Getting Around Town

Getting Around Town

Nancy and I are forbidden from driving. It is a Peace Corps policy, strictly enforced, that no volunteer can drive within the country of service. It is a good regulation, saves lots of lives and lots of hassles, but it means we give up some of the freedom of movement that characterizes our lives back home.

Getting to and from work every day is an adventure. My commute begins with a 25 minute walk to the west end of Cluj where I join up with my independent taxi drivers. They wait there for a car full – four fills up the old Dacias to the max. – headed toward the same destination. That means, if I’m the fourth to appear, no wait at all, but if I’m the first, perhaps a twenty minute or half hour wait. The cars are mostly old, beat up relics, but the drivers are all very safe (unusual for Romanian drivers) and put up with my broken Romanian. The fare is cheap and as there is no bus headed my way in the mornings not a bad way to travel, except for the wait on cold or rainy mornings.

The return trip is either by the 54 bus, which makes an afternoon stop in Luna de Sus or by drivers wanting a little gas money who’ll stop when they see me standing at the bus stop. The afternoon drivers are not as uniformly cautious as the morning ones and the trip back to Cluj usually gets my adrenaline flowing for my return walk back to the apartment.

Bus travel in the city is usually fairly efficient although the buses can get awfully crowded. Nancy and I buy our tickets at the stands before getting on. We have learned most of the routes and we have developed the proper etiquette to function. It’s strange that some people are extremely rude and pushy, while others are most courteous and sometimes it is the same person. It’s the same with the way most Romanians drive. I’ve concluded that it has to do with being anonymous. As long as one remains faceless, courtesy is not required, but once eye contact is made and an acknowledgement that the other fellow is really a person, courtesy takes over.

I usually offer my bus seat, if I am have one, to the little old ladies that climb aboard with the week’s groceries in their punga. More often though I’m standing and a young lady will offer me her seat. “Nu sunt Butran” I laugh,,,, “I’m not old.”

It’s nice that they make the offer, though I rarely take their seats. The other day though, some old guy, maybe 75, offered me his seat. Now that made me feel old.