South of Luna

Hitchhiker's Guide

Nancy and I have been traveling around the roads of this part of Romania by an old method, hitchhiking. Because we are prohibited from owning or driving an auto or from even riding on a motor bike, we are limited in our transportation choices. It's either the public transport system - the bus - or aquaintences' cars.

I'm sure that you have all seen the pictures of mass transit in India and elsewhere. Bodies jammed into the bus and hanging out the sides and on the top. So far our buses have not had anyone on the top, but some of them have been packed with people. And their are old. Many of the city buses in Cluj are brand new but the buses that runs through Luna to Cluj are ancient, smelly, hot beasts.

And the times when the bus comes and goes seems to change each day. There is a regular schedule but because there are two seperate bus companies running at least three seperate lines to and through town, I haven't figures out yet when, where and how much each ride will cost. I think the how much is an arbitrary amount anyway. It varies along with the schedule.

One thing is easy here though. Hitchhiking. Most of the time you don't even need to put out a thumb. People stop and ask you if you want a ride. It costs, most of the time the driver is trying to pocket enough money to pay for his trip. Other times I think they are really operating a mini bus service. The cost is comparable to the bus line though it too varies greatly. Sometimes the price is nimic, nothing, which is great, but the exception rather than the rule.

Last Saturday Nancy and I hitched rides along the country road that runs through Luna and heads south. Our destination was Baiasoara, which means Baths of the Sun, or Sunbaths. This is a mostly Hungarian area of Transylvania and we have no clue about the Hungarian language, but every one is friendly and nearly everyone speaks Romanian and many speak English.

Baiasoara is a town of no more than 400 people located within 14 kilometers of a single slope ski resort of the same name. We didn't make it up to the resort but headed back to a little village called Savadisla. There we had an excellent lunch prepared Hungarian style. There is a little restaurant in Savadisla called Tomas Bistro. We recommend the Goulash and the pickled onion salad.

For those coming for a visit we'll take you down that way. But bring your own car.

The Hills around Luna

Moon Overhead

Moon Overhead, August 13, 2005

Even being in the posh corps (see previous story) it’s still a job adjusting to life in a foreign country. It’s not just life, it’s like camping out. We are not tourists anymore. Our accommodations are thus – two rooms and a bath in a sort of a basement efficiency apartment beneath the main house. Our hosts are a Hungarian/Romanian couple, although we haven’t met the wife yet as she’s been on vacation in Hungary. We are gradually making the two rooms our own.

The refrigerator is large by Romanian standards. We have a gas stove, plenty of hot water, a double bed with squeaky springs that’s a great improvement over the bed we slept in here during site visit back in July. We’ve a kitchen table and couch that would fit in well on a porch along Naked Creek. It’s a quite livable situation, although evening entertainment here is playing solitaire. Perhaps I’ll have time to write that great American, err, Romanian novel.

The house sits along a dirt road, unless it rains, and then it sits along a mud track. Luna de Sus (Top of the Moon) is the first in a string of mostly Hungarian villages that follow the paved road 40 kilometers to a small city called Bura. The hills directly surrounding the town are beautiful and further along the road the hills turn into real mountains. We’ve no transportation of our own, but on a nice day I hope to hike a ways down the road and take some pictures.

An experience worth noting is this: the other evening while I was helping my host and brother in placing netting over a small area of commercial cut flowers, the brother’s young daughter starting counting. Although Nancy and I had seen the girl and her older sister twice before, they had never said anything. The family’s natural language is Hungarian and we weren’t sure if they knew Romanian or not. Anyway, Andrea, perhaps 4 years old, started counting. One, two, three, four.
We laughed. Her older sister never did say much in English, but Andrea knew thank you and your welcome, and could at least count to ten. It made us feel not quite so alone. I haven’t taken a picture of the girls yet, but I promise to do so.

Cluj is the nearest large city, east of us by 12 kilometers – Oh, get used to the kilometer bit, they are so much easier to use than miles. Not sure if we’ll convert to the metric system while we are here, but I’ll surely use kilometers instead of miles. One kilometer is about 2/3erds of a mile.

Nancy and I toured the botanical gardens of Cluj yesterday. They are very nice and clean, with a couple of tall greenhouses reminding us of a smaller version of the gardens at Kew in London. We also walked into the Church of St. Michael, a gothic cathedral the first portion of which was built in the 1300’s. Cluj is a university city with many cultural activities. Our problem is that the last public transportation between Cluj and Luna leaves the city at 7:30. Taxis are expensive, particularly on our slim budget. Nancy will work in Cluj, and I here for the Romanian Organic Agriculture folks. It would make more sense if we lived in the city and I commuted, rather than have Nancy have to make the trek to her job.

We are working on the possibility of finding an apartment. It might be bigger than our current place, but the surroundings would not likely be as nice. There would be no mud perhaps, but it would be one of those block apartments constructed by the Communists and lacking in any exterior pleasantness. I refuse to take a picture of them, they are so ugly.

Nancy’s counterpart who will show her what’s expected and assign first tasks is on vacation so Nancy will not report to work until the 22nd. I’ve been to work but no one has assigned me to a task yet. I’m not sure they know what they want to do with me. They seem to be glad that I’m there, so that’s enough for now.

Nancy, Betty & Celu - with my hat.

Posh Corps

Posh Corps and New Address

This afternoon Nancy and I will become official Peace Corps volunteers at the swearing-in ceremony. While we have felt like official volunteers for some time, we’ve actually only been trainees. We’ve had ten weeks of language and cross cultural classes. We’ve made an initial visit to our permanent work site and we’ve tried to absorb as much of Romania as possible. Monday we’ll take the train to Cluj to begin our two year assignments.

I post the following random observations. First we’ve been treated splendidly by our host family. We’ve shared their house, their bathroom, their food. They’ve never complained about us – at least never in English. They’ve been special help in our language training. The terms in language learning are sympathetic listener and sympathetic speaker. They listen eager to understand our faulty Romanian and they speak slowly and repetitively until we grasp their meaning. The Romanian/English dictionary is often our dinner companion.

Speaking of food, Betty, our Gazda hostess, has been an excellent cook, consistently excellent. We’ve bragged about her to our fellow trainees, some of which have had a few horror stories. On Monday Nancy goes back to cooking, I go back to washing dishes. Betty had forbidden me use of her kitchen sink so I’ve gotten out of practice.

We’ve had nearly all the comforts of home and a short order cook available. Apparently in other Peace Corps countries Romania is referred to as Posh Corps. In 1961 when John Kennedy first inaugurated the program the norm was living in the countryside as the locals do and that still is the principal. Most Romanians have a decent lifestyle. Hot water is almost universally available. Refrigerators and gas stoves are in everyone’s kitchen.

One young fellow who Nancy and I both like was commenting on his site assignment. He was selected for a remote location in Moldavia. Some volunteers came back from site visit bragging of their accommodations – two have hot tubs available – which makes it difficult for fellows like Russell who live in a town at the end of the road with hot water operational only for certain hours. He was complaining that cell phones work intermittently, that the one school computer may not be hooked up to the internet, that there were only two small stores in town and they did not carry a full compliment of items. There was nowhere to buy frozen chicken breasts for example.

Russell will do extremely well at his site as long as he sticks with it. I can say that because Nancy and I will be close to a university city, filled with all sorts of diversions and culture and American class shopping. We won’t be able to purchase much for the stipend that we are given is to cover only basic expenses and we’ll have to carry everything we get in a punga for we are required to take public transportation. Compared to nearly every other Peace Corps country though, our situation, even Russell’s, would be considered posh.

The challenges ahead are not really in living conditions but in assimilating. Romania is a second world country on the verge of becoming first world. I should say that portions of the country already are first world, others part third. BMWs swerve around horse drawn carutsas. The average is second world for whatever that means. Private spaces and the country side are beautiful. Public spaces and public transport, with exceptions, are unclean, crowded and smelly. Checks, credit cards and American money are not used. Bills are paid by cash and in person at the Gas Company or the Electric Company.

People admire Americans and many speak excellent English, but they all wonder what in the world we are doing here.

That question is not easily explained in English or in Romanian. In one sense we are instruments of American Foreign Aid, placing money in towns and villages where it can effectively make a small difference. In a real sense we do serve one of the tenets that Kennedy put forward by being the face of America for people that have never seen an American. We hope the face we present is a fair one. For my language exam yesterday I had found a way in Romanian to express why I’m here. I practiced to say if properly unfortunately the question never came up so I didn’t get to use my little speech. I hate to waste it, so here it is.

Sunt Batran. Parul meu este alb. Vreau sa fac bun inainte mors.

For those interested in sending snail mail the best address for us is:
Asociatia Bioagricultorilor din Romania
407 281 Luna de Sus nr. 376
Jud. Cluj, Romania

This is the address for my work site. Please put on the envelope to my attention. We do enjoy getting snail mail.