Christmas in Romania

During the Communist era Christmas carols were banned. Our Romanian friends tell that during the Communist era, they would go down to their basement, cover all the windows, and softly sing Christmas carols with their family members.
The Opera had an annual winter concert, where they could play 'winter songs,' but not Christmas songs. In 1980, Dumitru Farcas closed the concert with an arrangement of a traditional Romanian folk carol, "O, ce veste minunata"  (O, what wonderful news).  Everyone in the theatre stood while he played; no one sang for that was illegal.  But it was the first time the carol was played publicly in 30 years.  He got in trouble, but because he was a well-known performer, he was not imprisoned.
When Communism fell, the Opera invited Mr. Farcas to play "O, ce veste minunata," which he has done every year since.  We attended the annual Christmas Concert at the Opera.  When Dumitru Farcas came on stage, the audience gave him a standing ovation before he even played.  
Here's a YouTube video of Stefan Hrusca, a Romanian folk singer, performing it:
'O ce veste minunata'

That's about as good as it gets

The last class was the best one I've had in Romania.  What made it so good?

Well, the first hour and a half, my class met with another class so I could guest lecture on a subject that I am passionate about: social entrepreneurship. Main point:  Social entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs with a social mission, connect the social service needs of the community with donors' interests and values.  Sub-points:

1. While profit may be motivating to entrepreneurs, the mission is central with social entrepreneurs: Making a difference in community needs.
2. Social entrepreneurs need to thoroughly understand the needs of the community; graduate school is a good context to understand needs.
3. Social entrepreneurs need to know the best practices to meet those needs; grad school is a good context to learn what works.
4. Social entrepreneurs have to show impact, how their program makes a difference, so program evaluation is a necessity.
5. Donors, people with money, are people just like the rest of us who want to make the world a better place.  Their skill is in making or managing wealth; they need us people who are skilled in understanding the factors causing the social problems and in designing interventions that have an impact on the social problems.
6. Social entrepreneurs show initiative to understand the problem, create a solution that makes an impact on the problem, and communicate with potential donors. Don't just stand there: mission driven action.
7. An untapped donor resource in Romania is Corporate Social Responsibility; many multinationals are relocating to Romania and few social service agencies are partnering with them to make Romania a better place.

Students were engaged in discussion, had some good ideas. I hope some of them start new NGOs to address community needs; that's my desired impact.

I then went to my class, Program Evaluation. They were supposed to attend the guest lecture, but another professor kept them late and they decided to wait in the hall.  However, I had high attendance day, six of eight students.  Two students were there for the first time; it's only the next to last class of the semester. As I arrived in class I got a text from my guest NGO speaker that she was not able to come, so I created a "Plan B" on the fly.

Following the "Show one, do one, teach one" pedagogy, I asked the students who had attended previously to teach the two newbies how to analyze a NGO's mission, objectives, program activities, and intended outcomes in a logic model.  I passed out brochures from NGOs that I have collected, and based on some pretty scant information in the brochures, they created logic models (week 2 topic). They presented the logic models they created; like, stand up at the front of the class and talk about what they know.  Then we discussed how to evaluate if they are ready for a program evaluation (week 3 topic), and decided that two could potentially benefit from a program evaluation, the third would benefit from clarifying its program intent and objectives.

Then two students, one newbie and one who has come half the time, told me they had to leave early (an hour early).  "Let me have ten more minutes and let's see what we could do to evaluate one of these programs" (tonight's topic). 

It was pretty easy to do a performance evaluation on a photo exhibition to support a domestic violence prevention NGO (how many entries, how many visitors), and more difficult to do an impact evaluation of whether their objectives were met (content analysis of themes of the photos to evaluate if they communicated non-violence; response cards from visitors to evaluate the extent of supportive attitudes).  The key is "ease of use" matched to the "program intent." Hey, in ten minutes, we had a pretty good evaluation plan.  And everyone left early and happy.
 

Good teaching/learning makes me want to dance!

I'm definitely reinforcing "the glass is half full" mode in my mindset; my experience of higher education here has lowered my expectations.   I'm sure there are good reasons for all of the "half empty" behaviors, I just haven't learned to appreciate them.  Enough of these nattering nabobs of negativity!

• I had students who showed interest in what I had to offer!  
• I had students who did what I asked in class!  
• I had students who talked about what they are learning!
• I got to understand what students understand!
• Teaching/learning was happening! Can't have one without the other.

As Jack Nicholson said in the movie, "that's about as good as it gets, folks."

European Premier of "Hand Held," the story of the Romanian Children's Relief

We attended the European premier of "Hand Held," a documentary about Mike Carroll, the Boston Globe photographer who brought the Romanian children's AIDS epidemic to light, then founded a non-profit to help the abandoned children of Romania.  It is a documentary directed by Don Hahn, the producer of The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  It's got Oscar buzz, so watch for it to come out at your local art-flick theatre.

We had breakfast with Mike Carroll, who was staying at our hotel.  We had already decided to attend the screening based on a poster we had seen.   He is a sincere, down-to-earth kind of guy. He invited us to visit their operations next week in Bistriza, a town about two hours from Cluj.

Movie Trailer: Hand Held

The most compelling scene of the movie for me was Mike talking about becoming emotionally attached to a young boy, about 18 months old.  Usually, as he explains, the camera creates some emotional distance, a necessary part of covering difficult subjects.  However, after shooting at one orphanage, this boy caught his attention and he stared playing with him.  For several days, when he finished shooting at this hospital he returned to play with the boy.  He talked with his wife about adoption, and they decided to pursue it.  When he returned to the hospital the next day, the boy was not there.  The nurse explained that he had tested positive for AIDS and was moved to another hospital. When Don went to the other hospital they had no record of the child; even if he had located him, the US government would not allow an international adoption of a HIV+ child.

Here's the history behind the movie:  Romania's Dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu (Tchow-chesk-you) was deposed and killed on Christmas day, 1989.  The Berlin Wall fell in November, 1989, and Gorbachev's policies of glasnost (political openness that led to Soviet media reporting critical stories about the government) and perestroika (a political restructuring that decentralized the economic control and led to economic crisis) led to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.

During the 70s and 80s, Ceauşescu saw building factories to export manufactured goods as the key to Romania's future.  He uprooted the rural, agricultural population and moved them to the cities to work in factories.  The classic Communist block buildings were a symbol of the forced urbanization of the population and the massive building campaigns.  The officials in charge of building these buildings figured that the peasants didn't have running water or sewer where they came from, so why should they build that into the 10 story buildings?  As a result, people used the stairwells for their toilet, so disease was rampant in the cities.

Ceauşescu couldn't bring enough peasants from the countryside to work in all the factories he wanted to build.  So he implemented what Newsweek called "overplanned parenthood," a scheme to increase the Romanian population by making pregnancy a state policy; childlessness was considered "desertion."  Each family was expected to have at least five children.  Gynecologists were sent into the factories monthly to conduct unannounced gynecological screenings, ostensibly to check for cervical cancer, but also to report any pregnant women to State Security (called the "menstrual police").  Women who couldn't have children were docked part of their monthly wage as a penalty.

Massive food shortages at the time, the Ministry of Health recommended 1,000 calorie/day as a healthy diet, and diseased conditions among the poorest workers insured a high percentage of low birth weight babies with many complications.  Many poor women, who had children at home to take care of, would have to choose between caring for the sick newborn or the healthier toddlers.  So many families left their newborns at the hospital where they were at least fed, clothed, and sheltered.  This spawned the nationwide chain of orphanages, where the children were warehoused in deplorable conditions.

To address the food shortages and malnutrition of the children in orphanages, someone thought it would be a good idea to use blood transfusions as a source of nutrition.  To insure a steady source of "donated" blood, soldiers and aailors were required to give blood twice a year.  The Romanian military was active in Angola, Romania's largest trade partner at the time, and brought the AIDS infection home with them. The forced blood donations that were used for the orphanages created the Romanian AIDS epidemic.

In addition, Ceauşescu closed all the nursing schools, as the only thing nurses did was what the doctors told them to do.  So why do they need to go to school to learn how to follow orders?  Public health nurses were issued two syringes per year, which they used for the mandatory immunization program.  So in addition to those in the orphanages, children in healthy families contracted AIDS and Hepatitis as well.  Children sick with these diseases were quarantined in special hospitals, which in reality were death wards.

As a result, there is a whole generation of children with AIDS in Romania, who are now young adults.  There are many Romanian NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to serve the needs of these people.  They maintain their health by participating in large scale clinical trials of the newest AIDS drugs.

I interviewed representatives and beneficiaries from one such NGO in our region.  The term they use to refer to themselves has a wonderful ambiguity in translation, "I am a positive person."  And they went on to talk about how they take one day at a time, making the most of each good day, because you don't know when the bad days will come.  Good advice for the rest of us.

Drinking Palinka with the rock stars

Tonight I had a surreal experience.  The hotel manager where we are staying in  Bucharest invited me to have a glass of palinka before I go to bed.  I've learned, in Romania, you don't turn down Palinka.  It's a strong alcohol, usually homemade, and it is offered as a token of friendship.  To turn it down is rude.

So I go with the hotel manager down to the hotel restaurant to have palinka and talk with the hotel manager about his life story.  We joined three other men at the table having wine or palinka or beer.  Very Romanian men.  Telling stories and jokes about women; teasing one another like old friends.  They talked mostly in Romanian, and occasionally translated for me, especially the jokes. 

Bogdan Bradu, vocalist for Phoenix

After palinka and wine, they tell me that they are musicians.  "Have you heard of Phoenix?" Not really.  "We're the most famous rock group in Romania, we were contemporaries of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles." No, you gotta be kidding!

We told more jokes.  One of the guys told a story on the other about "speaking Russian" or French, or German, or Italian, even though he doesn't know the language.  He just spoke random sounds in the accent of the target language.  Pretty passable characature  of an accent. They had a funny story about impressing some easily impressed girl with their language abilities. 

They passed a traditional Romanian hat around, putting it on one another's head.  Of course, I had to have a round of the funny hat game, too.

And I asked them if they were able to tour during Communism, still thinking they were pulling my leg.    They were banned from the concert halls, but started selling out stadiums, which were controlled by the sports clubs at the time, not the communists.  Then in 1974, they packed themselves into the speakers in a shipment to Germany, and defected from communist Romania and had a successful life in Germany.  Someone pulled out an iPod and played some of their music, "That's one of ours. We're playing an unplugged concert here in Bucharest next weekend with the symphony orchestra and chorale.  It will be quite nice. You ought to come!"

Tourist wearing traditional Romanian hat

You were in Cluj just a few weeks ago.  I saw the posters. "Yeah, that was a sell-out. Are you going to be in Bucharest for the week?  It'll be great." 

OMG.   THIS IS THE REAL DEAL. THIS IS SO COOL!

Nicu_Covaci FO PHOENIX
A Music Sample

Learning about the Romanian Juvenile Justice System

A discussion broke out in class last night.  Since it was in Romanian, and only one student felt confident enough with her English to translate, I only got the highlights.  But observing the energetic (heated) conversation, I can surmise my class discussion got wrapped up in some leftover issues.  But hey, it's better than the cow eyes I have been getting from students when I ask questions in class.

We were discussing how to incorporate family therapy interventions into the juvenile justice process.  This was a class on Treatment and Rehabilitation for Juvenile Delinquents. Students from three Master's programs in the Faculty of Social Work take this class: Evidence-Based Clinical Social Work; Social Work with Justice System, Probation, and Mediation; and Children's Rights.  The Justice students were seated on the left side of class while the Clinical Social Work students were seated on the right. We were discussing when in the arrest-arraignment-court  process would be the best time to intervene to rehabilitate the youth.

The first heated discussion broke out among three MSW Justice System students about factual details about the justice procedures.  It looked to me that these students were engaging in a one-up-man-ship of "I know better than you do," about tiny details of the justice process.

Throughout the discussion, the Justice students engaged with vigor while the Clinical Social Work students stared at the floor. 

Some things that I learned about the juvenile justice system:  There is no separate juvenile justice system in Romania.  Juvenile criminal cases are tried in the general court system on the docket with adult criminal trials and civil suits.  Youth 14 and over can be tried for serious or persistent criminal activity, and youth over 16 are sentenced to serve in the Romanian prison system.  A second debate broke out among the three students about whether there was a separate prison for youth or they were kept in a special wing of an adult prison.  Most commonly youth crimes are dealt with by the police by holding the youth at the police station for 12 to 15 hours in hopes that the harsh experience will deter any future misconduct.  That's the extent of Juvenile Offender Intervention and Rehabilitation. 

They said that the prosecutor decides, based on the severity of the crime and the evidence, whether to bring charges and take the case to court.  If the prosecutor decides not to move forward, charges are dropped and apparently no record is kept of the arrest.  However, they said that the police stations are small enough that the police officers will remember which youth have been in the station repeatedly, and repeated criminal offenses will be sufficient to bring the charges to court.  So it seems like the police officers also have a great deal of discretion whether to collect evidence and inform the prosecutor of the offense history.  I don't know how closely the police officers work with the prosecutors.  But it seems clear to me, from the student information, that the police officers exercise considerable discretion and the prosecutors exercise considerable discretion and most juvenile offenses get treated by the "hold them and make them sweat" intervention.

It would be an interesting dissertation to examine the effectiveness of the "make them sweat" intervention.

The students said with confidence that the police or the prosecutors had no authority to require any rehabiltative intervention as a condition of whether the charges would move forward.  They only had authority to bring charges or to release with no conditions and no record.  The American system of deferred adjudication, in which the charges would be dropped if no subsequent criminal act occurred and the offender completed some rehabilitative activities, was a foreign concept to them.

I also asked the students in the Social Work with Justice System program to try to get me an invitation to meet a prosecutor, police officer who deals with juveniles, or attend a juvenile court hearing.

The third heated discussion to break out was over the value of intervention: A student expressed a variation of "they made their choices and have to deal with the consequences.  Lock them up and let them rot.  Rehabilitation is a waste of time."  It certainly ended that round of discussion, and I did one of those, "OK, let's move on to the next topic"  responses.  It certainly was an minority opinion in a room full of do-gooder students wanting to learn Treatment and Rehabilitation for Juvenile Delinquents.  But I imagine it was a common sentiment among Romanian society, just as it is among many of the "tough on crime" crowd in American society.

The theory that is behind my line of questions is the Sequential Intercept Model of Juvenile Offender Rehabilitation.  Fancy title for an approach that looks at the procedures that take place after the police are called through the court hearing to identify the places in the process that mental health needs can be "Intercepted."  The underlying assumption, not shared in the classroom, is that it a good thing to divert youth from the justice system toward some interventions that enable them to change their life direction.

The assumptions of the American juvenile justice system, since the first Juvenile Court Act of 1899, is that it is in the culture's best interests to allow youth offender to grow out of this difficult phase.  American juvenile justice process leans heavily on deferred adjudication, which if the youth stays to the straight and narrow for 90 days or 6 months, all charges are dropped and there is no record of the incident.   Often the deferred adjudication will have conditions of mental health counseling to assist the youth and family in making the necessary changes. 

I concluded the class by addressing the (uncomfortably) silent Clinical Social Work students, "Your friends in the criminal justice system (nodding to the left side of the class) need to know that you can help them by intervening with troubled youth and diverting them from a life of crime.  They seem to think intervention is not possible.  You social workers need to show the justice system that it is possible and it saves the state a lot more money to intervene early in a youthful criminal's career than to incarcerate them after they develop a long list of crimes.  You social workers need to work together with your professional association to get your politicians to understand what you can do and pass laws that allow police and prosecutors to use what you have to offer."

First Snow in Cluj

Friday after Thanksgiving we woke up to two inches of fresh snow.  Nancy woke me, "Get up get up, come look come look."  It was like her first Christmas morning.

Snow out our front door

So we put on our warmest clothes and went for a walk before it started melting.  We wandered through the neighborhoods until we found ourselves at the Botanical Garden.  We went in to enjoy the untouched snow in the gardens.

Of course, Dan had to try out his traditional Romanian cold weather clothing.  This includes hand-felted leg warmers  that you wrap around your ankles and a conehead hat made of heavy wool.  This is the outfit that the funeral procession pointed and laughed at in an earlier post (theyre-laughing-at-my-legs).  I only noticed one or two people staring at my legs today.  They are much more discrete in the city.

Dan in his traditional Romanian cold weather clothing

Nancy in the Botanical Garden

Thanksgiving in Romania

Romanian Thanksgiving

We had our retired neighbors, Luchi and Cornel, over for an American Thanksgiving dinner.   We also invited two American college students studying Romanian here, Bailey and Paul. We could say it was an American cultural exchange, as we shared an American custom with our Romanian friends, complete with translators.  You could also say we helped two  American students have a bit of home.

No surprise, Thanksgiving is not celebrated here in Romania. Our neighbors had heard about the holiday, but of course, had never participated.  We made the traditional turkey and dressing and giblet gravy, with winter squash, fruit salad, vegetable salad, and chocolate cake for dessert.

Turkey and all the trimmings

So one thing you get used to living in another culture is that the things you take for granted in your home culture, like going to the store and buying turkey and dressing ingredients, takes a lot more time and effort to locate and buy.  Dan had located a poultry butcher who had fresh turkeys, but twice went there to find they had sold out for the day.  Nancy consulted the source of all Romanian wisdom, her friends at the International Women's Club, to find where the best turkeys are. She went to the HyperMarket (sounds like a supermarket on Ritalin; actually more like a WalMart with a supermarket) and bought a frozen turkey with the temperature button that tells when it is done. Helpful tool.

We had all the cornbread ingredients already, and bought whatever fresh vegetables were at the market: squash, lettuce, spinach,  clementine oranges, kiwi, pomegranites; and apples and grapes from the garden. Now the challenge is to cook a full meal for six people in our tiny apartment with a two burner stove and small oven.

All it takes is time and organization.  Only one thing at a time can go into the oven, and even at its highest temperature (who knows what that is) things seem to take forever.  So Dan started cooking on Wednesday: squash in the oven at 8:00 am, done by 9:30.

Oh, and to add a little challenge to the activities, the electricity went off in the neighborhood at about 9:00. Fortunately, we have a gas oven, but can't clean house today. Since our water heater is electric, that also means that Dan can't take a shower or work on the internet.

Turkey in the oven at 10:15 (3.8 kg = 8.9 lbs; estimate 20 min per lbs at 375 degrees, it would need to cook 3 hours); three hours later it started smelling pretty darn good, so we checked it and, bingo, the little temperature button says its done! Enough for today.  Once everything cooled, into the refrigerator and hope the electricity comes back on or we will have to put everything out on the front porch to chill overnight.

Fortunately, the electricity came back on about 4:00.

The next morning Dan cleaned house, dusting and vacuuming everything, moving tables into the living room to seat six.  (Yes, Dan cleaned house.)

Dan started on the cornbread at 12:30, done in 20 min.  Cake in the oven at 1:30 for 1 hour; Nancy added all the good stuff to the dressing, in the oven at 3:00 for an hour.  Nancy made the salads and Dan set the table.  Warm up the  turkey for an hour (in at 4:00), warm up the squash and dressing just before the guests arrive at 5:00.  Somewhere in there, we realized we didn't have a wine, so Dan strolled down to the neighborhood market and bought wine and an extra loaf of bread.

See, anything is possible if you can devote all your attention to it for two to four days.

Quick trip to Apuseni Mountains

Alpine meadows of the Apuseni Mountains

Just two hours from Cluj are the Apuseni Mountains, it was another beautiful day, so we rented a car and went.  These mountains are home to some world-class caves; Scarișoara Cave, a glacial ice cave, was our goal.  Our car rental agent knew of a pension in a small village nearby and made reservations.  Off we went.

The pension owner had won several regional cooking awards, and most of the food was grown or raised in the garden behind the house.  She gives cooking lessons, so we have to make a reutrn trip to learn some traditional dishes.  After a fabulous meal we went to bed early.  The next morning the rooster woke us, and as we snuggled under the warm comforters, we heard the clop, clop of horses, lowing of cows, occasional squeals of pigs from in front of the house.  We looked out front in the dawn light and the sleepy little village was completely packed with livestock and the street was lined with vendors as far as you could see: it was market day!

Happy customer getting his pig in a poke.

We wandered the animal market near the pension as buyers and sellers negotiated their prices and new animals were herded in around us. It was like we had woken up in Middle Earth among the Hobbits.

The trailhead for the hike to the cave was at the other end of the village, so we wandered through the vendors selling everything rural villagers would need:  horse tack, animal supplies, clothing, wool blankets, skins, shoes, hats, pots and pans, furniture.  It looked like every horse drawn wagon in the county had come to this village.  Of course, I had to try on a traditional Romanian hat.

The ice cave was really cool (pardon the pun), but the four hour hike through the alpine meadows was even cooler. 

Sigișoara Ice Cave

Tourist in a traditional Romanian hat.

Nice Work if You Can Get It

A friend emailed me, “I read about all your travels in your blog.  Are you really working?” Well, as Fred Astaire sings, “Nice work if you can get it.” 

I am teaching Masters courses in NGO Program Evaluation and Juvenile Delinquency Rehabilitation (teaching a family therapy model used effectively with juvenile offenders), and doing guest lectures in Qualitative Research, Social Work Management, and Social Work and Social Economy (their version of Social Entrepreneurship).

My Office: Facultatea de Sociologie şi Asistenţă Socială

While I thought my course expectations and assignments were modest, my expectations that students attend class, that they read the assignments, and that they apply the course concepts in service learning activities in local NGOs, are far from the reality of students who balance work obligations with their educational aspirations.  Because of the economic situation in Romania, students are very discouraged about their future as social service professionals.  The jobs are few, the work stressful, and the pay is low.  I think the best thing I am doing in class is to invite practicing social service workers to provide case studies of class concepts and talk about what they do.

I have encountered challenges in accommodating to the culture of higher education here.  The government cut all state employees’ pay by 25%, including all professors in higher education, in order to comply with IMF standards.  So I have come during a time a great stress, and many faculty members seem extremely busy, unavailable, and discouraged. In addition to enduring a pay cut, most of them teach two or three overload courses, unpaid. The junior faculty members have enthusiastically welcomed me. I recently moved into their office, which increased access to the internet, printer, copy machine, office supplies, and the espresso machine.  I have to ask for the help or advice that I need, while at the same time being respectful not to make more work for them.

A second dimension to my work is meeting staff of NGOs to learn about their mission, program activities and impact.  I am averaging about one NGO visit each week. I have met some very effective NGOs and some highly energetic, committed staff.

o      Caritas Cluj, a social service agency sponsored by the Greco-Roman Orthodox Church, has six programs: social work, disaster relief, home health care support, medical supplies for older people, drug intervention, and after school tutoring program.

o      Association Benone was developed to advocate for fair treatment and provide support to children with AIDS contracted during the late 80s due to improper needle practices; under Communism, because of medical supply shortages, they would vaccinate entire classrooms at school with a single needle. 

o      Foundation Light in the Darkness provides after school tutoring to rural Roma children. 

o      The Little People Romania has developed play therapy rooms in four pediatric cancer treatment hospitals where volunteers bring some joy to children in treatment.  Beyonce visited their program in Bucharest before she opened her European tour.

o      ProVobis: The National Volunteer Center of Cluj develops volunteer centers that link willing volunteers with NGOs who need help. I visited the Cluj office and the Sighisoara office.

Senator William Fulbright, the founder of the Fulbright program, said the purpose of the exchange program is “Fostering empathy between cultures,” so the third dimension of my job description is to experience and understand the culture.  Our living situation is perhaps the most culturally enriching aspect of our stay here. Nancy wanted to experience a home stay, and I wanted a space we could call our own.  We have the best of both: we rented an apartment from a retired couple, Cornel and Lucia, whom we talk with in Romanian everyday. We have been invited to several family gatherings, where we have enjoyed traditional Romanian home cooking cooked on a wood burning stove. They live in the middle of town, but their entire yard is an orchard, garden and chicken farm. Older Romanians grew their own fruits and vegetables to deal with food shortages during the Communist era, and this retired couple continue this custom. They have shared homemade fruit jams, juices, and pickled vegetables. We helped them harvest their grapes and pressed the grape juice; Cornel makes homemade wine, and Lucia turns her half into grape juice.  We can hardly wait for Cornel to share.

My weekend travels are also part of the third dimension of my job description: part of learning about the history and culture of Romania.  Like the song says, “Nice work if you can get it.”

What I learned about the Roma

Roma, Tigan, Gypsy, Gitanes: what’s in the name.  Tigan, gitanes, gypsy comes from the greek word for “heathen,” “untouchable,”  or “impure,”  accused of heresy by the clergy in the middle ages.  The term first appears in Byzantine writings in 1068, noting that they were astrologers and wizards to be avoided.  In Romanian writings, the term designated the social status of a slave, or outside society, not considered human. The term continues to carry negative meanings in Romanian mentality. The Roma themselves refer to themselves by their clan or caste, Gabori, Caldera,  or other designations.

                        Romanians have an extremely negative view of Roma, as many of them are beggars, thieves, or scavengers in the garbage dumps.  And Roma have an equally negative view of the negative elements of their race, as Ghizi said, "they ruin our reputation; we are honest and hard-working, and they give us a bad name."
                Their trade is passed on from parent to child, so if a parent is a member of the Tshor (thief clan), the children learn to pickpocket and steal at an early age.  In our orientation, an embassy staff member related walking to the gym in the early morning greeted by several cute gypsy children; when he got to the gym he discovered that every outside zipper pocket on his gym bag was opened and emptied.
          Roma history is unclear, because the earliest accounts of Roma were written by outsiders with a negative point of view.  The best guess is that the Roma migrated to Eastern Europe from the Indian continent in two waves: the first wave was in 1200s as slaves to the invading Tartars; when the Tartars were defeated, they became slaves to the locals.  The second wave was in the 1500s, an economic migration into a feudal society where they were nomads.  They were granted freedom from slavery in 1837 by the Council of Wallachia, which also gave them farmland.
            During WWI and WWII, the Roma began to develop an identity as a separate cultural group.  However, during WWII the Nazi regime saw the Roma's separatist and nomadic ways as a cultural problem necessitating genocide as a solution.  The Communist regime which followed attempted to assimilate Roma into Romanian society, offering them jobs in factories and agriculture.  But the state policy of "social uniformity" went against their core values, so they withdrew to remote villages and traditional trades in a black market economy. After the fall of Communism, many Roma who assimilated into urban factory work lost their jobs as factories closed.  Those who resisted assimiliation in rural areas seemed to adapt to free enterprise much better.

                        Theirs is a collective society, so one member’s success is meant to be shared with the family or clan.  So, many gypsies make a good living, but spend all they make on their friends and family.  The musician caste is notorious, even among the Roma, for spending all they make on food and drink for their friends.  They are the original "grasshopper and the ant" fairy tale, living only for today's enjoyment.

                        Their occupation is based on hereditary factors, the son does the same trade as the father, and families who practice the same trade affiliate together as clans.  Their identity is based in the trade, even if modern culture has made the trade obsolete.  A clan consists of 30-40 families in the same area, and, in addition to practicing the same trade,  they speak the same dialect of Roma language and have the same economic status.  The Roma are extremely sensitive to what one’s class and status is and do not mix with Roma of other class.
      When we went to the party with the musicians, our host Gabi, a Gabori by trade, was aloof from the other Roma, musicians by clan and class.  Although everyone had brought their best homemade liqueurs, he declined having any alcohol, saying that he was the designated driver for our group.  When everyone else was dancing, he had a smoke outside the fence.

Gabi's Grandfather made the water well dome.

         The clans include:

o      Tinkers

o      Musicians: keepers of gypsy folklore and tradition

o      Bear tamers, entertainers who worked in circuses and traveling shows.

o      Carpet sellers

o      Caldararii: "the tent dwellers," formerly nomadic gypsies who make things from copper and brass, such as cauldrons, jewelry, or roof tiles.

o      Blacksmiths: after blacksmithing ceased to be used, these went into industry and took advantage of higher education.  These were the first to lose their language and identity as Roma; other clans point to them as examples of the bad consequences of too much education.

o      Horse breeders, or "gypsy with a horse," farm workers and menial laborers

o      Silversmiths

o      Woodworkers: make wooden dishes and spoons.

o      Vatrashii: traditional artisans who are sedentary (non-nomadic)

o      Gaborii:  tinsmiths,metalworkers who make drains and gutters.

o      Cocalarii: ivory carvers who make combs or hair accessories (feathers or jewelry)

A USAID document on the Roma in Romania lists several common characteristics of Roma communities:

1.         The memory of nomadic life persists in a strong sense of separation from the dominant culture.  Often Roma live in small houses with few amenities.  Even wealthy Roma who may build “Gypsy palaces”  live in modest one-room homes near the large, impressive, and empty house.  The Gabori family lived in one large room with table and chairs and couch-beds that would seat 16-20 and sleep the entire family, even though they had four other bedrooms.

2.         A second residue of nomadic life is a general disregard for government.  Marriages are a big deal in Roma culture, but frequently they fail to register them with the civil authorities.  Income is usually cash-based, and income taxes are regularly evaded.

3.         The importance of the family and clan.  Children are cared for by Roma families, not given for adoption or orphanages, and elderly are cared for by their families.  The most important event in Roma culture is the birth of the first son.  Even if there are several girls in the family, the first son has a special place in the family value.  Usually, the youngest boy has the duty of caring for the parents, although all male children are expected to live nearby and contribute to the family trade and income.  Girls, on the other hand, are expected to become part of their husband’s family, and can only care for her parents if the husband’s family consents.

4.         Another characteristic is disregard for education, although they hold teachers and professors in high regard.  A Roma proverb, “time teaches more than books,” captures their disregard for formal education. Too much education risks disrupting the strict roles expected of boys and girls.  As our host, Ghizelle, related in a matter-of-fact way, her older daughter’s husband didn’t want her to read books because she would get foreign ideas and not be satisfied with Roma culture.  On the other hand, Ghizelle was proud of her second daughter, Gabrielle, who could read above her grade level; nevertheless, Ghizelle saw Gabrielle’s future only as marrying and moving to another household.

 

Staying with the Roma.

We stayed with the Gabori family, Gabi, Ghizele, Gabrielle, and Gabi, on a rural homestay arranged by Tigani Tours. Gabi, the father, is a tinsmith, a highly respectable trade in Roma society (that's gypsy to our American friends).  

After meeting the family and settling into our rooms, we drove an hour to another Roma family who was hosting a birthday party for one of our group, Laura.  The party was in a remote Roma village, where the entire village came out for the food, music and dancing. 

They had musicians and a traditional dance group that entertained us.  After the Roma danced for us, then we all danced the afternoon away while we waited for dinner to cook.   

They grilled meats, and even sacrificed a rabbit to honor our birthday guest.  Someone brought the biggest fish I’ve ever seen, caught that morning in a local lake.

The party wound down about sunset, and all the tourists went to the Gabori home to their beds.  The next day, the girls tried on traditional Roma clothing before we left for our world. Ghizelle sells these dresses and proudly showed the craft and detail that goes into each one.

Visiting a Roma village for 24 hours was like dropping into a vortex where everything is upside down.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, “We’re not in Kansas anymore.” The Roma experience great discrimination in Eastern Europe and make no effort to assimilate into the larger culture.  The purpose of Tigani Tours was a cultural exchange to create greater understanding of the Roma among non-Roma, and greater understanding of non-Roma among the Roma.

It was clear that they were sharing their family with us, accepting us into their family.  One of the many highlights was sitting around the kitchen table as Ghizelle showed us a box of family pictures, telling stories about each one.  At the end of our stay, they invited us back, saying "you're now family."

Family is important to the Roma. They don't leave their families, if one gets a better opportunity in another city, the entire family moves.  Their family roles are strictly defined: the women are responsible for running the household and the men are responsible for going out into the world.  So as we were introduced to the family, it was clear the father was the gatekeeper, and once we had made introductions, the women took over with hospitality.  Which included țuika (tsuika), a powerful homemade alcohol, at 10:00 in the morning.  The next morning we had wine with breakfast; nothing like sausage, eggs, and a little sweet wine!

It was clear to them that the girls would grow up to marry a Roma boy, at about age 14, live in his parents house and become housekeeper to the family until the couple become productive wage earners. At that point she would become the dominant women of the household. One daughter had recently married, and the fact that they didn't see her much was related in a matter-of-fact way: she's busy taking care of his family and can't come for visits.  The boys would grow up to live with the parents or nearby, if one already lived with the parents, and learn the same trade as the father.  Too much education for the children and they would slip away from the community, a fate they considered worse than death. 

Having a boy, then, is very important in Roma families.  Ghizelle asked Nancy about how many children we had, and when she discovered that we had one daughter, sitting at the table, and one boy, living far away, she expressed great joy at the fact that we had a boy.  (Didn't make Cami feel very important!)

Meeting the Weavers

We traveled with our new Fulbright friends to Maramures, a mountainous region in the north known for its traditional crafts.  One of our Fulbright friends is an artist studying traditional arts and crafts who also speaks Romanian.  One of the highlights of the trip was meeting weavers in these villages.
We had admired a rug at a shop, and our Fulbright friend made conversation with her.  Soon, we were in her house to look at more of her handmade rugs.  We bought an rug that she made over 20 years ago.
Later, our Fulbright friend showed up with a beautiful blanket made with handmade yarn dyed wth vegetable dye.  So we met another weaver. When we showed up she was working in her garden.  Hanging across the garden were skeins of beautiful yarns dyed with onion skins  (see photo).  On her porch were piles of handmade yarns of all different colors, the most beautiful were red yarns dyed with red onion skins.  We bought two blankets.

They're laughing at my legs during the funeral!!

"Duncan, I hear voices singing. Do you?" I said over the din of church bells from the nearby cathedral.
We were visiting Botiza's seventeenth century wooden church at the top of the hill in Maramuresh, Romania, a scenic mountainous area at the northern border of the country.  I looked down the road to see a crowd of 100 people in a procession coming up the hill.  As it was the Sunday before All Saints Day, perhaps it was a traditional celebration.
"Uh-oh, Duncan, there's an open grave behind you." He replied,  "I don't think we need to be here right now."
So we quickly made our way down the hill to the gates of the church, where the crowd, led by banners of the saints, six priests in silver and white albs, and a hundred people dressed in their best black, escorting a rough hewn casket lined with lace, beat us to the gates.  So all we could do was stand aside, take off our hats, cross ourselves, and wait for the procession to pass.
Now, Maramures is known for its traditional crafts:  woodworking, pottery, and wool blankets, jackets, and rugs.   We were traveling with our new Fulbright family, Duncan McDougall, a business professor, and Aline Cautis, an artist researching traditional crafts.  I had noticed men in one village we passed through wearing woolen gaiters over their ankles. My feet were cold, so when I found a woolen blanket maker who had these things I bought a pair.  Her husband even showed me how to wrap them around me feet in the traditional style.  Ummmm, they were warm, and I've been worried about walking to work when it turns cold in Cluj.
So, I was standing reverently to the side of the procession in my new woolen gaiters, and as mourners passed, they would nudge their neighbor, nod my direction, and both share a smile.  It must have happened a dozen times as the procession inched through the gate: Nudge, nod (or point), chuckle!

I am glad I brought a moment of enjoyment to the mourners.
And I'm rethinking that idea of wearing them to work.

Navigating the Bureaucracy

Beetlejuice, the movie, pictured Hell as one large DMV-type bureaucracy.  Romania has developed bureaucracy to the seventh ring of Dante's Inferno.  In typical Romanian fashion, after spending the day standing in line, I see a line (at the pretzel bakery) and run to get in it.  Also in typical Romanian fashion, a car almost runs over me on the sidewalk (see photo).

Here's the time and money we spent working on getting our Residence Visas:

1. Before we left the US, we had to get certified copies of our marriage license and of Cami's birth certificate so Nancy could prove she was married to me and Cami could prove she was my daughter.  But the certified copies had to have another certification, the Hague Apostille, to certifiy that the signatures on the  originals were actually authorized to sign marriage and birth certificates.  I had to drive to Austin to the Secretary of State to get the Apostille.
1.  $15
2.  $10
3.  $30
2. Soon after we arrived, we left certified originals of our marriage license and Cami's birth certificate to be translated into Romanian by a certified translator. 
1.  180 lei      $60
3. We each had to get passport sized photos.
1. 15 lei     $5
2. 50 lei     $16
3. 0 lei        $0
4. We had to have a certified original and copy of our rental contract, to show residence in Romania.
5. To start the day, we arrived at the Romanian National Health Insurance office at 7:30 to meet two other Fulbrighters.  To obtain a residency permit, we have to buy Romanian Health Insurance.  They don't want to go to the trouble to verify that our insurance back home really works.  Already had long lines, we took a number, #2024, for Room 1, and # 1054 for Room 2, just to hedge our bets.  We walked (in the dark) around to the back of the building to Room 1A and 1B. After waiting for maybe 30 minutes, our number came up on the electronic board.  We went in, filled out some papers, signed, stamped, paid and we were done.  Before 9:00!
6. Then we had to go the front of the building, actually the other side, since the front steps and entry collonade were boarded shut.  We waded through a long line of people to a small room off the side of a large waiting room, the cashier's window.  We got in this line, waited for 30 minutes, and caught up on all the travels we each have had since our orientation.  Our stories were disturbed by the cashier who shouted, in Romanian, of course, "Silence! Silence!  We are counting money.  We must have silence for the money!"  We lowered our voices, but continued excited conversations about places to see. Paid 128 lei each.
1. 128 lei    $42
   
2. 128 lei    $42
   
3. 128 lei    $42
7. So next we have to go to the national bank to pay our consular fees and residency permit fees.  This was the only bank during Communist times, and staff apparently consider those the good old days...not real high on customer service.  We arrived as they opened.  Since we arrived just as they opened, we paid the consular fee, $240 lei, without delay.  Things were looking up.   
1. 240 lei      $78
8. Same bank, the next fee was set by the Romanian legislature in Euro (125 Euro) but the Romanian bank, the only place to pay such things, only takes lei.  So what you have to do is exchange your lei into Euros, paying the exchange fee, then exchange it back to lei, again paying the exchange fee.  The end result, other than additional fees for the bank, is a receipt that lists the Euro rate on the day that you paid the fee, so that the Visa office, another place, can verify that you paid 125 Euro based on the day that you paid.  Complicated enough?  Well, the bank had not posted its exchange rates by the time we finished with the first transaction, so they would not go through the gyrations.  
9. So we went down the street to the next bank, exchanged lei for euro and back to lei, got our receipt and returned to the Romanian national bank.
1. 18 lei      $6
2. 18 lei       $6
10. By this time, the line was all the way across the lobby.  We went to the lady that we first dealt with, no line, to find out that all the computers were down except one. So, back to the end of the line.  An hour later, we show the lady our exchange receipt and tried to pay the 507 lei that our receipt said was the equivalent of 125 euro. But by now their exchange rates were posted, and they said that we had to pay 517 lei.  No matter how much our Romanian friend argued, we had to exhange the lei to Euro, back to lei, paying fees at each transaction...again. But they refused to give us a receipt showing the euro rate for the visa office!
1. 18 lei      $6
2. 18 lei       $6
3. 517 lei     $168
4. 517 lei     $168
11. Then Dan went to the Postal Service to pay his work permit fee of 1 lei.  Only, when I got there the lady told me it was 5 lei. I argued in vain, and paid 5 lei.
1. 5 lei    $2
12. Next we had to go to a Notary, sort of like a lawyer in Romania, to get a document certifying that Dan is married to only one wife, Nancy, and Cami is my daughter, and I give her and Cami permission to live with me in Romania.  For this document they needed the translated marriage license (# 1), our rental contract (# 3), and a sworn statement from me that I am only married to one wife, and this is her, her name is Nancy Ratliff, and this is Nancy Ratliff (show the passport), and I give her permission to live with me.  So now we had to wait for 2 hours while they put together the documents in Romanian.  When we came back, I had to demonstrate that I understood this legal document  (or else I would have to pay to have it translated by an official translator!) and state what I understand of it.  I successfully faked it, and on we go.
1. 60 lei     $20
13. Next visit was the medical clinic.  The Romanian government doesn't want to import any sick people, so we had to get a medical exam.  A cab drive later, we waited in a narrow hallway for half an hour.  When we were ushered into the doctor's office, she asked each of us, "Do you have any health problems?"  No.  "Passport, please."   Lots of paperwork.  All this for no fee!
1. 0 lei  $0
14. So the next day we go to the Visa office and hope and pray that all these papers are in order.  We have to show them that I have a job in Romania (Fulbright contract), I have a place to live in Romania (rental contract), I paid my fees (Consular fee is waived for Fulbright, #6;  Postal receipt, # 10), I have Romanian health insurance (# 4), I am healthy (medical form, #12). Then Nancy and Cami, since they are not employed and possibly a drag on Romanian society, have to show that I will let them live with me (#11), maybe show the marriage license and birth certificate translations (# 1), show they paid their fee....yada, yada, yada. 
15. When it was time for Dan to get a photo for the residency permit, they laughed and said, "you're too tall for our camera.  Bend down."  We all had a good laugh, then they said, more seriously, "no really, bend down." So I did a half squat, everyone laughing, then they said, "don't smile." "Really, don't smile." My reply was, "I don't know how to not smile." Again, serious voice, "Really, don't smile."  So I clenched my lips, puffed my cheeks out a little to try to get rid of the smile.  The camera operator took the picture while I was doing this.  They all broke out laughing, then serious lady in an inmpressive uniform said, "That will do. Next."  
16. I can hardly wait to see my residency permit!

So How Was Your First Class?

Așa și așa.  Which translates, "so-so."
I had four students, out of seven.  The other three were still planning on participating and had paired up on the project with students who were attending.  So we got the semester project assigned; the groups had done some discussion among themselves about which NGO they wished to study.
As I had been warned, they thought the weekly reading quizzes were... unusual.  They were too polite to imply anything stronger.  I'd been warned that students here are not accustomed to working on class assignments every week; in most classes, apparently, they come to listen to a four hour lecture and work on the class project independently toward the end of the semester, then take a final exam.
I talked about my teaching philosophy: how in our kind of discipline, "knowing how" is more important than "knowing about" (summary of Dreyfus & Dreyfus, 1986), and this class is focused on them learning how to do some important skills in program evaluation.  I also said that knowing how to do something assumes applying some concepts and learning some common knowledge, "knowing that" stuff. So before I could help them do something, I had to make sure they knew some things.
And that I was more interested in knowing that they knew some fundamental knowledge by the end of class, so the quizzes would be in a pre-test/post-test format, and they could take the grade after they had filled in their lack of understanding.
The class topic was how to do a logic model, a visual description of the needs, goals, activities, performance, and impact of a NGO.  They discussed politely. I passed out cookies as an instructional activity; they thought that was unusual and politely ate some cookie. The instructional activity was to order the steps in making cookies according to inputs (people, ingredients), activities (preheat oven, mix ingredients) and outcomes (happy bakers).  They organized the pieces of paper, more or less, with some confusion on people slips in the input (baker) and in the outcome (happy baker) columns.  And they didn't understand the joke (from the canned handout) about Cookie Monster.  When I asked them then to complete a logic model on the inputs, activities and desired outcomes for their NGO project, they sort of lost energy to complete the exercise as we were approaching (30 min) our end time.  It felt like we were in the picture "The Persistence of Memory" by Salvador Dali.
The Persistence of Memory, by Salvador Dali
The second class, the Juvenile Delinquency class the next night, had much more energy.  I had 25 students, they asked lots of questions and expressed opinions of US criminal justice system.  Presenting data from a juvenile justice study I participated in, I presented the top 8 juvenile crimes, the most frequent were Child in Need of Supervision (truancy, runaway, liquor violation), trespassing, grafitti... we had to get to number 6, assault, before they thought these were really crimes.  So, "why do you call all these misbehaviors crimes," seems like a relevant question to me.  I didn't have an answer: why are three kids who climbed the fire escape of Cambridge Elementary treated like criminals and get a criminal record that will follow them for the rest of their life?  I came home much more energized.

My First Day of School!

I've been gone from home six weeks, and today I am meeting my first class.  Everything I've done up to now is to prepare me for this moment.

I am teaching one graduate class in the Masters in Social Work program: a research methods course on Program Evaluation Research (teaching on my own).  I am co-teaching another course in the Masters in Criminal Justice Social Work, a Juvenile Delinquency course where I am teaching techniques of an evidence-based treatment approach for working with multi-problem youth and their families.  In addition, I am doing guest lectures in three other courses in the Master's programs in Social Economy (like our Social Entrepreneurship), Social Services Management, and Social Policy.
The courses meet every two weeks for four hours a pop, from 4:00 to 8:00, one on Thursday and the other on Friday.  The guest lectures are on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings in November, December and January. 
Most of the students work full-time, and everyone, from local professors to former Fulbrighters, tell me I have to make my expectations extremely clear.  Things I may take for granted in the US system, may be unusual here: like attendance, for example, or coming in late, or doing homework or readings, or taking a cell phone call during class, or texting during class, or participating in discussion (a joke here is about professors have lots of tongue and little brain).  I need to communicate my expectations, but I'll wait until they get to know me and what they can learn from me.  In order to do the experiential learning and applications that my teaching style prefers, I have to have a room full of students who are reasonably informed about what we are talking about.  Students seem to expect irrelevant long lectures; I need to surprise them with relevance and learner centered experiential activities.
So, my last minute class prep this morning includes baking chocolate chip cookies.  An instructional activity for learning about logic models is to take the steps of baking chocolate chip cookies and create a logic model (INPUTS, RESOURCES, ACTIONS, OUTCOMES). I wasn't sure Chocolate Chip Cookies were as common in this culture as in ours, most cookies I've encountered are in the prepackaged "food-like-substance" category, so Cami helped me to engineer a cultural exchange.  Yumm!
Other last minute preps are to print and copy handouts, and go over my lesson plan to make sure I haven't left anything out.  Teaching 4 hours every two weeks doesn't leave me much time to wing it!  We'll see how it goes (next post).

Signs you are in a former Communist state

You know you're in a former Communist state when...

•  
• you find toilet regulations in the bathroom (see photo).  However, I don't have the language skills to know if I'm doing it right. I may be risking an unpleasant encounter with the Toiletta Politza.
• Bureaucracy: It takes me 4 windows, 3 receipts, stamped and signed, and 45 minutes at the bank to exchange dollars to Euros. Knowing that I've employed a substantial number of Romanians...PRICELESS. 
• Bus stops are centrally designed to be every 1000 meters, regardless if the rider population would support stops every 500 meters or every block.  Transfers aren't particularly coordinated; everyone seems to expect to walk 300 meters or so between bus routes.  Apparently, no one thinks to themselves, "if the 30 would let me out 200 meters down the block, and the 38 would pick up 100 meters closer to the corner, then I wouldn't have to trudge through the snow and rain every day;" or they keep it to themselves.
• Parking violations result in your car being snatched off the street (see picture 2).  They have this tow truck system they call the spider, with a crane that hooks under your wheels and lifts your car out of the parking space and puts it on a flat bed truck.  What happens next I have not figured out; I'm sure it is inconvenient.  As a friend says, "They never come tow someone who is blocking my garage; they say 'we decide who we tow, not you.'"
• Social services are state secrets.  One of the Fulbrighters is studying the health care system,  and was initially denied access to the state-run hospitals, "State secrets."  He finally got permission from the equivalent to the Romanian State Public Health Director.
• The waiter refuses to sell you a glass of wine, then removes all the wine bottles so you can't serve yourself.  And no, it wasn't because we'd had too much!  We were at a wine tasting, and Jim and I wanted to have a glass of our favorite with our meal.  After failure in getting the waiter to understand what we wanted, we went to the tasting table to pour a glass from the remaining bottles.  Jim got half a glass before the waiter took the bottle out of his hand, scooped up the remaining bottles (before I had even gotten a drop!) and whisked them off to the back rooms.  Our culture is set up to maximize cash flow, and at home if we were willing to pay, we could get what we want. Here, the culture follows a different value.