Observations

Random observations about Romania from an outsider


1) So if you recall I talked a little about the difficulty Romanian’s are facing with their new currency.

A quick review. In the past things cost thousands of Lei. The government decided that 10,000.00 Lei (written here as 10.000,00 – what’s up with that?) would become the new 1 Ron. So last year when we were here you could pay for your purchases with a 10,000 Lei bill or a 1 Ron bill. This year the old Lei are completely gone. Most price tags are written in new Lei (Ron). A few are written with both.

All cash registers display Ron. The cashier’s more often than not say the total is X old Lei. Now here is where it becomes very interesting. I was just told this by Swell the other day. I didn’t know it because I don’t understand Romanian, although I am trying to learn a little and I can say some numbers. An example is the best way to introduce how stupid Romanians are.

So here it is:

Price tag: 10 Ron. Obviously, to you and I, this item can be purchased with a 10 Ron note. (or two 5’s, ten 1’s, etc.)

If I were to give the Romanians a break I could accept that this could also be equivalent to 100,000 (100 thousand) old Lei. It isn’t right to say one hundred thousand anymore but it’s only been a year. I’ll be generous.

So you walk up to the cash register expecting to hear the cashier say it is 10 Ron (let’s ignore the 15-20% sales tax for now) but won’t be surprised to hear her say, “This costs 100,000 Lei”.

Reality

You I’d like to purchase your wares, half naked worker lady.
Worker ladyYour total cost will be 100 Lei
You Great….wait….Whaaaat?

Review:
Price tag=10
Old Lei=100,000
Price quoted=100

Can you figure out the logic?

Tricked you. There is no logic, just Romanian pseudo-logic.

Here we go. Before the currency conversion the Romanians became lazy in their quoting/talking/describing prices/money. They took it upon themselves to drop the thousand. So if something cost 10,000 old Lei they would say it costs 10. The purchaser would then hand the cashier a 10,000 Lei note.

If you think about this they dropped 3 zeros from their notes.

Well, the government when developing the new Lei decided to drop four zeros. 10,000 (which was called 10 by the population) became 1.

So Romanians, who are unable to adapt to change, have 3 systems of currency in their minds at all times. They see all prices in the new Ron, refer to everything in the old Lei (add four zeros) but if it happens to be 999 thousand or less they then drop 3 zeros and refer to it without the “thousands”.

Confused?

Me=Yes
Them= most definitely

Swell has taken to taunting cashiers. They will ring up our items (really only groceries as we haven’t bought anything else while here). The total will be displayed. The cashier will then perform mental gymnastics to convert it to old Lei and then make the secondary conversion by dropping the thousands. She will then ask Swell for this amount of money. Swell will say, “I don’t understand old Lei. How many new Lei is it?”

Response 9 times out of 10?

*blink, blink, blank/vacant stare.

Idiots. 1=1 1 does not equal 10,000 and it definitely does not equal 10.

2) The news here is like a religion. A religion I can believe.

Every day the news comes on 3 or 4 times. Every time the news comes on everyone must stop what they are doing and watch it. With my limited knowledge of Romanian I can only look at the purty pictures. It is very apparent to me that the stories change very, very little between the morning, noon, early evening, late evening news. Same purty pictures. Same titles, same everything. Nonetheless the news is watched. Every time. At an ear shattering volume. No words are to be said. You are quiet during the news. The news is important.

They have a lot of international stories – what is going on with the weather in the US? Crazy. They have a lot of “Romania is a hard place to live” stories. It seems to me, an outsider, that it is a little excessive. Nobody can believe that we’ve seen worse living conditions, harder places to live. I’ll admit Romania is not a land of opportunity (in fact right this minute on the news they have a story about how Romania is the least urbanized country in the EU – with people actually leaving cities (no opportunity, high living expenses) to move to the country (to eek out a meager live-off-the-land existence) but it seems to me that to dwell on the difficulties does little good.

Romanians must start to seek change, to come up with solutions rather than wallowing in the “woe is us” mentality. But the laziness…

So why can I believe in this news-religion? Well the clergy (the news anchors) of course. Professional? Not a chance. This is ROMANIA!

Can I get shirts cut to the navel? Yes!
Tight clothes? Yes!
Crazy hair? Yes!
Shirts with writing on them? Yes! (Don’t see fashion, be fashion !?)

Irresistible news anchors!

And that’s just the men. *drool

3) In the city house we get three television channels. One of those channels shows a lot of American movies with Romanian subtitles.

Could they find any worse movies? I’m not talking bad like Dukes of Hazard bad, I’m talking bad like you’ve never heard of these movies, ever bad. I think a lot of them are Hallmark movies. They are for the most part terrible but I watch them anyway. I’ve grown to love these crappy movies. Not much else to do.

Do you know how many ways a child can disappoint their parents? Do you know how many ways a family can be torn apart only to come together stronger than ever? Do you know how many young girls are coerced to drop out of school become a stripper which leads to prostitution which leads to abuse which leads to death but whose mother will solve the crime despite the police not caring?

Me either but if one watches movies in Romania one is led to believe that every second girl drops out of high school because she is either: i) pregnant ii) a stripper iii)a drug addict or iv) in a cult. Those remaining only succeed because: i) they have awe inspiring perseverance, ii) a selfless social worker/teacher/homeless person helps them turn their life around, iii) the birth of their rape-conceived child changes their outlook on life forever or iv) the death of a parent illuminates the path to enlightenment.

If its not one of these movies it is an “action” movie worse than any Steven Segal movie you’ve ever seen. In fact, these action movies make you long for a Steven Segal movie marathon. Just horrendous.

Rabbit Trail
I lost 15 minutes of my life the second or third day Swell’s dad was here. 15 minutes that I’ll never get back. 15 minutes that would have been better spent stabbing my eyes out with a wooden spoon.

I cannot describe how grateful I am that it was merely 15 minutes. We were saved from further torture by the return of other family members.

Swell’s Dad was desperate to watch the run away hit – Borat.

He insisted we watch it with him.

I have never been so insulted/ashamed/embarrassed/angry/disgusted by a movie in my life and that was just the first 15 minutes. For the rest of his time here we ensured we had excuses to not watch the rest of the movie.

Swell’s Dad Let’s watch Borat
Swell and I We have to….clean the outhouse/do the dishes/paint the house/jump off a bridge.

Luckily he got the hint and watched the rest on his own. Ha!

To continue this side trip – the beginning part of the movie was filmed in rural Romania where they were told it was a documentary to show the world their poverty. They are currently suing the makers of the movie and I hope they win every cent that the movie grossed. I hope that “Borat” then takes his own life in the most painful fashion one can imagine. Perhaps every impoverished person in the world should have a chance to poke him in the eye before he falls into a tub of flesh eating insects. A disgusting movie that if you liked… well…. let’s just leave it alone.

4) If you thought it was bad being a person in Romania thank God you aren’t an animal.

There is a “horse” that lives on a nearby street. We see it every now and again hopping down the road looking for food. By the looks of the horse it isn’t able to find food all that often. The scrawniest, most miserable looking thing I have ever had the displeasure to lay eyes on. It looks to be on death’s door.

I’m considering opening the door and pushing it through.

It hops because the beautiful, caring owners take to tying its front legs together with a very short piece of cloth. It walks normally on its back legs and kind of hops with its front legs. It is dirty. Malnourished and pretty much like every other animal we’ve seen in our time here. Perhaps I’m an idealist but I’d think that if you treat your animals well that they would work better for you.

On the news there was a story about a horse whose owners beat it to death with shovels and other blunt instruments. Why? Well because it was unable to pull the overloaded cart that they wanted it to. The cart weighed several tonnes.

Well anyway, Swell and I saw this horse a few times. We felt bad for it. We felt worse for it when we drove by it one day. Driving by it allowed us to see the horse from a different perspective.

From below.

It was fixed.

Apparently by a mentally challenged 3 year old.

Who apparently used a dull knife.

My retinas have never seen such misery.

Only in Romania.

5) Curent. No not current. Koo-rent. The bane of all Romanian’s existence. It explains every illness imaginable. You sneeze – curent! You have a cold – curent! You get leukemia - damn curent.

Curent is quite simply a draft. There can be a howling wind outside that is ripping off shingles. You are free to go outside as the wind is NOT curent. If a window is slightly open and a small, pleasant breeze is coming through said window and you have the misfortune to be sitting near this window you have surely invited Death himself to visit you.

I cannot tell you how many times we have heard that curent is the cause of our small illnesses/sneezes/coughs/severed fingers.

It is all the curent’s fault.

Riding in Maxi-Taxis people will reach over you from five people away to close the tiny window, which is providing the only air circulation in a bus full of hot, stinky people on a 40 degree day.

The curent was out to get them.

They would rather sit in a sweltering bus then invite the hand of death, which is surely accompanying the breeze.

Bacteria? Viruses? Poor sanitation?

Nope. Curent. Thankyouverymuch.

6) There is a lot of opportunity to do public health work here.

Seat belts. Helmets. Sanitation. Safe drinking water. Nutrition. Prevention of childhood illness.

A kid died in Romania the other day. Two months old. The water got him. Mum made him tea (TEA!?) with well water and some creepy crawly in the water killed him.

Ladies I leave you with this sound advice. At least NINE MONTHS of exclusive breast feeding especially if you live in an area with poor water quality.

That’s it for now. We’re getting ready to watch the second half of Sole Survivor! An action/adventure/science fiction movie about a plane crash where everyone reportedly died. A husban/father to two of the victims is being drawn into a conspiracy by a woman who clams to have survived the crash but is being hunted down by a government group. When we left off last time someone told him that they saw his daughter (alive) AFTER the plane crash.

I’ve waited a week for the conclusion. It’s gonna be good times.