Category: Agriculture
Life in the Romanian Countryside
Posted Saturday, May 23, 2009 by Jhane Reifsteck
The gap between the rural areas in Romania and Bucharest is easily visible. Yesterday, I traveled with John Paul to a vineyard in rural Romania in the Delau Mare region. Some differences were obvious right away, like the vast fields of oats, rape seed, and corn in the place of large buildings and congested traffic. Also, instead of swerving past cars and people in the busy Bucharest streets, our driver was trying to avoid carts and potholes.
After talking with a Peace Corps Volunteer, Kenny Dunn, the villagers’ mentality is completely different than that of urban dwellers. Much of the land is divided into strips about equal to two acres. This is the land that was given back to the people after the fall of communism. Each of the land owners plants, plows, and hoes the fields by hand or with horses. Dunn mentioned that many villager said they wouldn’t know what to do with their time if they didn’t have to devote time to farming.
We only saw small glimpses of mechanization… A few tractors, and one grape picker. The viticulturist at the vineyard, Vali, told me that they used to employ villagers to harvest the grapes, however, the grape picker made the process more efficient. We did happen to see a competing vineyard employing people to help tie the grapes to the guide wires.
Villages in rural Romania look completely different than Bucharest. The streets were small and the houses and buildings looked very modest. The narrow roads were often made smaller by the horse drawn carts loaded with hay, or being used for transportation. Many of the farm land surrounding the villages were scattered with people walking rows of corn, with their cars and carts parked on the edge of the field. Often times, there appeared to be for to six people working in each field with usually only one horse.
The trip was very enlightening. I was able to get a sense of the conditions in rural Romania. I won’t say that villagers are unhappy, though. Dunn mentioned that villagers are content with the way that they’ve been living for the past century, and are hesitant to move away from their traditions.
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