Romania

Well...here I am.  I've been in Romania for a little over a week now.  It felt strange to go back, honestly.    I had never felt like that before.  Usually, I'm thrilled beyond belief - but this time, I just felt strange.  My biggest reason for being excited was seeing my husband (who I won't have to be separated from anymore by the whole long-distance relationship thing ever again--woohoo!).  I finished my last final the day before I left, which meant that I had to pack for three months all in just one night (my final finished at 6pm and it took me two hours to get home).  I was tired from studying, I hadn't slept much since I was so busy, and all I wanted to do was lay on the couch and watch t.v.  In previous years, I was so excited about Romania that I would start packing a month in advance - this time I was still stuffing crap in my suitcase a few hours before my flight.

When the plane landed, I didn't get the usual butterflies in my stomach and tears in my eyes that came over me as soon as the wheels hit the ground.  This time, all I thought about was going to the bathroom,  getting my passport stamped, and finding my luggage on the annoyingly over-crowded baggage claim. When I saw my husband, I was absolutely thrilled (I hadn't seen him in about five months).  The one positive side of our long-distance relationship was being able to have a bunch of "first kisses" over the past four years.  But I will tell you a little more about my husband in another post.

Anyway, let me give you some background information.  About six or seven years ago, my plane to Los Angeles was delayed and my layover in Paris was about three hours longer than it should have been.  I didn't have much to do, so I just lingered around the gate trying to fill my time with whatever I could.  Somehow an older man next to me realized that I was also Romanian and we started talking.  I don't remember the details of the conversation, but he told me that he was a writer and that he had spent the last few months trying to publish his book in Romania.  Apparently, he had had a bad experience and he was leaving Romania with a bitter taste in his mouth.  He told me that he had had enough with Romania and all of the people there.  I, being the romantic and patriotic Romanian that I was, kept trying to soften his criticism with my ideas of why Romania was a beautiful country--but he wouldn't have any of it.  He told me his daughter had gotten a medical degree in the United States and that she had a great job in New Jersey.  He said that he wouldn't even want her to go back to Romania and he swore that he wouldn't go back either.

I hated that man for what he said.  In my eyes, he was an abomination to the Romanian people.  I knew perfectly well that Romania had its problems...but I couldn't stand the ex-patriots that gave up on their country.  I have met so many Romanians that have come to America and, after only a few years, have puffed themselves up with so many airs of superiority that it's sickening.  And I'm talking about the kind of people that leave Romania when they're 30 and then two years later they suddenly have an American accent and they can't remember how to say sarmale si mamaliga after having eaten it for thirty years straight.  These are the kind of people that meet other Romanians in other countries and yet deny that they even understand buna ziua.  I never could understand these people.  I couldn't see how they could be Romanian and yet say that they hated the whole country and its entire population.  (Of course, there are some that say, "Romania is a beautiful country--too bad it's inhabited by Romanians").

In any case...I've started to see things a bit differently in the past few years.  I still disdain the ex-patriots in some ways, but I've come to understand them a little more.  I've seen how life in Romania hardens people.  It can crush a person in every way imaginable.  I, for one, was lucky enough to experience life in Romania as a sort of half-resident half-tourist on vacation.  I never had to struggle with all of the hardships that the average Romanian person faces at the hands of a corrupt state, rotten government, and heavily complicated bureaucracy.  But I've seen my friends and family struggle...and I've come to share in their sentiment of disillusionment.  Life here is tough.  Actually...it's hard to find words to describe how tough it is.  Most people have to make ends meet with a measly salary of $200-$300 when prices for food and clothing are pretty much the same if not more than those in the US.  And the money issue covers only about 10% of Romania's problems.  I won't go into details, but they're gnarly in any case.  Again, please excuse my lack of description--but there really are few words to describe how terrible the situation is over here, one has to experience it to believe it.

This sort of perpetual hopelessness, from what I've seen, is rather contagious.  I say, with a hint of shame, that I've started to believe the situation to be hopeless too.  And, honestly, it's easier to close my eyes or look away from what Romania has become.  That's what most other people are doing once they leave.  And yet...most Romanian-Americans I know, despite the hate they show, still express a sense of nostalgia for their home country.  I've met people from other countries and, though I may be wrong, I didn't feel that they were as attached to their home countries as the Romanians are to Romania.  There's something about the land and the people that draws the Romanians back.  Even those people who talk about Romania with hatred still do so with a sense of regret and bitterness that shows that it's not so much that they hate Romania, it's that they hate that conditions in Romania have made it impossible for them to live there although they would want nothing more than to be with their families in their native land.

I suppose I'm starting to feel a bit angry too because a lot of this stuff affects me in a very personal way.  I've always been curious about what my life would have been like if I had never left Romania, but I'll never know.  And I highly question whether I'll ever even end up living in Romania anyway.