No Heat, No Meat

December 5, 2007

Well, I am in Romania. For those of you who don't know, I'm spending two weeks in a Romanian orphanage in the dead of winter, taking pictures. Cancun didn't have any openings.

Romania, so far, is trying to kill me. First of all, it is Vegan Month. I don't think they call it Vegan Month, but that is what it is. This is the Romanian version of fasting, and it is my version of torture. If there is one thing I enjoy, it's a nice steak sub, and that is nowhere to be found. Also nowhere to be found are heat and hot water. I do have a tiny space heater in my room that keeps sending off sparks and threatening to explode.

My room, I must say, I'm fond of. It has for decorations a tiara and a dolphin stuffed animal, as well as assorted religious paraphernalia. So now I have an idea how the Eastern Orthodox mountain people like their home decor, which is handy.

There are 23 churches in the village that I'm staying in, for what cannot be more than 30 families. This strikes me as a little beyond ridiculous, seeing as the village has no other gathering places (i.e. community center, restaurant, dance hall, movie theater). I feel like they could have gotten away with, say, 18 churches and been ok. Maybe put their energies into something else, but who knows.

Maggie, the orphanage director, is British. She runs the place with a guy named Andrei who is younger than me but who I see as father figure. Ok, that's a lie, I don't see him that way. But he does seem old. Maggie tells me that there is a LOT of inbreeding in the villages around here, because, as noted previously, there are like 30 families. You can only stretch 30 families so far. As a result, not everybody is functioning on full steam. Interestingly, the orphans seem to be doing surprisingly well, because they are not necessarily from the village circuit. They come from all over and by and large seem to be in pretty good shape. As far as Romanian orphans go, they're doing really well. But my vision of orphans stems from Oliver, so who knows what to think.

What else. The car that Maggie and Andrei (and me by default) have been using isn't even close to functioning. It broke down twice the first time I went in it. Actually, it broke down right in the airport parking lot. Things don't exactly run like clockwork here.

Things are really slow, although I have had a few interesting encounters. I saw a mountain dog eat a dead puppy. I also took a tour of a house with this little boy they call Rambo, to find out after the fact that his father is an ex-con who once escaped with the children to France. Huh. He was lovely though and showed me a lot of photos, and not once did he try to kidnap me.

Ok, time is running out at this Internet cafe, so I will wrap this up with something that amused me. My friend Ally who is staying at the orphanage lent me her book "Conversations with God". The guy who wrote it claims that God spoke directly to him. So he is a prophet. Anyway, in the acknowledgements section of the book, he thanks Barbara Streisand, "whose directing, acting, and musical artistry grips my heart time and time again." I love it! A Streisand-loving prophet is the prophet for me!