The Colors of Romania

photo by Lorna Babby - "The New Romania"

Romanian Construction Taste

Romanian Construction

Last entry I commented on the way that Bavarian Germany had managed to successfully modernize without much changing the atmosphere of the towns and villages. In Romania, there is much modernization taking place; people are upgrading their apartments, building new homes, shopping centers and businesses. However, it is a particular taste and style of architecture quite apart from the former traditions of the country.

The method of choice in construction here is the cement mixer. I believe that Romania has more of those mini cement mixers per capita then anywhere on earth. Every construction site has pile of sand, a pile of gravels and a cement mixer in front. Every site also uses lots of lumber, but not for the building, but as scaffolding and cement forms.

The nice thing about cement is the adaptability to shapes and curves. And Romanians love to add curves to their new construction. Often times the building is asymmetrical with a curved side and a straight side. The main portion of a building is supported by cement rebar columns and then a lighter cinder brick is used as filler. It’s odd for me to watch the walls go up without regard to the use of a level, but because the cement supports are level, the wall filler need not be.

Romanians, as a rule, don’t trust banks. When they have excess cash, instead of putting in a bank for safe keeping, they’ll put it into construction of their new house or addition. Once the money runs out, the project sits idle until more cash comes in. It appears to me that much of the country is in the process of being overbuilt. People have too big a house for their needs, but what else are they to do – it’s their retirement savings.

One thing I highly appreciate is the thermal windows and doors that are used. The idea for these came from Germany and they really are more efficient than what I’m used to back in the United States. Many of the cement buildings are not well insulated, but the windows work great, opening both sideways and from the top.

But the particular aspect of modern Romanian construction is the love of bright pastel colors. I can only offer theories as to why, but ever since the revolution of 1989 and now, with an improving economy, there is every imaginable color used in construction. The picture included with this entry is from a friend, Lorna, who sent me the photo in a collection of her shots. I’m putting together a slide show from all us volunteers to show at the Close Of Service conference and I borrowed her picture of a house to illustrate the state of current taste in Romanian home construction. Her example is not curved, but it sure is bright.

Grosswiengarten, Germany

Nurnburg, Germany

Nurnburg, Germany


This past week I spent five days representing my organization, the association of organic farmers of Romania, at the BioFach conference in Nurnburg. This conference is the world’s largest organic trade fair and show and this was the first year that Romania had more than a token attendance. I and 14 others – farmers, traders, certification experts and supporters travel the 15 hour road trip to Nurnburg. It was quite the experience.

I was amazed. Amazed at the huge size of the fair, semi-amazed at the efficiency of the way over 2,000 exhibitors were handled, and fully amazed at the level of interest that Romanian organic products generated among buyers. I also felt useful as the main English speaker for my organization. Contacts were generated, that if followed through, will be beneficial to my association and to organic agriculture for years to come. I came away feeling that the businesses and farmers that took part, whether members of our association or not, were well pleased with the results.

I have no report of Nurnburg, itself, as all we saw was the conference center. Our hotel was in a little village about 40 km. south of the city. Groswiengarten was a town set on the top of a hill and consisted of perhaps 1,000 to 2,000 residents. Nurnburg is in Bavaria so this village was typical of that region. It was like staying in a Colonial Williamsburg. The houses were all in the traditional, high roof design, close to the road with lots and farm buildings behind the house. We are used to ‘old’ here in Romania, but in Germany every house in town had been completely remodeled into the 21st century without altering the impression of quaintness and charm of 200 years ago.

Groswiengarten was a town featuring the catholic church and our group of Romanian farmers accidentally stumbled into the carnival celebration on the Saturday night before Ash Wednesday. It was an experience. The women of the town, old, young and in between, dressed up in chicken costumes. They’d go from bar to restaurant to entertain, drink, laugh and drink some more. Some of the men were dressed as a cross between a circus clown and a devil, but once offered a little of the famous Romanian drink of Tuica, they became our best friends.

And when the chicken women found that one of our members was a veterinary doctor that raised over 1,500 head of poultry they became best of friends with him. When they mistook me for the mayor of St. Cloud, Minnesota I became a good friend to them as well. It was a good time, and harmless for us, for we were all careful about our intake of booze and beer – unusual for a group of Romanians – and were in bed by 11 pm. The chicken women stumbled down the street to the next bar, and I heard some of the party go by the hotel window around 2 a.m. headed home, or somewhere.

I’ve no picture of the chicken women, but I will post one of the village.

In the Manastur Forest in Winter

Cancer Society and Heifer International

Heifer International and the Cancer Society

Last Saturday evening Nancy and I went to see the local Cluj basketball team play. The team is professional in the sense that the players are paid and last year its star player was a young American, LaVar Seal. This year LaVar is back and two other Americans are also on the club. The team represents Cluj in the Romanian number one league and also participates in some wider European matches. We have become good friends with LaVar’s Romanian agent, Simona, and we go to support her as much as watch the games, although they usually are pretty good entertainment.

This past weekend was a bit different. We went as volunteers selling raffle tickets for the Romanian Cancer Society. Another Peace Corps volunteer had suggested the raffle as a way to raise money and awareness of the Cancer Society’s efforts. The Society had never done a successful Tombola before and the director was a little leery, but with four dinners from area restaurants and a round trip bus ticket to Rome as rewards and the help of a dozen Romanian and American volunteers covering both entrances to the arena plus the generous donation of the Cluj team’s share of the gate receipts, the Society raised the equivalent of over $1,700 dollar. Small potatoes by American standards perhaps, but a great success here.

On Tuesday Nancy and I, along with two out of town Peace Corps volunteers visited the Romanian headquarters of Heifer International which is located here in Cluj. For those of you might not know Heifer, they are a group that offers a small start of livestock – goats, dairy cattle, pork, fish and bees here in Romania – to rural households that would otherwise be without. The households must promise not to eat the livestock until there is offspring, and then also must promise to pass some of the offspring on to others who can then participate. We had explained to us the projects currently underway in Romania and meet with the dedicated staff. We came away impressed with the efforts to revitalize a portion of the rural areas of this country.

Heifer has always been one of Nancy and my supported charities. As Christmas gifts we often donate a pig or goat or water buffalo in the name of a relative or friend. It was nice to know first hand, that the money is going toward meaningful projects. While the headquarters office was in a new building and certainly had all the refinements of a classy operation – a mark against it in our book - it was also apparent that money was actually working its way down to the underprivileged of the country in a way that could actually make a difference.

We both work for Non-profit agencies on a daily basis, but it was good to view or participate in different organizations work these past few days.. It gave us a sense of accomplishment that sometimes we miss in our own organizations.