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.