Being traded for livestock at a Romanian farm...

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I have learned the bartering rate in a village in Transylvania: my life and hand in marriage is worth four goats or one 10year old horse. I have been in this small farming village of Idicel for a few hours, and already my WWOOF host (Graham) has been asked by the locals if he would trade me for livestock so I can marry a drunk, toothless, peasant farmer.. I can’t believe Graham turned down an offer like that!.. According to the elderly village members, I wouldn’t be very good for breeding- like the Aussie volunteer, Annie- but I would be good for milking, and I could use more work. Why, you may ask, am I now being sold off as a working slave wife in a Romanian village? Alright, let me explain...

As my spontaneous-self has decided to flee to Romania in the middle of the night, I find myself with a good 7weeks to spare before returning to Spain to volunteer. What is a girl to do? My other volunteering project in Morocco never managed to work out, and I believe it was a scam any way. So I sat in a hostel in Bucharest for five days researching and emailing every volunteer place I could find to occupy myself for the next 1 ½ months. Luckily for me, I found an English farmer in Idicel who could use a hand with gardening. Anyone that knows me at all knows that plants are not my area of expertise . But, I figured I would give it a go, or else continue to sit in a hostel staring at the wall and wandering the oh-so-lovely city of Bucharest...

Took overnight train (I love Romanian train rides) northwest to Reghin, meeting a very interesting Hungarian guy I got to conversate with a few hours. Woke up convinced I missed my stop, then was looked at strangely by fellow passengers when they wondered why I would be heading to such a tiny, remote farming village to work for 'free'. In Reghin, I had no way to contact Graham, no understandable address, couldn’t get a straight answer from any one about where the maxi taxis left from to Idicel. Ended up getting (knowingly) ripped off by a cab driver to take me to the farm. Greeted by a volunteer from Australia arrived the day before (Annie), the host farmer (Graham) who wasn’t happy to be woken early and then I arrive late, and a crazy old English woman with selective deafness who talks to herself and never stops working (June). Had some breakfast, then was told we would be going to a funeral that afternoon. Some welcoming!

Right away get in to it, hoeing and planting potatoes when the muscle spasm in my back started up again. So of all the work I am to do on this farm (hoeing, planting, bending, lifting, and more hoeing) I can’t do any of it without exasperating this injury. This should be fun…

Funerals in Romanian villages are of interest. This village (as many others) are losing population; all the young ones move to the city, no one is marrying the men, they are having fewer children (except the gypsies), and all the old ones keep dying. This was a 88year old woman who passed a few days before. Everyone working in their fields were called to the house of the family of the deceased by the church bells in the afternoon. Annie and I tried our best to throw together some ‘mournful’ apparel out of our tiny selection in our rucksacks, which made little difference because hardly any one wore black: most were in the clothes they wear every day to farm; and hot pink seemed to be the favored colour among the younger locals.

As I thought it a bit rude to be snapping pictures at a stranger’s funeral, I think it’s best I try to describe the scene, so really use your imagination: The dead woman was in a hand-made wooden casket with lace sheet over her, in the middle of the yard with an open tent advertising the local beer shading her and the three priests who surrounded a nearby table taking turns talking and singing and reading and chanting. Scattered around them and the body were half a dozen men holding large sticks with a flag depicting a religious image on a cloth above their heads. Attached to this was a bag holding a loaf of bread and a tea towel: their payment for holding the flags. The remaining men (who were not busy behind the house digging her grave) were sat along one wooden bench under the beaming sun, all wearing very thick, dark, itchy-looking wool suit jackets. All the women lined along the side of the yard, on a bench behind the men, or the family members were lined along the house side under the only little bit of shade. Children ran about in their normal clothes and the women gossiped in between prayers and songs. At one point, we all queue up in some order I did not understand, to walk past the body, to a table with lace cloth, we had to make a cross over our bodies, then bend down and kiss a wooden crucifix on the table, afterwhich we received a loaf of bread/tea towel/candle provided for by the family.

After this, we watch men carry and lower the casket, she is buried (the gravediggers receive extra bread for this job) and we march across an unsteady bridge over a shallow, polluted creek to a hall where food is served. Usually, local women prepare the feast and it is served on what ever dishes that can be rounded up. But this family was a bit wealthy and paid for a catering service from the next village over to cook and bring matching dishes. Gasp! So scandalous and such controversy has created more gossip among the old women of the village who are very displeased that they were not paid in bread to prepare the feast as everyone excepted they would. A sweet bread sat waiting for everyone when they sit, soup was brought out, then a salad, mash potato, chicken, and all the while people were walking around filling up glasses with homemade tuica and brandy, topping up everyone’s cup whether they wanted it or not. I wondered why everyone in the village eats so quickly, like military style in a mess hall, but later find out that when the priests at the head table are done eating and stand up, everyone must follow and leave as well, to return to work in the fields-- that is, if they aren’t too pissed from all the tuica, which is unlikely.

It was during this time Annie and I got several women asking us to marry their sons and one 70year old man asking Graham if he could marry one of us. Graham got too drunk and as soon as we returned to the houses, he had passed out, leaving Annie and I with no supper that evening and nothing to do.

The following days were typical farming work; hoeing, watering plants, raking, planting vegetables, cooking, cleaning… etc. My back really started to bother me, whether I was working, relaxing, sitting, or standing. Just one muscle in a constant spasm. So Graham arranged for me a massage by a gypsy for 15 lei for one hour. Of course, she only worked for 40 minutes and wanted the money up front, and it was the strangest massage ever… She was grabbing skin on my back and slapping me and kept asking “Placha?” – you like? Hmm.. hardly. Somehow I ended up in just my socks and underware doing strange stretches in her living room while her daughter and granddaughter watched me, laughing at my confusion and pale body being slapped and jiggled by this crazy woman. And that was the last time I agreed to a massage.

During this time, we ate a lot of stale bread, pickeled veg, raw onion, potatoes and stinging nettle, soup and pork paste in a can. We also took a 4km walk up the hill to shepards to put lice treatment on Graham’s goats which was a nightmare, especially as the men don’t really know how to do things properly and insist on doing it their way, the way they’ve been doing for years. And I cringed having to watch one shepard scrape about 3 dozen engorged ticks off of the scalp of a single goat (I am not kidding, the small space on the top of her head was infested!) Afterwards, they filled us up on raw onion, bread, cheese, and fresh curds & whey. Good stuff! A few more days of this laborious work was all my back could handle, though I loved the work, it was becoming obvious I was in pain, so decided it was best if I leave to recover. Of course, any sensible person would know that I should stop travel, go back to the parents and sulk on the couch until I am fully recovered, or I may permanently mess up my back… but… well, I am either very stupid or very stubborn, because the idea of calling the trip off this early to hang out with the family is not an option for me 😊.

Instead, I thoroughly culled my rucksack, getting rid of every possession I could possibly do without to lighten my load and took a train to Brasov spending nearly a week going stir-crazy, laying in bed, planning what to do next. This trip certainly has been one very unplanned adventure… I love it. After a few days of self-pity and assessing what I am actually physically capable of doing, I took a look at a map, looking at the surrounding countries, eliminated the Schengen zone and those where I need visas… and I thought “ah… Ukraine… I haven’t been there yet. Why not?” A few days later, I found myself in Suceava, Romania, taking in the last few bits of this country, visiting painted monasteries and trying to locate maps of Ukraine. There is one bus a day from Suceava to Chernivtsi, Ukraine, and so, I am off again…


^Út Í Óvissuna^

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