Romania Week 21 - A Christmas Special

Hello everybody, and hope you have all had an excellent Christmas, this email is a good few days early simply because it would take me a week, to write in detail, all the fantastic experiences I have had in the past few days... I think the only way I can give you taster of Christmas here is to write diary style from December 24-27, so here goes...

(December 24 Monday) After writing my last weekly email (on what I thought was Xmas eve), from my friend's place, I sat down with him (Giani) and his son, and brother to have a bite to eat, before lazily making way home. Once home I called Shari (my Hungarian neighbour) who informed me that she would drop by shortly for me to come round to her house for Xmas... this is where my confusion kicked in, and I realised that like most of Europe Xmas is celebrated on the 24th, not 25th like in England... so... I rushed to the house of the orphan kids, to give them some presents I had bought them, the kids were out, but the foster mom was in. and she insisted I stay for something to eat. I tried to explain, in vain, that I was in a rush ( a concept not understood in Romania, unless you are driving!) and so I eventually left the house with a tray full of samarle (meat wrapped in cabbage leaves, a Xmas speciality!) and a plate full of home made biscuits!!!

So I then had a quick shower, & shave (as I now have a beard), and I made my way to the Hadnagy household, but first I had to stop by the second Hadnagy house to give Deli, a present from us volunteers... and of course on entering the house I was surrounded by the family, and asked to sing a ‘colinde’ (Xmas carol) this is true... you cannot go into someone's house without singing first... no exception to this rule!!! so after a quick rendition of silent night, I was urged to sit and have a drink, and again given a full plate of food, which was lovely (chicken, potatoes, veg etc....) I was now eating my third meal that day, and I hadn't even reached my destination, where I due to eat again!!!

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!

(December 25th Tuesday) so to my own Xmas day, I woke up to a quiet house, such a contrast to the previous 24 hours... and opened my presents from the girls (as they were away in Budapest), made a lovely cup of tea, and ate some of the samarles that my neighbour had given me. I then went to visit the kids over the road, to see if they liked their presents, they were out at church, except one, who I sat with and had a good chat about his Xmas in Romanian for a good 30 minutes. The rest of the kids came home, and piled in to the room to sing me a Romanian carol to say thanks for the present. The mother again insisted I stay for lunch which I could not refuse, and so I sat down with the foster parents and their grown-up own kids who were living in other parts of Romania, for soup, more samalis and then more home made cookies and bread!!!

After this lovely meal, I was soon back at the Hungarian house seeing how everybody was recovering from the previous night's singing! We sat around relaxing watching some TV, playing some games (chess etc) and as seems to be a recurring pattern, ate dinner.. and yeah guess what we ate... that's right samarle.. I mean mamma Hadnagy makes them so well, I just couldn't help but eat more!!! And just as I thought I had turned into one big piece of meat, wrapped in cabbage leaves... the boys suggested we go play football... (Alleluia!!!) I have waited almost 5 months to play football, so 8-10 of us played football indoors, and it felt so good!!! not just to run off all the food!!! I slept well that night!!!!

(December 26th Wednesday) I woke up feeling like 60 years old, with every single movement feeling like I was lifting 15 stone.. I may have been a little unfit!!!! So I eventually made breakfast (no samarle) and began to watch some much needed TV!!! That was until Csilla, Szillard (brother & sister of Judith, Sari, Becky) and Judith (Szillard's wife) called round and invited me out for a beer in the town... as Csilla was due to leave for Budapest that day. So ,off for some drinks, as we were later joined by Daniel. (yet another brother!) After drinks we returned to their house, before driving Csilla to Turges Mures to catch her bus home. On returning form Turges Mures we ate together, this time some corn based food (I cant remember the name) with spaghetti and a sauce.. hmmm hmm.... so good!!! This was followed by several games of chess with Judith where we ended at 3-3. After this I returned home for some much needed rest!!!! My stomach couldn't take any more!!!

(December 27th Thursday) I woke up feeling even worse today!!! Ow!!! So after a nice English style cooked breakfast I took a stroll into town, to pick up some shopping, and to use the internet, before returning home for further rest. I got a call to invite me to another game of football, why not I thought? So I proudly put on my short sleeve Liverpool shirt and shorts. (yeah shorts) only to be informed that we would be playing OUTISDE in the snow!!!! oh how crazy are people here... well I don’t have any other sporty gear, so I played in shorts on Astroturf, covered in snow, and for those of you that read 'week 19 if I were a Romanian footballer' well I lived that experience for an hour.... but it was surprisingly warm one you got running... just about!!! I began to feel my fingers again after the first 15 minutes....

And now its December 28th already, the time has passed so quickly, and I am heading to Cluj tomorrow for the arrival of my friend, so no doubt I will be reporting on another week of transport mishaps, and all kinds of unexpected tales... for those of you that have expressed concerns for the pigs here, some still remain alive, because I can hear them squealing in the morning, no doubt wondering what happened to their friends...

Regards from Romania! (and happy new year!!!)
Dan