciun Fericit' from all the other villagers when we saw them in the street, and with some snow remaining on the ground, it really did make it the perfect Christmas.
Who needs all of the gifts, the expense and the total chaos of the Christmas 'festivities' we had back in the UK? Certainly not us.
A couple of trips down to the local bar to be with our friends helped a lot too, except I forgot my resolve not to mix Ţuică with beer!........always a mistake.
Looking back at my blogs I have realised how much I have written about food and booze recently. Suppose it shows what I consider to be important, and one look at my figure would confirm the same! 
I should really get back to writing some more informative ones though and continuing to try and spread the message about this beautiful country and the wonderful people and children we work with at Volunteer Romania.

Actually we are working hard now, trying to use the best of social media just to spread the word about what Volunteer Romania do and to attract the volunteers the children so badly need here.
Looking forward to the New Year now too, and the promise of better things that 2013 will bring, including all the wonderful new people that we will meet, and who will leave their mark on our hand print wall too, as well as the old friends who we know are coming back.



Steve

www.volunteerromania.co.uk
www.holiday-romania.co.uk

VILLAGE SUMMER CAMP - AND THE PAIN OF ORGANISING IT!

When we work with the children here in Romania, it isn't always with the orphans, or the under-privileged ones, or the special needs kids.
When we can, we love to do something with the local kids from our village and the surrounding villages.
We were able to do just that this summer when we arranged a two week holiday club for them during their school summer break.
We wanted to provide something for our friends and neighbours of all ages, it wasn't just the children either, if adults wanted to take part they could, so we told them that the age range was 7 to 77!

Having the idea of doing it though was just the easy part. 
Setting the two weeks up proved to be much much harder to do than we had realised that it would be.
Our event would be entirely free for the kids to attend, the funding that enabled us to do this came from the proceeds from having some wonderful volunteers join us from America and Ireland, during the preceeding weeks.

We set about making all of the necessary arrangements, by firstly trying to speak to our local Mayor about hiring the Community Centre in the village, but without much luck. We had a meeting with her in her office, and explained carefully what we wanted to do. She seemed supportive and told us that she would speak to all of the people she needed to speak to and would start making the all of the necessary arrangements for us, before calling us back.
Well, of course, we didn't get a call (after all it is Romania!) and the many messages we left for her went unanswered. 
We were then informed by a friend that we actually needed to speak to our local priest as he was the person who runs the Community Centre.. So, Ali went and knocked at the priest's door, which is only a few metres up the street, only to be told a number of times that he wasn't available. After another week or so though, there was a knock at our door. When we answered, the priest was standing there, dressed in his formal black gown, as if he had just come away from the church up on the hill. He had heard that we were trying to see him, so he thought he would come to find out for himself what it was that these 'Mad English' wanted from him.
He sat down at our kitchen table, refused coffee or other refreshment (which told us that he wasn't planning on staying long) and Ali set about explaining to him in her fluent Romanian what it was that we wanted to do. At first he greeted the idea with some scepticism, and asked us for re-assurance that it was a non-profit making venture, and also for full details of what we would actually be doing, on a day by day basis. Ali explained as best she could, with the Priest interjecting an awful lot, not only to clarify things for himself, but also making it fairly obvious that he hadn't set aside much time for this meeting. After about ten minutes he called the meeting to an end by telling Ali that a formal written application would be required. That written application would have to explain in detail exactly what our plans were, what each days activities would be, and who would be running and helping out during the two week programme. He went on to explain that once he had received the written application he could then consult all of the other interested parties who needed to be involved in approving the application. He listed the  'interested parties' tapping a finger for each one, and he soon ran out of hands! The list included the Mayor, Church Wardens, the village hall Caretaker, the local Police, and also seemed to include most of the grandmothers in the village too!
As he left he shrugged his shoulders in that typically Romanian fashion. It was as if he was still asking himself what it was we wanted exactly and displayed an apparent disbelief that we were actually going to do exactly what we had just described to him. It also seemed apparent that he didn't actually want to take on the burden of the additional work it meant for him.
Anyway, after Ali and I had discussed the priests visit for about an hour, Ali set about composing the required written application. 
Now, speaking Romanian fluently, as Ali does, is one thing, but writing Romanian in a formal fashion (as was required in this instance) is an entirely different, and much more difficult task. Ali did her best though, and when she had finished we took our draft application to some Romanian friends, who very kindly read it, checked it, and then completely re-wrote it for us!
It was then delivered to the priest, who seemed a little surprised to actually be receiving it, but 
the following day there he was at our door again, this time dressed in immaculately pressed black trousers and a very bright white short-sleeved shirt, he had a large black 'man bag' in his hand within which he had our formal written application.
We invited him in and this time as he sat down at our kitchen table, he accepted our offer of refreshment, so we knew we were in for a longer visit than the previous one. He laid our application out on the table and started to explain to Ali that what she had written would simply not suffice. Without explaining exactly why 'it just wouldn't do' he told Ali that, together, now, they would write it again.
So, that is exactly what they did. This time the Priest seemed to be much more enthusiastic, it was as if receiving the formal application had convinced him that we were absolutely serious about running this programme in the village. No-one had ever done anything similar to it before, the Community Centre is usually used just for weddings, or elections.
The Priest began to dictate to Ali, telling her precisely what he wanted the application to say. Ali struggled to keep up with him, but did her best to write down every word that the Priest dictated. This process was taking an age though, as quite often the Priest would change his mind about how he wanted to say something, or the order he wanted the application to run in, and often Ali had problems understanding what it was that he actually wanted to be written down. I began to realise that it wasn't only us or our friends who found this task difficult, it was new to the priest as well!
Eventually, he realised that it might be better for him to write it all himself, which he proceeded to do, but only with a great deal of deliberation and mind changing before, after what seemed like hours, he finally handed over a piece of paper with a large amount of writing on it, interspersed with a mass of scribbles and corrections.
Ali took it from him, started to read it, asked a number of times for clarification, and then set about typing it up on the computer ready to print out, with multiple copies, of course, so that every one of the 'interested parties' could have their record copy (which I suspected would become paper for lighting fires quite rapidly)
Once Ali had finished and handed a draft of the document for the priest to check and approve, a number of copies were printed out and then a very small, but quite formal  signing ceremony took place. Ali signed on our behalf, and the priest signed on behalf of the village. Once that was complete, the priest started heading rapidly for the door gesticulating animatedly and telling Ali to go with him, which, of course, she did, rushing out of the door behind him, closing it quickly behind her as she left.
I had no idea what was happening so I just stayed home and waited, knowing that Ali would re-appear at some time and tell me all about it.
It transpired that she was taken all over the village to hunt down every one of those 'interested parties', so that everything could be explained in detail to each one of them, and each could read and check the written application and be given their copy of it. This included visiting the Mayor at her house, waiting for the Police to arrive at the Priests house for their consultation, and even trudging about in the fields looking for a number of the other people who had to be consulted, after all this was a work day!
Eventually, after hours of me not knowing where Ali was, or what she was having to do, she arrived back home and sat down, exhausted, to explain it all to me. 
We had succeeded in booking the Community Centre, but we would have to pay for it, which came as something of a surprise as we had been led to believe that such community events could be held at nil cost, and that we would have to take electricity meter readings so that we could pay for the electricity we used, which we did expect.
But, at last we had it. The building was ours, we knew where to get the key to allow ourselves in and to set up for the event. Great! We were ready!
We went down and had  a look around and the Hall was just what we needed. A nice big open space, plenty of tables and chairs, a small stage, plenty of light and easy to get to. It was perfect, except for one small thing, it doesn't have a toilet! 
In all or our deliberations we hadn't even thought to ask that question, we had just assumed that there would be one there. 
As anyone who ever spends any time at all with children will know, a toilet is a relatively essential thing to have around. It seemed that this one 'small' oversight on our part would completely scupper our plans, and after all of the hard work that Ali had gone through to make all of the arrangements, it was a real disappointment.
John and I took Ali to the village bar, (which is just over the road from the Community Centre) for a quiet drink and to consider our options, which included maybe incurring even further cost of hiring a portable toilet, if we could even find one!. 
Gica and Nutsi, who own the bar, greeted us in their usual friendly and enthusiastic fashion, but also quite quickly realised that we had fairly weighty things on our minds, and asked what our problems were. When we explained, Gica, as he very often does, quickly came up with the answer for us. He would leave the cafe toilets unlocked and any of us could come and use them if we had the need, and as they were literally a minute's walk from the Community Centre, it really was the answer we needed.
So that was it, we had the Hall, we had our dates, we had toilets, all we had to do was get the children to attend.
We composed and printed some flyers and posters and spent a day going around our village and all of the villages in our Commune (District) handing them out and pinning them up on any vacant space we could find in bus shelters, village cafes, lamp posts, etc, etc.
We went to one small isolated village, Cozia, up the hill and through the forest, down a rough dead end track, and parked the car. As I pinned posters up wherever I could find space, Ali went to the cafe where she could see a number of local woman and children sitting talking to each other and looking over in our direction, suspiciously, trying to work out what these strangers to their village were up to. Ali explained, showed the poster to the lady who owned the cafe and asked her to put it up, which she agreed to do readily, then suddenly one of the young girls sitting at the table started speaking in very good English;

"This sounds great"

She went on to ask all about the activities that we had planned and told us that she and two other friends would love to join in to help improve their English. We explained that helping to improve English was one of our objectives for the week, but that apart from the plans we had for the first day we had no formal plans. We wanted the children who attended to be part of the planning for the subsequent days.
There followed an animated discussion about what this particular group of children would want, which was primarily to use Theatre and Poetry to help improve their English. This led us down a whole new avenue for our planning of the event, but Ali promised that she would find some plays and poetry for them to work on together.
Then the mother of one of the girls asked what was an inevitable question;

"How much is this going to cost me?"

Ali explained that it was entirely free. That we were doing this only because we cared, and that we would like to give something back to the community who had welcomed us with open arms, and had done so much to help and encourage us since we had arrived.
The explanation though, was greeted by furrowed brows, and disbelieving glances between members of the listening audience.
Something being 'free' here in Romania is a difficult concept for the locals to understand. There is a deeply ingrained mindset that 'you don't get anything for nothing'. So, they always assume that there is a cost involved somewhere. This led to us having some wonderful, quite animated conversations with the parents of the children when we were finalising the arrangements. It took us quite some time to convince them that it really was free, and that there were no 'hidden' costs that they would have to bear. All the parents had to do was provide their children with a packed lunch.
For two weeks we would keep their children entertained all day long and they could have some free time to themselves. 
Wherever we are working, giving the parents that free time is as important to us as our work with the children is, we always try to plan things to provide a benefit to all involved, not just the children.
So there we were, everything was arranged, our community had been informed as well as we could inform them, and we could do no more, until the first day of the Holiday Club arrived. 

On that morning we went down to the Hall early to set up our planned activities for the day. This included a variety of craft activities, as well as some songs and rhymes in English that we could all learn together, and Ali had copies of the plays and poetry she had found online for the girls from Cozia. We unloaded all of the boxes containing everything we needed from our car, arranged the hall to be as sociable and as interactive as it could be, laid materials out, and placed bottles of water and plastic cups for refreshment on a separate table at the front...........and then we waited, it was all that there was left to do......wait for the children to arrive.

Ali, John, and I as well as an Irish volunteer who was still with us, propped ourselves as casually as we could on tables, on the stage, on the front steps of the hall, and we waited.

The allotted time for the start of the day arrived......and it went. 
There were no signs of any children arriving from anywhere, noticeable though, there were no children playing in the street either, which is where they would normally be.
We have become used to this in Romania. An agreed time for a meeting is always extremely flexible. As an example, if you are waiting for someone to arrive and phone them to ask them when they will be with you, their answer is almost always;

"Immediate!"

To the English speaker, this sounds great, but in Romanian it has the same meaning as the Spanish 'Manyana'. They could arrive any time in the next 10 minutes, two hours, the end of the day, or even tomorrow, you just don't know!
So, we waited, but we were all getting more and more nervous as the minutes ticked by without any participants appearing. 
After all of the pain of making the arrangements, after planning all of the activities, after putting all of the materials that we needed together, after researching plays and poetry as we had been asked to do, after making arrangements for the toilets, after arranging the hall, after going around all of the villages to publicise our event, surely the children would come........wouldn't they?

After about 15 minutes we saw one father, walking slowly up the road, holding his daughter's hand. They were in no hurry, we weren't even sure that they were actually coming to us, there was certainly no apparent concept of them being 'late'.
Eventually they paused briefly at the door of the Community Centre, before stepping inside.
they both looked at us, we looked at them, and then Ali went over to greet them.

"Buna Dimineata!"

The father said hello in return and then asked for re-assurance that he had actually bought his daughter to the right place, it was so empty. After saying yes he was in the correct place, with a small nervous laugh, Ali got the father to provide name address and phone number so that we had emergency contacts if (and hopefully not) they were needed. Whilst he was filling our form out for us two more children came in, each clutching lunch boxes tightly under their arms.
One group, the girls from Cozia had still not arrived though. It was already over 30 minutes past the published start time and they still hadn't appeared. We were really disappointed. They had seemed so enthusiastic and Ali had done a lot of internet research to find the English language plays and poetry that they had asked for.
However, we swallowed our disappointment and set about singing some songs with the few children we had, to get them warmed up and fully involved in the day ahead.

'Morning has come, night is away, rise with the suuuuuun, welcome the day'
'La la la la................'

We were singing a  song that the Director of The Waldorf School had taught us when we were teaching English to the children there. Wide arm movements tracking the movement of the sun, standing on tip toe to signify it's height. It is a great song for getting children going in the mornings.

Suddenly the door opened again, and there stood three slightly older girls, looking red in the face from exertion and breathing heavily. It was the girls from Cozia. At first we were worried, thinking that something had happened to them, but they quickly explained that they had been unable to get a lift to be with us, so they had decided to walk down the hill and through the forest, but they had got lost on the way, which had made them late. They were so apologetic, but we were just so happy and relaxed to see them. We sat them down to recover their composure a little, gave them each a drink of water, and then got them up to sing and join in with the rest of the day.

That first day passed quickly, but very successfully. The kids made mobiles of their names out of paper, plastic, and string using water colour and crayons. Clever huh? Because it helped us too to learn their names.
Another child had joined us at lunchtime, to help us sing more songs, and to make fish from A4 paper, colouring them brightly with water colours and crayons and then hanging them on string. John and I made an 'aquarium' backdrop for the front window of the hall while the kids also made seaweed and before the end of the day we created the 'aquarium' in that front window to hang all of the fish, weeds (and a bag of chips that I made....get it?.....fish and chips?) for all of the locals to see. 

We also had two young boys in the group for whom I had made paper aeroplanes, which was a mistake, because the rest of the day for them was a riot of chasing John and I around the hall to try and 'spear' us with those planes, whilst Ali worked with the girls from Cozia on their plays and poetry, and our Irish volunteer worked with the other younger children drawing and painting.. It was great fun though, and as we left and locked the hall up behind us that evening, we looked at the window with the aquarium in it, and at the adjacent window with the name mobiles hanging in it, and considered what we had all done together during the day to be a real success. 
We had great fun doing it and even though we had only had 7 children attend, they had also seemed to have fun.
The decorations in the windows had bought the hall to life, with a riot of colour. What Is normally a drab building without life had suddenly seemed to have woken up from it's slumbers.
We also had the mother of one boy, who we saw standing in front of the building just staring at the mobile that her son had made. When Ali went over to ask her if everything was OK she just turned and said, with a look of wonderment on her face;

"I had no idea that he knew how to write his name".

She left, walking up the road hand in hand with her son, both wearing broad smiles on their faces. She was also brushing his hair with pride, praising him loudly for what he had achieved. He was the first to arrive the following day, and he arrived early! Just a she did on every subsequent day.

To tell the truth, we had helped him to draw outlines of the letters of his name, and he had cut them out, coloured them and hung them on string. Of course, we never told his mother that, but by the end of our time with him, he knew how to write his name without any help from us, along with a lot of other things.
That first day had been a real success, despite the lack of numbers attending, and we went home relaxed, happy, but totally exhausted (after a beer at the bar of course!).

The rest of the days of those two weeks seem in hindsight to have passed so quickly. Each day we had new craft activities that the children had thought up for themselves, we had more songs, and Ali worked with the girls from Cozia on their plays and poetry, and inevitably, of course, there was face-painting.

(At this point, dear reader, if you haven't already given up, you may like to read another of my blogs on the trials and tribulations a 'mature' man from the UK has with what should be, a simple task.
http://steveromaniablog.blogspot.ro/2012/10/face-painting-hidden-dangers.html
This time though, I didn't make the mistake of allowing the children to paint my face!)

Each day the numbers of children grew, as word went around that we were all actually having fun.
At some point too I also decided that I would do something with these children that I had done with the children at The Waldorf School, I made up a very simple American style marching song for the younger ones to learn English numbers with.
You know, the type of song that you see in American movies, with young recruits jogging up  a trail and their drill sergeant leading them in a rousing song in time with their movements.
Only mine went very simply;

'hup.....hup.......hup!!!
1,  2, 3, 4,  5, 6, 7!!
...8,9,10, and 11!!!

Hup, 2, 3, 4........hup 2,  3, 4'

12, 13, 14, 15

16, 17, 18, 19

and 20.....20.....20..........20!'

I lead the singing, of course, giving myself the role of drill sergeant, as in my modesty I have to say that I fit quite naturally into that role, and the children followed me around in a circle, marching in step with me and repeating each line as I sang it.

On one day, during our lunch break, we found ourselves sitting at the cafe, surrounded by all of the children.

When time came for us to return to the hall and continue our fun activities, I led those children out of the cafe, over the bridge across the stream and down the road to the Community Centre, single-file, stamping our feet as we marched, all of us singing our marching song, very, very loudly and with some vigour.

The other residents of the village all came out to see what the noise was about and watched us, incredulous, eyes popping out of their heads, having absolutely no idea what was going on. When we all got into the hall we just collapsed in a fit of giggles at the looks on the villagers faces.

By the time we had finished our two weeks with the children we had nineteen in the group, with some other odd ones who came and went.

At the end of each day we hung everything the children had made in the windows at the front of the hall, and at the end of each day it seemed as if the building itself was coming more and more to life and getting happier and happier.

We had always intended that at the end of the camp, we would hold a little show for all of the children's parents and for anyone else from the village who wanted to come and see what we had been doing. Having the girls from Cozia working on two plays though meant that this would become a much more formal occasion than we had envisaged that it would be at first.

We told all of the parents, and anyone we met in the street or the cafe that we would be holding this show on our final afternoon, hoping that we would get a fair crowd to attend. 

We weren't to be disappointed.

On that last day we had a small crowd of parents, grand parents, friends and villagers waiting outside the hall, ready to come in for the show. We had to swiftly put out more chairs, there were so many who wanted to attend.

As the crowd was waiting, the mayor drove up the road in her little red car, and on seeing the group of people in the street she decided to stop to find out what was happening. She knew full well of course, because we had made sure that she received an invitation, as did the priest and all of the others who had helped in making the never ending arrangements for the Summer Camp to happen. She mingled amongst the crowd, shaking hands with some, laughing with others and having seemingly quite serious conversations with the rest, it looked almost as if she was electioneering.

I walked over and asked her into the hall, but she declined, and swiftly went back to her car and drove on up the road to her house.

We thought it a little strange at the time that she didn't stay, nor did the priest or any of the other organisers attend. It was only later that we learned that we had upset the mayor by 'by-passing' her to make our arrangements with the priest, and that this had got us embroiled unwittingly in some local politics. We have just tried to carry on as normal since and ignore it.

The show went so well, and was received by our audience of about fifty people enthusiastically. We had an exhibition of all of the craft work that the children had done, we performed the songs that we had learned together, we did our marching song around our audience, and the girls from Cozia performed their plays as our grand finale with their faces beautifully painted in the way they had practiced during the weeks before with the face paints. One of those plays was a funny and friendly representation of shopping in our local shop/'bar/cafe with two of the girls dressing up as Gica and Nutsi, who I have mentioned previously. It was a shame that they were both too busy to be there, they would have enjoyed it, but we told them all about it later, and showed them the video too.

As we finished, to a great round of applause from our audience, there was an air of disappointment that it was all over.

As they left, clutching all of the craft items they had made, all of the children, and a number of the parents asked when we would be doing it again, and we promised that as soon as we could, we would. 

Maybe next time though it will have to be in a different hall in a different village. After the upset we had quite innocently caused with the mayor, we may not get the support and co-operation in future that we received this year.

Maybe we will even find another hall which is complete with a toilet! 

Like the one in Cozia maybe! 

After all, it would only be fair to give the stars of our show an easier time than having to walk through the forest to reach us every day again!

The following day we went down to the hall, and we thoroughly cleaned it. Walls, floors, windows and window cills. no more dust, no more grubby hand prints (which weren't from the children anyway) and no more footmarks on the floor. 

The only acknowledgement we received after our hard day of cleaning was a demand to hand the keys back immediately, so that the hall could be made ready for a referendum to be held three days later. None of the village officials offered thanks for what we had done with the children, or for how clean the hall was when we handed it back, which was much cleaner than it had been for years. This is Romania though, and that sort of attitude is only to be expected. If we had been asked to do run activities for the children, and not have volunteered our services, it would have been different.

As we left the hall though, one of the children's mothers came back to us to ask us for copies of some of the photographs we had taken during the week, she wanted to make us a special 'thank you' certificate for doing what we had done.

We didn't need thanks, but we gave her the photos later anyway, we had enjoyed the two weeks as much as the children had, and we will be doing it again, somehow, some way, without (hopefully) causing any upset next time!

Our rewards come from seeing the children who were at our camp in the street every day. Whereas in the past they would see us, many would say nothing, and pass quietly by, some might have given us a quiet, formal greeting in Romanian;

'Ciao'

'Buna Zuia'

'Seramona'

Now we get cheery waves, laughter and always accompanied by;

'Hello'

'Good morning'

'Good Afternoon'

'How are you?', and lots and lots of giggles.

It's all the thanks we need.

Steve

www.volunteerromania.co.uk

.

SO? WHAT IS SO GOOD ABOUT ROMANIA???

So?
What is so good about Romania?

This is a question we are often asked. Why do three Brits want to come from the land of 'milk and honey' that Britain is perceived to be and come to a country like Romania?
How can we be that crazy?

The really sad thing is that the people who most ask us this question are Romanians themselves.

I don't think I will be able to explain it fully in words, it is a country that needs to be experienced by others from these more 'affluent' countries for it to be fully understood. It really is more about one's own feelings more than it is about simple logic, and maybe, not everyone will appreciate it. However most of the visitors we have had from all of these 'more developed' countries, including the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Taiwan, and the Philippines have seen what we have seen, and they have felt what we feel. 

In our words they have gone home from Romania, with a Romania shaped hole in their heart's that can only be filled by returning one day.

I can also say, without a shadow of a doubt that what follows is not true of all Romanians. We have a number of Romanian friends who have returned home from other countries to settle back here with their families, and they are more appreciative now of the real truth of Romania by their own direct comparison, and they are very proud Romanian's.
There are also a small number of younger Romanian's who are also steadfastly proud of their country and demonstrate it by doing the simple things, like driving Aro's and older Dacia's, being satisfied with and proud of these older Romanian models rather than hungering for the BMW's and Mercedes that so many yearn for.

A lot of the younger Romanians we meet though express a wish to do nothing more with their lives than escape the country to the 'riches' of the West.
I have even heard one on Twitter recently who said they 'hated' this country.
Well we don't hate it, we love it, so when asked we give a simple answer, life here, at least in the place we live is 'Real'.

I honestly don't know what it is that young Romanians dislike so much about their own country, to me it is so sad, and it is as much a mystery as it is a mystery to them that we actually WANT to be here. 
I honestly can't explain why those Romanians show such a callous disregard for their country, particularly in the way a number of them are prepared to leave litter and spoil beauty spots here without worrying about what others coming along behind them will find. I am dismayed by those peoples lack of respect for their own country. I really don't understand it.
Maybe it's the lack of development, maybe it's the lack of decent roads, maybe it's the perceived corruption, maybe it's just the 'maybes' of a 'grass is always greener on the other side' way of thinking. 
Maybe it's as simple as the glamour and the lies of Hollywood movies that they have seen and believed in as they have grown up.
I simply don't know.
It may also be that these people believe what they hear from others who have returned after short stays in western countries with stories of the fortunes that they have earned. Stories that are quite simply lies, designed purely to make those people out as some sort of hero for going away and coming back 'rich'. Lies because in our experience many of them seldom do come back richer, they return to the same lives they had before they left, perhaps even worse off, living in homes that their families have fully owned for centuries, houses that their families actually built for themselves, and going back to scratching a living out of whatever they grow and can sell.
Any who do bring money back seem to use it up very quickly and go back to wishing to return to make more.

I honestly don't understand why these people can't just stand back and look at their country and see it for the beautiful place it is, so full of promise, with so much potential, and stay here and help to build it, not just for themselves but for future generations.
In our little way, I hope that we ARE doing it, I hope that we are helping to get the message out about how beautiful and how wonderful a country Romania is, particularly by comparison with the 'more developed' countries.

True, we also know a few who have actually returned with enough money to start their own businesses or to build themselves new homes, but they are very rare and only a very few.

When we are told by young Romanians what they hear from other young Romanians about what they have 'achieved' while they are away, we usually just smile and shrug our shoulders. We have learned though bitter experience that to try and refute these claims or explain the realities of this 'other' life is futile. Our words often fall on deaf ears simply because our audience doesn't want to hear the truth, they don't want to believe that there isn't something 'better' out there for them to go to. So, in a very Romanian way we often just shrug our shoulders and leave them to it.

We have tried, so many times, to explain that the greater amounts of money that these people believe they can make in 'more developed' countries also gets eaten up in higher costs for the ordinary things. How the costs of coffee, beer, cigarettes, food, rents, etc, etc are all so much higher and take a much greater lump out of the money you receive than they do here in Romania.
We know that salaries in Romania aren't very high, an average of 350 Euros per month for a teacher or a doctor for example. We also know that costs of living here are rising, but not as fast as in other parts of Europe or the UK. By comparison though, the basics of living here are still also much cheaper than other countries.
The net national debt is also much lower in Romania than in many many other countries and it wasn't all that many years ago that this country owed nothing internationally.

However all of this talk about financial comparison isn't answering my own question, it is merely arguing what I see as a mistaken point of view that so many young Romanians have.

So many of our friends and the volunteers who have been
here want to record their stay in this way, with their
handprint on the end wall of our garage.

Life here is 'Real'.

What does that mean exactly?

We live in a village, but we are close to a city, Deva. Most of the people of this village still live life from what they can grow and breed to eat, making money occasionally out of the surplus that they grow and by bartering with their neighbour's. We are beginning to do the same, we have fenced off an area of our large garden so that we can plant our own crops and this year it bore fruit, literally. We succeeded in growing 3 months worth of potatoes, a chest freezer full of cherries, onions we are still eating, our own garlic, and so many apples that once we had bottled about a ton, the only thing we could think to do with it was make cider! (not that I have any objection to that!). Next year we will start earlier, do even better and grow more, we may even get our own chickens for eggs. 
We might stop short of keeping our own pigs though, and yes we do sometimes hear a pig being slaughtered for meat in the village, but that is what 'life being real' is all about.
We also have neighbours, real neighbours. 
In the UK we had people who lived next door, but they weren't neighbours. They cared nothing for us or our welfare, they cared only about themselves, and yes, we did try to befriend them and show that we cared, but to no avail. When we did try we were greeted by an attitude that we were freaks and in one case outright antagonism, so like everyone in the UK does, we gave up, and lived our lives entirely separately from people who were only living a few feet away.
Families too in the UK aren't the close-knit groups they once were, family 'ties' are getting weaker as sons and daughters move on, move further afield. Divorce and family separation are also contributing greatly to this. I'm sure that all of this is as true in other 'Western' countries as it is in the UK, but it isn't so true here in Romania.
If we stay home for a few days and our neighbours don't see us, they call on us to see if we are OK, or they tell us off for not coming out when they do see us.
I know that if we needed help, we could go to our neighbours and get it. We wouldn't have doors shut in our faces and not everybody requires some sort of payment, they would do it because they are our neighbours and because they are our real friends.
It's also true of our friends who live in the city, if they don't see us they call us to see if we are OK, if they think we need help they offer it without being prompted in any way.
We get those offers from so many here, so many more than who would have genuinely meant it in the UK.
As a result we are prepared to do the same for them, whenever, and however we can.
Family ties are also much stronger here. At particular times of the year, particularly Easter and Christmas, sons, daughters, cousins, aunts and uncles gather from wherever they are in the world to be together at the family home. A phone call on the day doesn't suffice here, not on it's own anyway.
So, in a nutshell, that's what we mean about life being 'real', genuine mutual respect, genuine sharing, genuine neighbourliness (probably not a real word but it says what I mean), genuine unconditional friendship, genuine love.

Not a lot else I can say.
Anything that you would like to say?

Steve

www.volunteerromania.co.uk
www.holiday-romania.co.uk