People Thought I Was Nuts Taking This Dog's Picture

The Wisest Dog of All

The Wisest Dog of All

Romanians generally love dogs. They also are afraid of them, abuse them and ignore them. It is a strange relationship worthy of a sociological investigation. In my unofficial capacity as philosopher and student of life, I have observed three main categories of dog/human interaction in this country. The first is the groomed pet. Many people in Cluj, and it appears other cities of Romania, share their apartments with a dog, or two dogs or more. These dogs range in size from small to huge. They are almost all purebreds and are well groomed and well fed. People walk their dogs around the neighborhood and are quite attentive. If the dogs don’t mind being shut in their apartments most of the day, they have a pretty good life. In this category there is not much difference between dog lovers in Romania and the rest of the world.

The second dog/human relationship is the stray dog/passerby one. Romanian cities are inundated with stray dogs. These are some of the ugliest dogs imaginable. It must be several generations back since any of these creatures resembled a purebred. There is one dog that looks exactly like a dairy cow except that it has floppy ears and legs three inches long. Another has the head of large dog stuck on the body of a dachshund. None of these dogs have ever had a bath, a flea spray, or a vet check. No one owns the dogs but most seem well fed.

People feed these animals. Each dog seems to have its own territory and its own people that stop and provide morsels on their way to work every day. Often you see a lady bent over to offer a stray a piece of bread and an encouraging word. Thankfully the dogs are unusually timid; content to look with plaintive eyes for handouts, only very rarely snarling or snapping.

The dog in the picture is such a beast. He is the wisest of dogs. He spends half his day lying at the Manastur bus stop hoping for a bit of attention and a tidbit. The other half the day he lounges at the entrance to the pet food store. Everybody knows him for these are both high traffic areas, but I’ve never heard anyone call him by name. He has more food than he can eat, often ignoring the stale bread, hoping for better. There’s a cup of water sitting in the shade of the pet food store for his use. He’s a mongrel as shows in the picture and probably should be taken out and shot, but he seems harmless and so he resides on his daily pattern shambling between bus stop and feed store.

This dog is like many of the strays, neither loved nor unloved. Efforts to clean out the unowned dog population have never been successful because when collection time comes around, the neighbors suddenly become protective and provide temporary shelter. Romanians love their dogs.

Except when they are afraid of them, which is often. This is the third dog/human relationship. I’ve seen many dogs get the boot and the stone or the stick thrown at them. The wise feed store dog has learned to keep a low profile and that appears to be the best method of success for the creatures – maintain a regular territory so people get to know you, but never become too obvious or you’ll become a target of abuse. Sad eyes also help.

The Younger Students of Luna de Sus.

The Melon Vendor

The Melon Vendors

The Melon Vendors


Watermelons are very popular here in Romania. They are grown in the southern tier of the country and shipped in to Transylvania. Eggplant, known as vinite, and melons are the most popular summer produce. Corn is available in the markets but it is not the sweet corn that appeals to our American tastes, but a courser type. Beans and tomatoes and summer cabbage and onions and potatoes are readily available as are peaches from the Oradea area and plums and apricots. Earlier in the season strawberries grown in the fields of Satu Mare and cherries were abundant, but the summer stables are watermelon and vinite.

We buy our produce from the vendors at the local piata. These are men or women with established places and they seem to buy their produce from the same wholesalers so that one man’s offerings are much the same as the next lady's. We have hit upon a few favorite sellers who smile at our attempts at Romanian and are patient with our fumbling for the correct change.

Watermelons though are sold in a different manner. They are handled by specialists who only deal with melon. Throughout Cluj and in all the major cities of Romania there are street corners devoted only to watermelon. The sellers are gypsies, Roma to be politically correct, and because the melons are too heavy and too large to move at the close of day, the vendors camp out at with the produce. Usually there is a canvas awning or tent protecting the melons from the midday sun and the vendors from the occasional thunderstorm.

Watermelon here are usually very sweet and if you wish to purchase one, a young boy or a woman, - it’s rare that grown men act as salesmen, will cut a triangular section of melon for you to sample. I’ve never seen any one reject a melon after the examination. It’s sort of like having a taste of the wine prior to pouring glasses all around. The Romanian word for melon is pepene. Cantaloupes are often sold at the same street corner. They are called pepene galben – yellow melon while the watermelon is either pepene rosii or pepene verde. Rosu is red referring to the insides and verde is green referring to the outside. All the terms make more sense than our cantaloupe and watermelon. I’ve tried explaining why we call the thing a watermelon to Romanians and have given up.

Apologies for not having the classroom picture that I mentioned in the last blog. I’ve had problems with the Blogsite accepting photos. I have a photo of a melon vendor that I’ll try and post but if the problem persists, I’ll do an email to everyone on my picture list to accompany the blog. If you read this blog and would like to be added to the picture list, send me an email and I’d be happy to put you there. I send additional pictures out when I have more than this blog can handle, perhaps every three or four months, but as the blog is no longer handling any, the frequency of using the picture list may increase. snowridge2000@yahoo.com

Teaching English

Teaching Class


I have started offering my skills as a ‘native English speaker’ to a dozen or more children that gather at the Luna de Sus Baptist church two afternoons a week. These kids range in age from 6 to 14 and their skill level in English varies with their ages. Last week we decided to divide the class into two groups with the older children separated from the younger ones. The attached picture is of the younger group.

These kids are ethnic Hungarians, and some of the younger have not yet learned the mandatory Romanian that is taught in their schools. I do not know Hungarian but when necessary, the older students will translate my rough Romanian into Hungarian, but mostly we speak English. Or I speak English and they listen. They repeat after me, although, how much sinks in, I’m not sure.

This is a summer school with the accent on having fun. There is not much to do in Luna during the summer, so I think my students, at least so far, enjoy coming so as to break the monotony of their August days. We’ve done very basic things so far, as I’ve tried to feel out the level of English of the older students and most of the learning has come through game playing. We’ve been working on Bingo and word scramble and next week I’ll try Simon’s Says. Simon Says will be a good one, especially for the younger group, if I can teach them the rules.

There are fourteen students, two boys and a dozen girls, although more show up each class. I tried to limit the class to ten, but then I thought I was going to teach adults, but that’s the way it goes here in Romania. As long as the students are happy to come, I’m happy to teach them.

Last class I had help from my niece Georgiana and her husband Mathew. That is them in the background of the picture. It was a big help to have them as one of the lessons we worked on was “Hello, my name is ….” The kids got a lot of practice between Matt and Georgi and Nancy and myself.

Our visitors were on their delayed honeymoon and we enjoyed their short stay in Cluj. It was pleasant to have them and we are looking forward to our next guests due in September.