All Saint's Day

Romanian Halloween is mostly a bust. The local TV showed some costumed Americans dancing around a bonfire by the old wall of the city, but we saw not one trick or treater. Romanian All Saints Day, the 1st of November, though is a special occasion.

During the day and throughout the evening people go to the cemeteries and lay flowers, greens and candles on the family gravestones. I had written last summer of the planted flowers at the gravestones. Now, during the last warm days of autumn, summer flowers are gone, replaced by dried stems and leaves. On All Saints Day, though, the flowers come back and are accented by candles.

In the afternoon Nancy and I strolled through the old cemetery down town. At dark we walked up the hill to the Zorilor cemetery to light candles of our own. We had no grave to decorate, so we picked an untended headstone and lit a candle there. We hope that Stella’s ghost appreciated our candle.

Part of our reason for joining the Peace Corps was to experience a different culture. Wenesday we took in a basketball at the Sala de Sport. The star of the local team is from DePaul University in Chicago. The team played a club from Israel and won by a basket. Last night we went to see and hear an Opera at the Hungarian State Opera House. It was Puccini’s Madama Butterfly. The story is set in Japan about an American Navel Officer and his Japanese wife, written by an Italian, sung in Italian, performed in Cluj, Romania at the Hungarian Opera House.

Tonight we’re off to here Mozart played by the Transylvanian Philharmonic.