in the community: anecdotes

With the weather warming and the days lengthening. the “boys from the bloc” have reappeared outside (most of them taller) and are doing their boy-mischief.  I have to admit that I have a favorite among the crew — Lucian.  He’s four years old, usually dirty, with beautifully striking eyes, and a toothless smile that makes you want to hug him.  He got taller and chubbier over the winter but is still quick to tears and even quicker to return to laughter (after he gets his way).  In the small dusty parking lot outside our bloc, he dances and sings and runs around and plays with trash. And he calls me Tanti Veronica.

I asked a handful of Romanians how “tanti” translates.  To boil it down from the responses I got, it’s what kids in the village call women they are close to but aren’t related to.  How wonderfully wonderful!   And now, when he says it, I melt .  Veronica is a long name and you add Tanti in front and it becomes a long title for a four-year-old to spout out.  It takes effort.  But he joyfully says  it every time he sees me usually pairing it with a quick hug around my legs. We have a little chit-chat and then he dashes to the door of the bloc so that he can open the door for me.  If his little sister, Denisa (2 years old) is with him, she attempts to say Tanti Veronica too.  It’s just too cute and I melt and my ovaries hurt and I feel like I belong.

Yesterday was David’s birthday.  It was a good day — cake, brownies, cupcakes, chats with mom.  Around 9:30PM, my phone rang and it was Parinte Vasilescu, the local priest who likes us.  He’d heard that it was David’s birthday and was calling to wish him “multa sanatate si noroc si toate dorintele lui” (much health and luck and all his wishes).  He then invited us out on Saturday for “something.” Being good Peace Corps volunteers who don’t turn down invitations, we agreed to meet at the big church (pictured above) and go from there.

So this morning, we met at the church, we got in his car and he told us that what he had in store was a “surpise” and that we’d be among friends.  We pulled up to a restaurant and got out, assuming there’d be a birthday meal or something along those lines.  We walked into the restaurant and it was packed.  Packed with people mourning.  It was a Saturday for pomana (service and almsgiving for the dead) and after going to the cemetery, the folks commemorating their dead, invite friends and neighbors to a meal.  We weren’t at a birthday party; we were crashing a death lunch.  I say crashing because within ten minutes of escorting us in and not introducing us to anyone, Parinte Vasilescu disappeared. Alas, we navigated the situation well, had a traditional Romanian meal, meanwhile convincing a few more people that they can indeed talk to the Americans  in town. Awkwardness turned to goodness.