The Turda Gorge

Hungarian Visitors

This past week I have been helping my organization, the Organic Farmers Association of Romania, Bioterra, display at the Transylvania Agricultural Expo. The Expo is a large gathering of vendors presenting their goods and services to the farmers from a wide area of the country. It is an annual event and as part of it, we bring along several of our members that have organic farms so that they may display and sell their produce. We have honey, eggs, sunflower oil, wheat and cereals, and medicinal plant producers in our ‘salon ecologic’. On the Bioterra table, we have available books that the association has published on various subjects of organic farming and next to us is our sister organization, Eco Inspect, that conducts official certification of organic farms.

I assigned myself the job of giving away pencils and old copies of our quarterly magazine and selling the books. I repeat my stock phrase in Romanian and as long as no one asks me a question I do fine – making change and smiling and saying thank you. When someone does ask a question or starts making comments that require more than a simple ‘da’, I reach for the nearest colleague. It is a break from my routine of office work and allows me to get out and meet some of our members and potential members. I hope that I make good window dressing. I know that I can’t compete with the slim, young ladies in their mini skirts, but I do what I can and the children seem to love it when I respond to their Romanian thank you with “you're welcome,” in English.

Part of our area was given over to a successful organic farm from Hungary. Dressed in traditional costumes and equipped with jams, pastes and canned vegetables, our friends made quite a splash offering samples of their Slanina (pork fat), spreads and jams. They were even more of a hit when they broke out their traditional musical instruments and starting singing. Many of the farmers of Transylvania are of Hungarian background, so they knew the songs. We’d have regular sing-alongs. If the customers were particularly friendly, then the jug of Polenca, a strong plum brandy, was passed around.

One evening after promoting organic agriculture all day we were driven out to a village about twenty miles from Cluj where there is a well-known Hungarian restaurant, Tomas Bistro. Our visitors, still in authentic garb, complete with black hat with a feather stuck in the band, black jacket with silver buttons over a white shirt, black pants and black boots brought along their music instruments, the zither, and a stick drum.

Before, during and after dinner, they would get up, put their hats on, because they needed to wear their hats to be complete, and they’d play and sing. The zither, or citera, is a 14 string autoharp that lies on the table and sounds somewhat similar to a mandolin. The drum is the size of a large jar and has a wooden stick protruding through the top skin. The drum is not beaten, but the stick is rubbed and the vibration of the wood is echoed in the kettle of the jar. I do not have a picture yet, for I did not have along my camera, but have been promised that one is on the way and I’ll post it.

The Hungarian language is quite strange sounding to my ears and the songs were unintelligible for those of us in the party that were non speakers, but it was interesting listening.

We had a fine time, eating rabbit covered with pheasant gravy and listening to the music but there were two things amiss. Nancy was not along and the chef, who was also the owner of the Bistro, kept stopping by to join in the singing. I doubt that our meal suffered by his inattention to the kitchen but wonder if some of the other diners missed out because the cook was at our table singing.

I sat next to a man from the Netherlands who is establishing an organic buffalo farm near Sibiu – buffalo, as in water buffalo, not as in American Bison. He hopes to milk the cows and use it to make special cheese for export. He still is in the process of building up his herd so he had no samples to bring along, but his was a story of hope, promise and perseverance. Hopefully, I’ll taste his mozzarella cheese before too long.

Radishes and Home made oil

Orange sellers

The Piata

The Piata


You’ve pronounced it wrong. In English it would be spelled pe-at-za. In Romania it is the name of the market where fresh produce, and everything else, can be purchased from vendors. It is also the name of the main squares of the city or village, but when you say you’re going to the Piata, everyone knows that you’re going for your vegetables.

Cluj has several, the largest is right behind the McDonalds. Now that’s sort of a clash of cultures, but no one seems to mind. Vendors are jammed check by jowl along narrow passage ways and various specialties are grouped together. All the potato sellers are in one area, the honey sellers, the cheese vendors each have their own sections. The market we go to is here in our neighborhood of Manastur. It’s not as big as the downtown market, but it usually has everything that one could need.

We also have ‘normal’ grocery stores where we do much of our shopping and occasionally when friends take us we ride out to the ‘Metro’ – much like a Costco -, but nothing is so picturesque as the Piata.

It’s often hard to decide which vendor to purchase from. They almost all have the same produce, probably from the same wholesaler, at the same prices. For our bananas, we have a favorite lady who smiles at our broken Romanian, but as we walk along trying to decide which onions to buy, it can be difficult. Often the seller will lean over the bench his or her produce is resting and say, “Poftiti, Domnul, Poftiti” (Don’t worry, you didn’t say that right, either. It’s the funny little thing they put beneath the last ‘t’ that my computer doesn’t have to make the tz sound). But these guys are professional. Every time I come away with more product than I than I had planned to buy and therefore less money.

We do a fair amount of our fruit and vegetable buying not at the Piata but at a tiny store specializing in fresh produce. It is clean, always full of good food and as cheap as anywhere. It’s run by a Hungarian family and except for the fact that it’s not as big as our living room with always twenty people in it, the place has a distinct charm. And they smile so broadly when I tell them thank you in Hungarian.

As we have no automobile, we can only purchase what we can carry. Our apartment is on the high side of a hill, so we have to carry everything up hill. We fill our two plastic bags with our goods so we are limited in how much we ever buy at once. Up the hill we trudge, carrying our pungas (bags – bring your own, they don’t give ‘em away) looking just like real Romanians.

The picture of the orange sellers is actually from the Piata on Rodos. We have had marvelous citric fruit here all year, but the Greek picture turned out more colorful.

Faces in the Piata

Symi

The Ancient Fortress of Rhodes

The Island Spelled Three Ways

The Island Spelled Three Ways

Rodos, Rhodos and Rhodes, either way seems to work. It is a Greek Island just off the Turkish coast. There are about 120,000 residents on the island that is perhaps 60 miles long and 12 wide. You might remember the place as the site of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes. There’s no trace of it anymore but it was a huge bronze statue that overlooked the harbor of the main city. An earthquake brought it down long before Christ was born and the metal was carted off to Egypt.

Nancy and I took a holiday there this past week and we spent most of it sightseeing, sunning and eating. We had never been to Rhodes before, never been to Greece and we enjoyed ourselves. We traveled with half a plane load of Romanians and it wasn’t long before we’d made bonds with a number of our fellow travelers. They were patient enough with me so that I could practice my Romanian and they could polish their English.

Highlights of the trip included a visit to Lindos and its acropolis. Lindos is a village that has maintained a quant character and setting and the ruins that top the hill outside of town are significant. We walked on steps that have been used as steps for almost 3,000 years. Most of the larger settlement of ancient Lindos was destroyed by earthquake (they’ve had lots of earthquakes in the past and are due for another anytime now) but what is left is impressive.

We took a ferry to a neighboring island, Symi, and that was a delightful day. I’ve attached a picture of Symi. I’ve also attached a picture of the fortifications of the old city of Rhodes. It was here that the Knights of St. John ruled for almost 400 years before becoming the Knights of Malta. If you’ve read the De Vinci Code you might know of the Knights. They were suppose to be the guardians of the secret. But no mention of what ever secret it was that they protected was made during our visit.

Not sure if the pictures indicate what a bounty of flowers that inhabit the island, some wild, some tame and some half way in between. It seems as if geraniums and roses were particularly happy there. The wild poppies were a deep, dark red, not the orange that are prevalent here in Romania and in Virginia. I suppose late April was the perfect time for the flowers, not the heat and dryness of mid summer. The air temperature while we were there was perfect for walking and touring, a little chilly for sunbathing, and nearly impossible for swimming.

Perhaps we had a tinge of guilt for living the good life as Peace Corps volunteers, but it was good to take a break from our Romanian adventure. We are both back at work now, refreshed and slightly more tan.