Big news for Romanian volleyball and CVM Tomis Constanta – they’re in the final four! They won last night in Belarus 3-1! Yaaay! It’s huge for Romania – even though the rest of the teams in the league aren’t that strong, having a team in such a big-deal event is great for everyone. Rumour has it that the president wants to host it here, but I can’t imagine that it would fly – I mean, the manager would actually have to stop smoking for five seconds and do some work, and organization would have to be top notch. I'm not sure who the other teams in the tourney are... I think there might be a Polish team, Steve's old team from Greece (Patras), and maybe a Turkish team. But, I'm not sure.
A couple of us got together last night to watch the game – Tammy came straight over after practice, Val scooted over up from Mamaia (the beach town that’s basically an extension of Constanta) and a new friend, Jennifer came over from just around the corner. Last week Steve and I were in the small grocery store down the block and we kind of bumped into someone who kind of bumped into us and simultaneously said, “Sorry!” We kind of did a double take and then started chatting - we never hear English around here! Anyways, Jen and her husband Rowan have been living here for two and a half years – he works for a shipping company in town. She was born in Canada (Toronto area), is from a Dutch family, and has lived in Australia since she was 15; he’s a Kiwi and that’s about all we know about him! So that was a really nice surprise meeting her, and she joined us to watch the game. After the victory! we sat around talking about Romania and our impressions and experiences… which was super interesting.
The main topic of conversation was, of course, the dogs. It sounded like Jen’s husband, before they’d come here, had been forewarned of the doggie situation, and made Jen promise not to fall in love with any strays or ragamuffin puppies. She reluctantly obliged, but when a skinny, near death dog squeaked through their gates and landed on their back doormat, she couldn’t resist. Well, no. It sounds like she went down the vet, and they agreed (because they know her) to put the dog to sleep – apparently they can’t do that unless there’s proof of ownership, but the number of dogs in this country without owners outnumbers the ones with owners by a gazillion to one. Anyways, she was really upset at the state of this poor dog – fleas, bones protruding, ears partially eaten away… and when her husband got home from work that night, the first thing he said to her was, “Well, you could at least give it a flea bath!” And all Jennifer heard was YOU CAN KEEP IT. So she did! And now it’s healthy and happy and is their little baby. How sweet is that!? She’s given names to all of the dogs on their block, as we’ve given names to Ron and his buddies. But the doggy talk wasn’t all pleasant. Apparently the dogcatchers – who, previously, were paid for each dog they brought in (but then would just release them in a different part of the city and catch them and bring them in again) are now being paid (or being paid more – not sure) to bring in dead dogs. Horrible. So poisoned meat is being set out in the park in our neighborhood. Horrible. Once a year they round up strays and sterilize them – the only problem is, is that up until this year, they only brought in the males…. which really screws over the females (in more ways than one) and clearly didn’t solve the problem. But just as we were lamenting the fact that there are no animal shelters, it dawned on me that I haven’t seen any shelters for people. And, that’s because there are none. Jennifer, who has some Romanian friends in town, told us that four homeless people died in December, just in our neighborhood - horrible and appalling. I know that the system here – government – is stressed and probably stretched thin; but with the amount of alleged corruption, it’s no wonder that more progress isn’t being made in terms of social services. What comes to mind for me, is that, in general, with the not-so-long-ago fall of Communism and system of shared wealth (whatever that may have amounted to), people are now clutching on to whatever is theirs, and not sharing. At least that’s the attitude I get from the younger nouveau riche, who you see speeding around town in their BMWs, Mercedes, Audis and Land Rovers, parking wherever they want and tossing their garbage and cigarette butts out the window.
Not everyone is like this. This morning I left the lights on in the mini Matiz and, after being in the grocery store for 10 minutes, the obviously minute battery was toast and our car wouldn’t start. Three dirty middle-aged guys climbed out of their parked, aged Dacia and offered to help; one drove and the other two pushed and they got the Daewoo started. I got in the car and said, “Well isn’t that a nice surprise…” And Tammy? “Yup, he stank of alcohol. Stank.” Maybe not such a nice surprise for her….
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