Dreaming about Romania

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It has bee some time since i wrote on the blog and i am doing it now because during this weekend i had experienced something very strange that made me think about a lot of things. This has nothing to do with traveling, seeing new places or meeting new cultures, this is a picture of how Romania looks in my mind somehow..

Friday afternoon, after coming back from work and seeing some apartments i went straight to bed, for a quick nap, just because i was a bit tired and i wanted to go out in the evening. During this quick nap i had a very strange dream...i am not the kind of person that looks for simbols in a dream but this one made me think a bit about the image that the online media delivers about Romania. For the last 3 months i have been out of the country and the only contact with the country was by reading the online media. So the dream..

I just got back to Romania, Pitesti for a visit together with one of my Estonian friends, the weather was strange, it was winter-spring and the ground was covered by half melted snow, making everything dirty and wet, i took a cab and ask the driver to take me home...but he dropped me and my friend in another part of the city, i smiled and jumped into another cab, this one had a homeless dog on the back seat, so i asked my friend to sit in the back if he would not mind, the cab took off driving like crazy on the narrow streets and the driver was swearing every other driver in traffic, at one point there were 2 lines of people in the middle of the road, they were waiting to get their salaries from ATMs and the driver put his head out and started swearing and showing obscene signes, we passed them and in the next intersection the driver took a right turn on the wrong lane and hit a carriage with horses, the car was scratched but he was ok with it after saying a few bad words to the "horse driver", THEN he got stuck in traffic and decided to push us off there, i got off and he took off with my friend in the back seat. I realized that my friend was still in the cab and tried to call the company...but there was no answer, i ran to the police office and explained all the story to a guy in uniform...he told me to come the next day because now they are trying the new cars and outfits for police...i turned my head and in the other room a lot of cops were acting like the girls from "sex and the city"...i went back to the place the cab dropped us and received a call from the cab driver asking me for some money or to get him out of the country in return for my friend...i was just standing in the middle of an empty street full of half melted snow with dark clouds over the sky feeling helpless and unable to do anything...

I woke up and i was depressed because i realized this is the image delivered by the media about Romania, and i was affected by it, dogs, bad services, lack of civilization, bad police officers, horses, filthy streets, people waiting for their salaries, lack of interest....and most of all the feeling that you can't do anything...the desperate hopeless feeling that you are caught in a rat race...

I wander if this is the country i will come back to? if i actually want to come back to this country? I started thinking that maybe it is our fault as well the people that left the country....

In the same time, I wander if this is the experience of every Romanian camped abroad? is this how you guys see Romania as well? because now i can somehow understand why most of the Romanians abroad do not want to come back...

Tell me how do you see Romania from abroad...


PS: I am not saying i will not go back, i am just writing the feeling i have right now about ROmania. I love the country and i miss some parts of it...

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Comments

[cristina]

oh, what a dream! u know, there's something missing in your dream, dear. the "manele" music and the big, fat gypsies, wearing havey gold necklaces...:P come home! and be one of those people who changes this image...:)

[T. S.]

great site...
http://www.patrimoniuromanesc.ro/

[bianca]

turn in romania
This is the Romania in your dream?perhaps..but i can say that all bad things it is happened..yes..humans quilty... They walk and was all over the world to search "life's good" and do some things bad who put romanians people in difficult moments that have to make face it of all strangers that speak bad about romanians (at plural). All remains is hope to see this country beautiful with good peoples...but 50% put the question mark in hope. Is people that can change something in this country but is few and is affraid to woke up and say that "today i change something in my behavour and i help other's!".

[dzonis]

:)
Dream like from a film of Hollywood :) Well this time I have to agree with you. Foreigners do see Romania quite the same as you described. Previously, I thougt that this is just the result of media drawing, but my family has just come back from visiting Romania. They told a fact which now makes me think the same way about Romania as many Europeans. My family noticed that places which are most visited by tourists are quite nice and well kept as well as Romanians looks clever and trustfull. But just try to drive somewhere more away from those popular places and everything changes: streets are dirty, empty factories which looks like ghosts, roads somewhere with no signs, and so on. Even worse situation with local inhabitants - every move you make you have to be counting strict as a computer. Father told me that there were not at least one patrol station where the guy from it wouldn't try to trick you about your bill. The top which my family told me was when they stayed in a camp near Karpati. Not enough that conditions were insanitary there, locals in the evening threw a molotov coctail to the tent of my family. Family was forced to leave soon, because after that they just heard locals laughing from passing car and understood nothing good is waiting for them. Bit too scary.. Of course, don't think that Romania in my mind looks like the worst country in Europe. It is far from that, and apart everything I would personally would like to see it one day. Just some previously noticed well that you have to come back and help to change it. I don't say now but don't wait to long till you won't have enough energy and enthousiasm to do that :) As my father says: "there is much of vodka, but the mother land - just one" ;)

[Dannyintheworld]

Hey man, nice to see you are still reading my posts. I am really sorry for the bad experience that your family had in Romania, to be honest this is the first time i am hearing about the molotov shit, coruption in police is common...just as in some other countries. Popular places are well organized but yea, as soon as you go "safari" things change...at least in some areas. I hope i'll have the chance to change your image about Romania...so vacation next year with me? i promisse Molotov's will be only under the sahpe of drinks. how are you dude? come visit me in Tartu..

[Milda]

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hey guys, I read this post accidently and just want to say, that as long as there wont be change in peoples minds, many promo-materials, videos on CNN and so on can be created, still the bad word on the reality will keep on spreading. I personaly also had and still have a quite bad oppinion and tons of bad jokes about countries such as Romania and for now am not eagger to get there, but knowing one Romanian person :P made me at least think about the country in some other perspectives at times. So I think, that the few things you need is time for the evolution of your economy and mentality + lowering emigration of people, who could actualy spread the good word instead of Molotovs... :) Conclusion is: Dan, you gotta stay in Romania :))) Jonce, kaip tu laikais??:)

[Dannyintheworld]

Hey :)
Hey Milda, The emigration is more or less stable now, and bringing back the people in the country will only create social problems, unemployment rate will go up...and you know what that creates further on...Basically I know a lot of smart Romanians that went back with the mindset of changing things...and left after 6 months or 1 year..... Yes Romania needs a change in mindset...but this will happen in years...and probably it will come with the Romanians returning from abroad...but not now...