Hope

Sometimes, and these times are the most special of times, you find yourself in constant despair. You find yourself surrounded by heartache and sadness. You find the weight of a deep depression pressing on your soul. But while you are in despair, when you are surrounded by heartache and sadness and when you feel the weight of depression you see – off in the distant distance – a pinpoint of light.

A light that is unmistakable. A light that is beautiful. A light that is awe-inspiring. As the tears well, as the dark clouds of despair lift you recognize the unmistakable light as hope.

A hope for the future. A hope that things can change. A hope that there will one day be a group of people who recognize that 1 does in fact equal 1. A people who have the intelligence to change decades of tradition because tradition does not put food on the table. A people who can usher a country – a nation – into the 21st century.

Today, after being in constant despair, surrounded by heartache and sadness with depression pressing on our souls for the past 4 weeks we caught a fleeting glimpse of that light of hope.

It came in the strangest of places. It came from, to everyone else, the most unlikely of families. It came in a country home complete with no plumbing, an external kitchen and a small two bedroom house.

It came from a family of 5 (very soon to be 6) who appeared to many to have done all the wrong things. This family is of course Swell’s cousin’s.

Let me tell you the history of Swell’s cousin prior to describing the beautiful light of hope.

This history lesson was, by the time I heard it, 6th hand information. It has been translated from Greek and Aramaic to Romanian prior to being passed onto me in the King’s English. So forgive any confusion, oversight, or blatant falsehoods.

Swell’s Dad’s Grandparents had three daughters, one of whom was, of course his mother. Swell’s Dad’s Grandma had a sister who lived in the big city – Bucharest. Some type of tragedy struck the sister and her only daughter (child?) died.

Swell’s Dad’s Grandma being the lovely lady she was (?) offered one of her daughters as a surrogate for her sister’s lost daughter. This lucky daughter moved from the country to the city and flourished. Eventually this double daughter grew up, married and popped out two sons. The eldest son is Swell’s Uncle and the youngest son is, of course, her father.

Swell’s Uncle grew, and grew and grew (he’s huge!) and eventually met (married?) a woman and they had a son – Swell’s cousin. Uncle left this woman and met (married?) another woman with whom he fled to the USA. They had a daughter (who a young Swell told about her father’s other wife and son back in Romania. Oops, family secret out of the bag. “Sorry Uncle I thought she knew!”)

Uncle kinda ignored his son and ex-wife (as evidenced by his daughter’s not knowing about them). Further tragedy struck cousin when his Mum passed away while he was still relatively young. I don’t know the rest of the story but I do know that he grew up, married and now has three (soon to be four kids).

His father is still quite the winner. Now I’ll admit I have never met Swell’s uncle nor have I met his wife or daughter. They didn’t attend our wedding and they live in Florida and some eastern state. I do know that Uncle is an airline pilot and apparently makes much dough. Wife is, unfortunately, ill with breast cancer (hopefully, was ill but I’m really not sure). Daughter is an aeronautical engineer working on things that will destroy mankind. (I get the vague impression that her engineering degree is much more impressive than Swell’s two degrees in the eyes of some family members.) Anyway onto Uncle’s winning ways. Today I saw a picture that made me want to hop on a plane, fly to Florida, find where Uncle lives, ring his doorbell and then ring his doorbell.

As far as I know Uncle has never given his son anything. Nada. Zilch. Zip. You get the idea.

If I am wrong and Uncle has given his son something it hasn’t been much or often. I had the feeling, as did Swell, that Uncle never even wrote his son. How wrong we were.

Today I had the privilege of seeing a picture of Uncle’s daughter, sent to his son. In this picture daughter was standing next to her college graduation gift. The gift was, of course, a brand new Jeep. Value ~$30,000.

Son said today, “I’d take one of the tires.”

Anyway back to our day.

We started our day by heading to Grandpa’s house, where we would meet cousin. I’ll admit we got off to a late start. I’ll admit it’s my fault. I’ll further admit that Swell and I should never have gotten married. I’m lazy. She’s a sleeper.

I would prefer nothing more than being able to sit at home doing a lot of nothing. Swell’s perfect day would be to sleep in, eat a quick breakfast followed by a long nap. Together we make the perfect let’s-do-nothing duo.

So we got off to a late start. We walked our long walk. Half finished houses, potholes, dogs, you know how it goes.

It was the long walk today – a couple of kilometers to catch a taxi to Grandpa’s.

We visited G-Pa and his woman for a bit but had to leave relatively quickly in order to catch the 11 o’clock bus to Cousin’s town. We were there long enough for me to be offered a nap.

Yes, a nap.

It wasn’t the last offer of a nap I’d have today.

By noon we were at his town near his house. Briefly, his town is better than Swell’s Grandparent’s country home, which automatically makes it better than their city home. Nothing special but it is quaint. No, or few, potholes. Finished houses. Fewer dogs.

And the dogs they did have were cute. No mangy, bloody, snarling dogs here. That was just on the way to the taxi this morning. My goodness, that dog looked awful. Swell was aghast when I declared that the dog would be dead in a week.

It honestly looked like death warmed over. You could see it’s bones, tendons and muscles. Nas-tea.

So we were here to visit cousin and see his family. His eldest daughter loves Swell. I mean loves her like she was a genie in a bottle. I have no idea why she loves her so much.

I mean I love her because she’s hot.

I don’t think she’s hot to an 8 year old girl though.

Swell didn’t see much of this family before a few years ago but this girl gets so excited to see her. Hugs her all the time. Loves to talk to her. It’s cute.

Swell has had the tendency to send them gifts but that is a recent thing. This girl loved her before the gifts.

This is the nicest family I’ve met while here. Smart. Loving. Caring. Easy to talk to. And by talk I, of course, mean stare, blink and nod to.

So here in this country home we sat for 6 hours just visiting. Cousin was telling Swell how he sat down with a paper and pen and calculated the cost of keeping chickens. He calculated that it costs 60 cents (?) every ten days to feed one chicken. He then determined how much a chicken needed to eat in its lifetime, how many eggs it produced and how much meat they could obtain from it. His conclusion?

Screw chickens it’s cheaper to buy it in the store. They still have some but not a farm full of chickens. He figured the same about pigs.

He grows vegetables. Every inch of his land is being used to grow something. Most of it seems to be tomatoes. He has three greenhouses. All filled with vegetables (as well as outdoor crops). Last year he had a lot of vegetables growing as well but no way to do anything with them. This year he has found a way to have someone sell them for him (or he sells them to a middleman?). His planting of different species of tomatoes allowed him to be two months ahead of other tomato growers. He spent a week making sure that he had the proper EU documentation to sell tomatoes.

He admits that he can’t live off of the tomato profit with such a small farm but it is something and he enjoys it.

He enjoys the country life. He moved away from the city (much to the extended family’s chagrin) because he didn’t want his kids to grow up in the city. He said today that he likes it just being him with his family.

They all seem content. He is using logic to determine how to farm and what to farm. He uses special soil to help his vegetables grow. He has a pump to irrigate. He sprays insecticide (and wears a mask while doing it!). He also works 2 24 hour shifts at a local chicken farm and collects his government pension (remember everyone is entitled!).

They aren’t rich but they seem content. The girls are bright. The eldest at the top of her class, the younger daughter still in kindergarten. They even cover their water bucket! Now ideally they would have a container that they couldn’t dip their hands into (as it stands now water from the well into a bucket. Cover the bucket. Get water out by uncovering and dipping a cup into water). But at least they cover it. (Ideal water bucket. Small top covered. Spigot to get water out. If you don’t use a spigot if someone dips a dirty hand/cup into the water they’ve contaminated it for everyone.)

How is this a sign of hope? We’ve heard over and over again how many mistakes cousin has made – really all stemming from his desire to leave the city and make a go of country life. But when we visit, when we see, we see a family that struggles but that is working hard to make the best of what they’ve been give. We see a man who has overcome a terrible childhood to raise a family in love. A man who still visits his Grandfather. A man who wants nothing more than to protect and provide for his family.

We see a man who is beyond smart and making his own way rather than following traditions.

We visited. Swell shared pictures of our past year. They shared some of their pictures. We ate the best potatoes in the world. I was offered a nap.

Amazing potatoes.

We gave gifts (very few) and cousin wisely warned (before we even arrived) his family that there would be no gifts this year because we have been away from home for so long.

It was a great day. I see a hopeful future for Romania if more families can be like cousin’s. They care about their neighbours. They work hard. They are happy to be together and share their lives with their “American” relatives.

We left very content.

Swell and I soon caught a bus back into Bucharest. We talked about what we had seen and what a good day it was.

Our trip back to Pantelimon would be a bit different today. This bus would drop us off at a metro (subway) station and we would take the subway all the way back to the outskirts of Pantelimon where we would catch a maxi-taxi to take us closer to home.

Let me preface this next part by saying that I have nothing, and I mean nothing, against fat chicks, after all I am one myself.

We took the bus to the subway station. Bought our tickets and found our platform with no problem. We then battled the stares for a while before the train came.

Upon boarding the train we were confronted with a return to reality. Why, oh why do Romanians not look in the mirror before leaving home? Ladies, if you are even just slightly overweight tight clothes with a short top allows others to see rolls coming over the waist of whatever you’re wearing on bottom. In this case it was a short, short skirt with a short, low – oh so low – cut shirt. She was with her boyfriend. They smooched. A lot. To my right was another low, low cut shirt with her boyfriend. They smooched. A lot.

Straight in front. Short shirt. Seats were full. Short-shirt girl was forced to reach up to hold on to the safety bar.

I looked at Swell’s knee. For what seemed an eternity.

We took the train from the first stop to the last stop. We quickly found the maxi-taxi stop and patiently let four maxi-taxis go by all the while refusing to get on them. Those that did get on them were literally (and I am not exaggerating) hanging out the doors.

I’ll admit I gave up first. I said, “You know what Swell. Forget it. This is stupid we are back in stupid Pantelimon with half naked chicks. Look at her. See she just proves my point. And overflowing maxi-taxi’s. Look at that one. That kid is dangling out the window just to breathe. I’m walking.”

Swell reluctantly agreed and we walked about 5 km home. Along the way Swell decided that she would buy some baking to take home with us. She went into the store and stood patiently waiting to be helped. The workers (there were two) were starting their closing procedures even though they had 30 minutes before they were to close. She stood there and stood there. All of a sudden a man walks in the store says, “Hey wazzup?” and they respond “What can we do for you?”

Swell left the store in a huff and bought nothing. Its not like they didn’t see her. They did. They looked right at her. Welcome back to Pantelimon.

So we continued our way home. Wondering why the stench is always so stenchy in these here parts. We kept looking at the mangy, snarling dogs. We dodged potholes. We crossed a street.

Young punk in his beautiful white Dacia station wagon decided that he didn’t care if we were crossing he was going to drive whether we liked it or not. He drove very close to us and when he was right in front of us… he stopped. This is a big street. In fact it is an intersection where four or five streets meet. No lights. No signs. Just a big parking lot looking piece of pavement.

I’m not proud of what I did next but as Swell said there is some type of force field around Pantelimon trying to keep us out. Trying to keep us angry.

I just walked right into his car. Not in his car but into his car. I bumped into it and scraped along side it. Boy did that make them angry. Boy did I not really care.

It’s a Dacia after all.

So the hope that we felt was soon overshadowed by the hideousness of Bucharest/Pantelimon. By the overwhelming sadness that we feel that Swell’s grandparents live here. The sense that we get that they were ripped off on the sale of their old bloc and the purchase of their new “house”. It was overshadowed by the lack of friendliness in this place. The lack of clothing in this place. The lack of community in this community.

Swell’s Mum to a taxi driver 3 weeks ago “You seem familiar with Pantelimon do you live here?”
Taxi driver with a look of shock on his face “Hell no!”

So you’ve heard me yell and complain about Bucharest.

A lot.

You’re probably sick of it. You’re probably just saying, “Leave then. Don’t come back.”

Well that is good advice. It is what we should do but truth be told we’ll be back for a fourth year in a row next July/August.

That trip will be different. I think we’ve decided we won’t stay at the Pantelimon house. We’ll spring for a hotel. I’ll drive a rental car.

More importantly for 2 or 3 weeks we’ll finally be tourists of Romania. We’ll take the train to different towns. We’ll see castles and monasteries. We’ll see mountains and lakes. We may even see Hungary. We’ll forsake family visits for a few weeks to have a family vacation. My sister and my “sister” are supposed to come. If they don’t? We’ll do it anyway.

Why? Because despite our complaints. Despite our terrible vacation. Despite the unfriendly people. Depsite the traffic and the dirt. Despite the noise and the blocs. Despite Bucharest and Pantelimon. Despite the dogs and the whores.

We love Romania.