Hope you are all sitting comfortably: this may take a while...This is it, due to my departure next Saturday afternoon this will be the last report from Romania, as this incredible adventure draws to a close... I have some farewell nights to organise this week and to ensure the new guys are ready to take over from next week, which I have no doubts they will be.
Before I give a summary of my time here I want to share yet another new experience I had here this week. On Thursday our friend and Interpreter (Lia) invited us to an underground bar for 'rock' night, where we were told they had rock music and it was the only night of it's sort in town... oh how true this was! After going for a sneaky bite to eat and beer with my Neighbour Deli, I went on to meet one of the new volunteers (Christian) in the bar.... here was the scene as I saw it... eleven guys, (+ Christian) sat around a small table, no one else in the place, the eleven guys all wearing black t-shirts, most with long hair... between the ages of 16-45, watching a DVD of various heavy metal / rock groups.. no live music, just civilised conversation about the rock groups they liked.. and a few guys occasionally playing 'air' guitar to their favourite songs.... not quite the rockin' scene I was expecting! They weren't even drunk.... rock on!So I really don't know where to begin recapping the last 7 months, it has been a rollercoaster ride of emotions, and has included, meeting the best neighbours I have ever had, being a photographer at a Hungarian wedding, going to freaky discos, navigating an ever changing, enterprising and bizarre transport system which lets you go anywhere, but doesn't allow you come back, seeing old Romanian rockers in concert, ritual pig killing (and eating pigs ears, & pickled water-melon), working in a Victorian style psychiatric unit with very real madness, a Christmas nativity play on the wards, having pigs & chickens as my alarm clock every morning, teaching English to local kids, living through a snow filled winter & spending Christmas and new year with my wonderful friends and neighbours, doing very Romanian/ Hungarian things.. and much much more....
It would be near impossible to mention specific people, who have made this time so amazing, so I won't try to do this, because this email would take all day, the warmth of the people, young and old, is the thing that will stay with me forever, and this includes the patients at the hospital who have been, and may remain there for the rest of their lives... their ability to accept their situation and show such warmth to us, despite the lack of basic humanitarian conditions is incredible.
I have found Romania (mainly Transylvania) to be a land of outstanding natural beauty, untouched and unspoilt by the corruption of western influences, a place where people believe 'the western way of life' is better than their own, and yet my own feeling is that Romania is far more free now, then the UK and places like it, ever could be, the pressures from the mass media and society is not yet all about material wealth and happiness, but it's creeping in slowly, so the gap in culture and morality is growing ever wider between the older generations here and the young people. Traces of the communist way of life remain very evident here, with stacks of big apartment blocks around the cities and towns, a corrupt government mainly comprised of former communist party members, and a country side who ownership rights may never be fully understood after the land was seized by the former regime, all for the good of the country, and these reminders may well remain for some time, yet the importance of family values, and the survival skills (to build your own house, grow your own food, fix your own car), at least will remain for the time being... Romania is already being exploited by businesses like Nokia, who have moved here because they can pay the people less wages here, so to all of you that have thought about coming to see this amazing country, I would say now is the time to come here.. it's a real taste of eastern European culture...
My top three features of life here have to be:1) Public transport: riding on trains with the doors open, arriving in places to find there is no return bus until the next day, sitting on a beer crate for three hours in a maxi-taxi (mini-bus), fighting old women to get on the bus, and, when all else fails... hitch hiking....2) The ongoing search for decent toilet facilities: finding a toilet period, finding a toilet with a light that works, finding a toilet with a working flushing mechanism, finding a toilet with paper, and my personal favourite, going to the toilet and seeing just a hole in the floor, perhaps with elaborate surrounding tiles!3) Food: the meat in truly out of this world! beware though, as any part of a pig is edible, including the pigs ear (raw), pickled food including watermelon, pickled salad in winter due to seasonal food supply, samarles (meat & rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) and all cakes contain rum!
My top three places to visit are:1) Brasov... an amazing place any time of year by the mountains, with stunning views, a cosmopolitan feel to it, and excellent pancakes! with Germanic influenced buildings.2) Sigishoura... birth place of 'Vlad the Impailer' (rumoured to be where Dracula legend stemmed from), far more Romanian influenced town, with centre piece of town being the citadel and city on the hill, also beautiful anytime of year!3) Bran Castle...(past Brasov) often used at the 'face' of Dracula's dwellings, it's wonderful mountain surroundings, and well preserved interior give you a pretty good insight to some of the Romanian royal historyOf course other places such as Sibiu, Tirges Mures,& Cluj offer other great insights and perspectives into the history of Transylvania, but these are just my particular favourites.
I can't possibly end this email with out talking just a little about my home for the past seven months 'TARNAVENI'. This small town based in a valley, surrounded by hills, has offered me a brilliant insight into real life in Transylvania, with one road villages, a mix of the Hungarian, Romanian, and Roma (gypsy) cultures, and two very entertaining discos! It is here I have learned about local cultures, and the bizarre things that happen here including: getting sweets or matches, instead of the correct change in shops, needing your passport to buy a hoover, driving around horse & carts, sleeping with the sounds of howling dogs all around, and learning that the concept of 'non-stop' services usually means they finish about 11pm! God bless Romania and Tarnaveni!
So that's it folks... six days and counting and I'll be home, but I will be back here one day, so thank you Romania, and thanks to you all if you have been reading these messages.
Regards from Romania
Dan
I have found Romania (mainly Transylvania) to be a land of outstanding natural beauty, untouched and unspoilt by the corruption of western influences, a place where people believe 'the western way of life' is better than their own, and yet my own feeling is that Romania is far more free now, then the UK and places like it, ever could be, the pressures from the mass media and society is not yet all about material wealth and happiness, but it's creeping in slowly, so the gap in culture and morality is growing ever wider between the older generations here and the young people. Traces of the communist way of life remain very evident here, with stacks of big apartment blocks around the cities and towns, a corrupt government mainly comprised of former communist party members, and a country side who ownership rights may never be fully understood after the land was seized by the former regime, all for the good of the country, and these reminders may well remain for some time, yet the importance of family values, and the survival skills (to build your own house, grow your own food, fix your own car), at least will remain for the time being... Romania is already being exploited by businesses like Nokia, who have moved here because they can pay the people less wages here, so to all of you that have thought about coming to see this amazing country, I would say now is the time to come here.. it's a real taste of eastern European culture...
My top three features of life here have to be:1) Public transport: riding on trains with the doors open, arriving in places to find there is no return bus until the next day, sitting on a beer crate for three hours in a maxi-taxi (mini-bus), fighting old women to get on the bus, and, when all else fails... hitch hiking....2) The ongoing search for decent toilet facilities: finding a toilet period, finding a toilet with a light that works, finding a toilet with a working flushing mechanism, finding a toilet with paper, and my personal favourite, going to the toilet and seeing just a hole in the floor, perhaps with elaborate surrounding tiles!3) Food: the meat in truly out of this world! beware though, as any part of a pig is edible, including the pigs ear (raw), pickled food including watermelon, pickled salad in winter due to seasonal food supply, samarles (meat & rice wrapped in cabbage leaves) and all cakes contain rum!
My top three places to visit are:1) Brasov... an amazing place any time of year by the mountains, with stunning views, a cosmopolitan feel to it, and excellent pancakes! with Germanic influenced buildings.2) Sigishoura... birth place of 'Vlad the Impailer' (rumoured to be where Dracula legend stemmed from), far more Romanian influenced town, with centre piece of town being the citadel and city on the hill, also beautiful anytime of year!3) Bran Castle...(past Brasov) often used at the 'face' of Dracula's dwellings, it's wonderful mountain surroundings, and well preserved interior give you a pretty good insight to some of the Romanian royal historyOf course other places such as Sibiu, Tirges Mures,& Cluj offer other great insights and perspectives into the history of Transylvania, but these are just my particular favourites.
I can't possibly end this email with out talking just a little about my home for the past seven months 'TARNAVENI'. This small town based in a valley, surrounded by hills, has offered me a brilliant insight into real life in Transylvania, with one road villages, a mix of the Hungarian, Romanian, and Roma (gypsy) cultures, and two very entertaining discos! It is here I have learned about local cultures, and the bizarre things that happen here including: getting sweets or matches, instead of the correct change in shops, needing your passport to buy a hoover, driving around horse & carts, sleeping with the sounds of howling dogs all around, and learning that the concept of 'non-stop' services usually means they finish about 11pm! God bless Romania and Tarnaveni!
So that's it folks... six days and counting and I'll be home, but I will be back here one day, so thank you Romania, and thanks to you all if you have been reading these messages.Regards from Romania
Dan
This has been along week with no out of the ordinary activities taking place, just routine socialising, and lots of working, so I won't bore you all too much about that. Life in Romania has returned to winter with -6 temperatures, but clear blue skies, so sunglasses are still required! The horse and cart parade continues to remove the rubble form the old bus station, after it was knocked down, and winter salads are still made solely of tomatoes.... the also pork remains delicious!
I am hoping to have a rather big leaving party at the local disco... as I can't possibly leave without dancing to (yet another) Chris Rea tune! My Romanian driving skills have also improved as I now have been able to render the brake completely unnecessary.... and the biggest 'on road' danger still is passing a horse & cart! Life rumbles on, and with a few extra minutes of sunlight each night, I make actually leave work in some form of light! Bring on the new volunteers reactions to the hospital conditions....
Yesterday me and Karen returned to Janneke’s farm up in the hills, in the Village of Oarba de Mures. It is a very very small village, so small that there is no such things as garbage collection, and people simply have to burn their garbage at the edge of the village... all houses are supplied with water by the use of wells, (not by the government) and life is just all about the village, most locals who don’t have a car only leave the village once a week to go to market, what a life! The ride to the village was near impossible in a normal car due to the fact there are only dirt tracks leading there, and most of them were too muddy to pass. Crossing the river was perhaps the most surreal experience as we drove onto a 'pontoon' which is basically a platform just big enough for one car... and a man appeared from somewhere to winch us across the river on this tiny platform... before charging us 50 pence before letting us off the other side! We had a 4x4 tour of some of the farm, before walking to meet the 13 horses and try and help my colleague to 'round them up'... before settling down in the two-roomed house, with some local sweet bread, made by one of the neighbours. My colleague also proudly showed us her 'pet' mouse, which she found hibernating in a pair of her shoes. She has since moved the mouse to a nice little straw home, and is trying to decide when to wake it up... as it may have not ate enough food before winter to last much longer. The funny part is that the mouse is still hibernating, so her and her husband have to be as quiet as possible, even thought they don't know if the mouse is still alive... that's life in the country!
I was again rewarded for this week's English lesson with the kids across the road, by being fed afterwards. I was very cautious of being given more pickled water melon juice, but was instead given some park of a pig, a part that I could not, and neither wanted to identify... it's been a real experience eating the Romanian way here!
The club room was again fumigated, after further cockroaches were found, and we haven't had any more since, but the whole hospital building has them, so no wonder they come to our room, because it's the warmest and in the basement, next to a garbage store!
My second trip this week was far more planned, as I went to Budapest, after several recommendations from people, and I was fortunate enough to have a local guide (Csilla, the sister of Becky, and daughter of my Hungarian neighbours). I was definitely happy to have a guide as the Hungarian language is near impossible to understand, as it is so different to Romanian and Latin based languages... Budapest, is actually two cities divided across the river Danube, on one side you have the city of 'Buda', and the other 'Pest', very practical! My favourite memories of this weekend have to be walking around the city, seeing the palace lit up at night towering over the river. The food is equally as good as in Romania (though I'm sure not as nice as my neighbours home cooked food!!!) and there are any number of museums, historic buildings and places to visit! I personally just enjoyed spending time walking around the city and meeting friends of Csilla. Be warned though travellers, you must buy tickets for transport before you get on buses / trams... or at least know which are likely to have inspectors on! Views from the Citadel are very impressive despite the 5000 steps up there (a slight exaggeration!), and a visit to a fairly large island on the river is also worth a visit, as there is plenty of places to sit and soak up the sunshine, or for the more energetic, jog around a designated pathway! Budapest is very much a working city from my impression, and like any big European city there are many interesting faces on the subway.... many people did seem weary and tired looking though and I get the impression people work long hours though and that maybe accounts for a lack of vibrancy I felt here... maybe the city at night offers a different perspective? 
So to the weekly news: I have had various parts of my person grabbed by many of the female patients during this 6 month stay, and this week was no exception... as much to the amusement of the nurse on duty, as when leaving the women's ward, a female patient ran up to me, bear hugged me from behind, before grabbing my breast... this is not an unusual experience for me here, as another patient greets you in this way each time you see her...... ah well nice to have a bit of intimacy I can hear some of you think... but joking aside things can be a little rough at times on the ward, and last week I was on the end of some aggressive behaviour from a female patient and it was not a pleasant experience as she barricaded herself against the door to prevent me from leaving the ward.. Luckily the other patients are very quick to help you out in kind of problem situation!
So as the more astute of you will realise from the weekly email count.... week 24 is very close to the end of the 6 month placement, and the issue of ending our relationships is very prominent in our minds. And whilst I feel I have made some 'friends for life' here, there are those relationships with the patients that must be ended and cannot continue after the placement ends. However, having forged some very good working relationships with staff and patients, we have inevitably formed emotional attachments to certain patients, as they have to us... to highlight some of the difficulties that have arisen as a result of this, I will share with you an experience I had this week. During a fairly regular group session with some female patients, I was talking to one particular female patient, who asked for paper and pen to write something... so I obliged and she began to ask for my name and address in England. I had to try and explain (in my best Romanian) that I could not give these details as is the rules of the charity I work for... the women continued to ask for just my name and area that I lived in, saying if she ever got out of the hospital, and made it to England she wanted to be able to find me.... she then began to write a few sentences on some paper before the session ended, and insisted I read the letter... my Dutch colleague was able to translate that this women had basically wanted me to marry her, preferably before I leave, or in summer, and this would allow her to leave the hospital. Now, of course, some of the patients do have a mental health problem, but not all... and I now begin to understand how some patients express a belief that past volunteers who will 'come back to marry them', because I believe that some of the patients see us as an opportunity to escape these horrible conditions. Patients have talked about offering money and houses to previous volunteers as enticements to marry, and of course after spending months with people, and with the very open and friendly nature of the patients, it becomes very difficult to maintain that 'professional' boundary when patients are wanting to have a non-professional relationship... I think this may be the start of this process, as the idea of us leaving, is becoming a serious reality for many of the patients. I just that saying goodbye will be a mainly positive experience. Only the next few weeks will tell....
Now on to more social endeavours! My friend Mark, who as I have said, I knew from working at the Manchester Opera House for many years came for a crazy 2/3 day visit. He arrived Thursday Morning in Cluj, and left Saturday afternoon... we crammed in a drive from Cuj to Tarnavnei (2 hours), with a stop at some amazing salt mines in a place called TURDA... honestly that was the name of the town... the mines were deep into the surrounding hills and the main chamber must have been almost 200feet high, with an Indiana Jones wooden walk way around the top... and like an Indiana Jones film, there was a small, but long twisting tunnel before reaching an echo chamber... and then the very dodgy wooden staircase.. its great to see, but it would never be opened to the public in England, without serious fencing for health and safety reasons.... but despite the truly brilliant sights it offered, (and free salt from the walls!), the most distinguishing sight was in the small cave like chamber at the very end of the original tunnel... and on entering the chamber I joked with Mark that there appeared to be a table tennis (ping-pong) table in the cave space... only when I rounded the corner did I actually see two people playing table tennis in this small cavern... I have to admit that these images did not match... seeing a small cavern in a salt mine 200feet underground, with two middle age people playing table tennis.. I began to think that this was the secret training location of the Romanian national table tennis team! I then remembered that i have never seen any Romanian National table tennis players, and figured that they probably got lost down in the mines whilst training... I wonder?????
Returning to work has been tough after the Christmas break, followed by the visit of my friend, but it has been great to see the patients again who are warm in their welcome, each time we see them. Visiting one of the women's wards for a weekly ward round is becoming increasingly difficult for me, as they many of them are becoming very 'hands on', whilst many of the patients that went home for Xmas have returned, mostly better for the time away...
Tuesday & Wednesday night was football night, as we got no English premiership football on TV here, but we do get the FA cup and Carling Cup games, so the girls allow me the TV rights to watch the games! The other highlights of the week have been seeing he lord of the rings films, (one playing each weekend for three weeks running), and seeing some breath-taking scenery around the hills of this town. I got up early (well 0900) on Saturday to with my neighbour Jacky to walk her two dogs... (one of which I'll try and add a photo of to the is email). We just drove for no more than ten minutes to the surrounding hills and took a walk over the snow covered tops, walking through fresh fallen snow that glistened like it was covered in diamonds. Once at the peak of the hill, you could see for miles, and with no one else in sight, it felt so liberating. On following the dogs through a small piece of woodland we emerged through the sun-soaked trees to see a range of hills (small mountains) towards Medias. As with the valley here it is often covered by a morning mist, and this was the case here, you could see what appeared to be mountain / four or five ranges of hill tops, peaking through sheets of mist, and with clear blue skies adding a stunning back drop! I am trying to be descriptive here because I did not have my camera and I don’t think any photo could do this scene justice! All this has been just a ten minute drive away. It’s amazing what you see when you look what is right in front of you!
I could write more about my second visit to Mac Mac disco..,. which felt like an under 16 disco when I arrived... or about another Friday night in Crama restaurant with Lia & Giani, but I won't because I guess this weeks abiding memories for me have to be the country side view... so I'll leave you with them, and urge any of you who want an experience with everything.... come to Romania! Until Next week!
Last Saturday (29th) my friend (Hyun-Jin) arrived at Cluj from England (see above). (For those of you thinking 'Hyun-Jin' is not an English sounding name, you would be right! She is from South Korea. I know her from my time working at the Royal Northern College of Music.) So after staying in Cluj for one night, in -8 temperatures, warmed slightly by the wonderful array of Christmas lights, and a really gorgeous walk through the freshly snow covered botanical gardens, we took a 3 hour, bumpy, trip in a minibus back to my home town, Tarnaveni. What a welcome to Romania!
Agh!!! So I finally made it to the house of Becky, Shari, Judith etc... (These names should now be very familiar to you all by now...) and of course before I was allowed to enter, I had to sing my second version of silent night... (Why could I not remember the words to anything else??) the house was full of the family and children, and it felt so nice, I experienced a fantastic 'Hungarian' style Xmas, where the sons sang Hungarian songs, the dad asked questions to the children about the story of Xmas, and the presents took almost an hour to hand out as there were so many people!! after more food and drink we, sang carols via mobile phones to the family members who could not make it home, and then the fun really started.... almost the entire family got wrapped up warm, and went singing carols to friends an neighbours... we went to 9 different houses( I think) where the following programme occurred. We would stand outside the chosen house (being careful to avoid any big dogs!) sing the Hungarian carol (of which I think I know by heart now), there would be a short exchange of words in Hungarian, then everyone would be invited into a room of the house where we would be given, wine, cookies or special bread.... so you can only imagine the state of us after leaving the 9th house at 0330!!!! Lots of people were out in the streets doing the same thing!!! It was amazing how people welcomed you into their house all night, no matter how many people there were!
So to the main event.... Friday's 3 nativity plays in the hospital... in the morning we had the men's performance, with two last minute drop out's but one last minute replacement, so the roles of the wise men were filled by Karen and Janneke. As expected the singing of carols by the watching audience lacked any real enthusiasm, in such an environment as a man's locked psychiatric ward, apart from a handful of men who clearly knew every word of every verse of every song, and shared this knowledge loudly, if somewhat out of tune... Our male 'star' was fantastic singing solo, and Joseph kept to his role of finding a place to stay for Mary and the donkey (yours truly), but proceeded to take total care of baby Jesus, leaving Mary fairly redundant... in the stable... The audience numbers did dwindle as the play went on, but I'll put that down to poor concentration of the audience, and not the performance of our cast...the first afternoon performance was on the upper locked women's ward, where we had no drop-outs, and in fact had a last minute addition to the cast, much to our delight... again the role of the star was performed wonderfully, by a women who has a wonderful singing voice, and pretty much silenced the entire audience whilst singing, and our female Mary, was yanking my donkey tail like it was whip, and she ready to win the grand national (a famous horse race) if she could push me faster, much to the amusement of the audience... the singing on the women's ward's was plentiful and at the end of both female performances additional songs were sung by members of the audience and by cast members in Hungarian too....all the cast reported enjoying the experience and we really hope similar things will continue in the future...
A very pleased volunteer team (me, Lia, Janneke, Jacquline, Helen)
To more homely matters.... Friday night saw the second snow fall of the year, and the first real heavy fall with at least six inches of snow covering everything!!! This inspired me to go to the market and buy a Xmas tree which I did, and carried it all the way home... in the snow.... I felt very proud of myself that I had fulfilled me role as man of the house and provided for the girls... (don't ever let them know I said this, they'd both take offence...) my only problem was that I didn’t buy a pot to put the tree in, so it has remained outside the house, but looked brilliant this morning covered in fresh snow... I also think there is a Xmas tree economy trade here, as at least three completely random people stopped me on my way home to ask me if how much the tree costs.... I mean I think some people wait to the last minute to reduce the cost of the tree... it just seemed odd to me why these strangers would stop me only to ask how much I paid for the tree... very random... like many other things here! I have now adapted pretty well to the cold, and for those of you that have experienced me suffer in cold climates (namely: Marina, Kev Stacey etc) I owe you all a big thank you taught me how to stay warm when outside!!!
At the hospital it’s been a tough week, mainly because I have been there without fellow volunteers, as Helen has remained very poorly (don't worry she's better now) and Karen has been away with her boyfriend driving around random places.... so I've been very fortunate to have the help of my fellow Dutch volunteers and our interpreter has been great too, to ensure we have not had to close the club... we have made our painted wall look like a Xmas scene by turning the scene form a grassy field ,to a snow covered grassy field, so patients have been able to paint Xmas trees, snowflakes and snow men.... it’s been a great week for creative work... 
Pig's ears: Well Friday was just the beginning, on the way to work I noticed some activity in one of the neighbour's gardens... I could see several men standing over what I assumed was an attempt to grow the world's largest yellow vegetable. I persuaded Karen and Helen to join me in going to have a closer look... this big huge yellow thing was a dead pig. A huge dead (yellow pig!) and please remember both Helen and Karen are vegetarians... the pig was placed on some large wooden pallet, and looked to be being cooked form underneath (hence the yellow colour...) two of the neighbour's children were stood next to the pig eating its tail.... honestly!! The men invited us in to the garden to photograph their handy work... and looked pleased for the photo opportunity! after Karen and Helen began to think enough was enough, we began continued our journey to work... but as we were leaving one of the men came running over to us, and very proudly presented a smallish yellow triangle to me... he seemed very pleased with himself, and stood smiling at me gesturing to his mouth.....we stood looking at this yellow triangle, and quickly came to realise it was the pig's ear!!!! Oh my lord, the man was now watching me, insisting I eat it.... (I later was i
