Category: Culture
Despite Violence, Romanian opens Cultural Center
Posted Thursday, June 04, 2009 by Jhane Reifsteck
La Strada is a little piece of Romania in Rome. Adrian Nichifor opened the commerce and cultural center in March of this year—the first of its kind in Rome. The center brings Romanian products to the Romanian immigrant community in Rome, a little touch of home. Romanians can buy things ranging from Romanian groceries to wedding dresses to books . The Center is also a place for Romanian’s to gather, and where Romanian children can learn the language of their homeland. While his business appears successful, life in Italy hasn’t always been easy for Nichifor. Just this past January, a bomb was planted in his grocery store.
Nichifor believes the bomb was retaliation by Italians for the rape of an Italian girl by four Romanian boys. He believes that the chance of more violence is low. Sometimes, it seems Romanians are second class citizens in Italy.
Nichifor is one of the two million Romanians living and working in Italy. He immigrated to Italy from Bucharest, where his parents currently reside. He believes that opening a business is his destiny and that being an immigrant is just part of his life, and the lives of the other millions of Romanians that emigrate out of the country. He plans to return to Romania one day.
Don’t Touch the Artwork
Posted Tuesday, June 02, 2009 by Shaina Humphries
In America, you often see colorful graffiti in big cities on the sides of buildings, in subways, under bridges, maybe even on billboards. When you see it, you may think it’s gang-related, and even if it’s not, it’s usually washed off and removed before too long. Right?
It’s not exactly the same story in Europe.
In Romania, the graffiti is EVERYWHERE. It’s similar to tagging in the United States. Tagging is one of the four “elements” of Hip Hop that is usually a creative form of self-expression, and NOT something that is necessarily gang-related or threatening in any way.
Gabriel Galgoczy, a student at Babeş-Bolyai University in Cluj, Romania said, “Yeah a lot of people do that just to express themselves. It’s everywhere. I have a bunch of friends who do it.”
The situation is similar in Rome.
The most striking part of this graffiti is the fact that it’s still there. The authorities in Romania and Italy must believe in the self-expression theory, because the tagged-up cities of Bucharest, Cluj and Rome show no signs of wanting to “clean up.”
I rode a subway in Bucharest that was COMPLETELY covered in color. I was told that the train was an old one from Ceausescu’s time. After the revolution in 1989, the underground tunnels were brought to life with bright, vivid colors and whole lot of writing.
The artwork was, and still remains, untouched.
Mihaela. . . Romania’s “Girl Next Door”?
Posted Friday, May 29, 2009 by Shaina Humphries
Meet Mihaela.
But don’t call her that. Everyone calls her Michou. (Mee-Shoe).
She’s 20 years old, lives on her own in a big city, and she’s very close to her mother (who lives in another country). She’s a college student, a working journalist, and the nighttime caretaker for seven orphans.
She’s your average girl-next-door, right?
Okay. . . Maybe not the girl next door in our hometowns, but in Romania, this is a normal girl.
Click below to learn more about her.
Michou was an extremely big help to me during my time in Bucharest. As we worked together, I learned more about her, and decided that she was just too interesting a person NOT to write about.
She was born and raised in the district of Piatra Neamt, in Moldova, Romania. Like so many 21st century teenagers, her parents had split up. But unlike most, Michou did not live with ether of her parents. For some of her childhood, she was living with her grandparents on her mother’s side. Her mother actually lives in Italy, where she works taking care of an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s disease. She does this so she can make money (more than she would in Romania), and then send it back to Michou. She has one older brother but they’re not as close as she would like them to be, as he was raised by their grandparents on their father’s side.
A year ago, at age 19, Michou went to the big city of Bucharest, in order to attend the University of Bucharest’s College of Journalism and Public Relations.
Back in her hometown, she had spent some time working with children in orphanages. She had a friend that she knew through her work, and that friend set Michou up with a place to stay in Bucharest. She stayed in a church for a short time while she took exams to be admitted to the University.
Unfortunately, Michou felt unprepared for the University, and she didn’t get in.
That is definitely not the end of her story.
She was going to go back to her hometown, where her father and brother still live, but she decided to take a chance and stay in Bucharest. She began attending the University of Spiru Haret, a private university that she thought was a good school, and affordable for her.
The church where she lived was no longer able to host her anymore, so she ended up having no place to stay.
She found one opportunity, where she lived with an older woman for about a week, but that proved to not be a good fit for her.
Luckily, a friend gave her the contact information of an orphanage in Bucharest that was looking to hire. They needed someone who was
1.) Eager to work with children
and
2.) Would be able to live there with them.
Check. And. . . Check.
She interviewed for the position and was hired.
At the Centre Stantul Marcelin Champagnat, Michou works nights, and is responsible for the care of six children. So, she stays with them, monitors them while playing, keeps up with their school work, makes sure that they are bathed, mediates any conflicts, disciplines them, cares for them when they’re sick, and puts them to bed.
THEN, she wakes the older kids up at 6:30 a.m., makes them breakfast, gets them ready for school, and sends them off. Then she does the same for the younger children, but actually takes them to school everyday to ensure they arrive safely.
Spending so much time with these children, Michou has built a deep relationship with “her” kids. These children have been through some very tough times, so she tries to compensate for the relationships most have them have never experienced.
“You’re dealing with kids who have nothing. They don’t have a family like I have. I know if something happens to me, I can call my mom. No matter what. She loves me. She will always be there for me, Same with my brother and father. So everyday, I try to make them understand that they can come to me with anything. Good things, bad things. . . Their joys or their problems, anything! They can share that with me. Because I love them.”
As you can imagine, with a job like this, Michou is not exactly living the life of an carefree college student. But she says it doesn’t bother her.
“Because of my job, I have to make sacrifices. But it’s okay. I have really found a family there.”
Michou stays focused, spending most of her time when she’s not with the kids from the orphanage at school and working as a journalist. She has had some training with the Center for Independent Journalism in Bucharest, but works mostly for an online publication. There, her boss is a former teacher of hers.
In the past year, she almost quit journalism. There are a few things about it that she doesn’t like. Once, she was working on a story about a Roma student in Bucharest. After being interviewed by Michou, the student asked if Michou would send the story to her, so she could read it before it was published.
Michou’s boss was not too happy, and told her that it was unethical and that she shouldn’t have let the student read the story.
Michou’s response:
“I am human. I must treat the people I interact with. . . with humanity! This is MY ethic.”
Obviously, Muchou did not give up on journalism. Though it gets very difficult at times, she says you just have to keep trying, then try again. She’s begun to get better and faster with her writing, so she’s feeling more optimistic about the job now.
Today, she’s still living in Bucharest, and although is has become used to the big city life (for the most part) she admits that it is sometimes very lonely being in a city where she has never known anybody.
As Michou and I sat on the street and drank a couple of bottles of juice for our interview, she said with a laugh, “Sometimes you want to get a juice with someone, right? But instead. . . you buy a bottle of juice and drink it by yourself on the street.”
In the near future, Michou says she’d like to meet a few more friends in Bucharest, and “financial independence, of course.”
When I was almost finished with our interview, I asked her one of those standard “where do you hope you’ll be in the future/what do you want out of life” type of questions. . .
Here’s what she said.
“I know what I’m going to do tomorrow. And the day after that. Nothing more. I don’t ever plan for the future, because I don’t know what will happen. When I look back though. . . I just want to be able to say I helped people. A lot of people. Or maybe just ten people. Like Martin Luther King. . . people like that helped, and they never expected or wanted any fame from it. That’s what I want.”
Romania’s Alcohol Laws
Posted Wednesday, May 27, 2009 by Jhane Reifsteck
Beer in Romania often costs less than the bottled water at restaurants and bars. That may have some effect on the amount of alcohol consumed in Romania, but according to my student counterpart here in Cluj, Bianca Turcus, the laws seem pretty similar to those in the United States.
Drinking and driving is illegal and also serving alcohol to minors is against the law. There is no minimum drinking age, but the purchase age is eighteen. However, we haven’t seen anyone asked for identification or proof of age when purchasing alcohol. Turcus mentioned that in order to make more money, a club in Cluj started a teen night. The city ended up not allowing the club to do this.
The drinking laws regarding driving seem to be better enforced. The driver that took us to the vineyard last week told us that he does not even drink when he’s off work because he can’t have any alcohol in his system. That’s probably a good thing. It’s easy to imaging how out of control a driver would be on the Romanian roads if they had alcohol in their system. Romania has one of the highest number of deaths resulting from car accidents in Europe. According to Eurostat, Romania has 130 deaths per million people, and the other countries topping the list are from Eastern Europe as well. Malta and the Netherlands had the lowest rates with 29 and 43 deaths per million.
Other people I’ve talked to have said that it is considered okay to have a drink during the work day or for business men and politicians to keep bottles of alcohol in their desks. You would think that in a country where beer is cheap and people appear to be laid back about drinking, there would be more problems. However, we have yet to see or hear of any real issues with violence or fatalities from alcohol consumption or abuse.
Taking A Roman(ian) Holiday
Posted Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by Pamela Nisivaco
Is the sun better for you in the mountains of Romania or by the sea? Click on the link below to learn about where many Romanians take holidays, both long and short, away from the congestion and pollution of the city. Here they like to bathe in the sunlight.
On our way to Brasov on Sunday, May 24 we were all surprised to see many Romanians pulled over on the side of the mountain roads. Most of the people had set up small camps and were laying in the afternoon sun, usually in their undergarments. It is in these mountains that Romanians believe the sun is better for them because there is no reflection off the water like when they go to the seashore. According to our tour guide, Luiza, this sunlight helps build up the skin’s resistance and provides vitamin D for bone health.
Luiza explained that the mountains and seaside of Romania are very popular places for people in the cities to go on holiday, whether for a weekend trip or longer in the summer. The areas people had staked out were not necessarily camp sites, but merely fields at the foot of the mountains where the Romanians simply pulled their cars over and set up a little area for themselves.
I was amazed by how many people there were doing this. Some even had small barbecues lit to cook food. Luiza explained that on the way home from Brasov the trip would be much longer than on the way to Brasov because all the people we saw on the side of the mountain road would be headed home after the weekend to go back to work on Monday.
Bucharest Gay Festival Aftermath
Posted Sunday, May 24, 2009 by Luke Cleary
The conclusion to our coverage of the 2009 GayFest March in Bucharest. Within: video highlighting the extensive security detail and an image slideshow.
Security was tight for the GayFest March this weekend, and with good reason. Bucharest Police had concerns about the rally after a week of anti-gay demonstrations in various parts of the city. Many Romanians frown upon homosexuality, and the 2006 march was met with violence. The 200 to 300 hundred participants in this year’s GayFest were surrounded by hundreds of police, some dressed in riot gear. K-9 units and horse-mounted police dotted the perimeter, while motorcycle cops rode in and out of the crowd
Just a few snapshots of the GayFest Parade. While flags and signs were present during the speeches and march, at the end of the march the participants rushed to put away these items. People were also encouraged to leave in groups and get rid of gay pride symbols before leaving due to the threat of violence from protesters.
Hand-Holding: Romania style
Posted Sunday, May 24, 2009 by Shaina Humphries
In America, we hold hands to signify a romantic relationship, or perhaps to keep a child from straying.
What about in Romania?
In Romania, you’ll notice a lot of people holding hands and locking their arms together as they walk.
The most common example of this is two girls or young women holding hands.
Today, as we toured through the scenic Brasov, our tour guide Luiza explained,
“It is a symbol of friendship. It doesn’t mean anything more.”
Remembering Romania’s Communist Past
Posted Saturday, May 23, 2009 by Breana Lee Coco-Marks
Friday night in Bucharest we decided to check out a local event: A nostalgic party to remember Romania’s Communist past.
Around one hundred young Romanians gathered in a social setting to reminisce about the communist past.
This was one of the first attempts by young Romanians to remember the Communist era. At the gathering, people used ration coupons to receive food and drink. The party shed light on the situation in Romania before the 1989 revolution. Two Romanians talked to me about childhood memories during Nicolae Ceausescu’s rule. They told me of their earliest and most prominent memories about life in Romania.
Many memories involved food. They said crucial food items were scare, such as milk and bread. At the party they were giving out a chewing gum that looked like Bazooka bubble gum. One woman claims, "I still have the hundreds of comic wrappers I collected before the revolution and I am going to add to my collection tonight".
Other memories were not quite as good. The women told me about the hardships in not having feminine products, birth control and diapers. Communism took a great toll on many families and their ability to function in a healthy environment. At the party there was a area sectioned off and set up as a typical bedroom during communism. The room had limited space and fit only the basic necessities. Often times the children would share bedroom space and were unable to have childhood toys. Ioana remembers that everyone envied the children who had Barbie’s and other valuable toys. Additionally, the party had big screens that were playing cartoons and music videos that traced back to the early 18th century. People were standing in large groups talking about the good and the bad times of their childhood.
Currently, the communism nostalgia is growing in Eastern Europe. Doris, 28, and Ioana, 22, they enjoy their memories during communism, because just like everyone else it was their childhood. They described it as a time where they played with friends and were close as a community, even thought times were tough. When asked about her outlook for Romania today, Ioana said, "We love living in democracy".
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.
Anti-Gay Protest in Bucharest
Posted Saturday, May 23, 2009 by Shaina Humphries
Yesterday’s Anti-Gay Parade in the center of Bucharest was in protest of the “GayFest” Gay-Pride Parade that will be taking place today at 5:00pm.
I’ve seen first hand that Romania is an extremely anti-gay country. Although homosexuality was decriminalized here in 2001, it is still unaccepted and even not tolerated by the majority of Romanians.
In 2005, the mayor of Bucharest (at that time) Adrieau Videanu, actually banned pro-homosexuality marches and parades. However, President Basescu intervened and convinced Mayor Videanu to reverse his decision.
In 2006, GayFest took place on June 3rd. Here’s what happened:
“More than a thousand protesters throw eggs, stones and plastic bottles. Around 60 people try to break through police lines to attack the marchers. The counter-demonstrators then turn their fury at the police and around 50 people are detained. After the march ends and police protection is over, six participants are attacked and beaten.” (from the UK’s Lesbian and Gay Foundation).
In an attempt to prevent another outcome like that, there will be teams of riot police at the parade tonight.
You can see the ant-gay protest that I (accidentally) walked right into yesterday. According to Bruce, there was another demonstration this morning by a national anti-homosexual organization. They have uniforms and everything! He wasn’t able to catch the name of the group, but perhaps it was the right-wing Christian group, “New Right”. They were the ones that filed a legal complaint and tried to have GayFest banned in 2006, claiming it was “obscene and anti-social”.
See also: Video of Anti-Gay Protestors marching.
A few of us will be attending the Gay Pride Parade today and of course, we’ll have plenty of video and pictures of the event!
The event promises to be very chaotic. Let’s hope the riot police can keep the event under control, and that all of us Revealing Romania people make it out of there safely!!
Stay tuned…..
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